The last time Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) travelled to the United States was seven years ago, when he finished on the podium at a pair of UCI World Cup cyclocross races in Waterloo, Wisconsin and Iowa City, Iowa. The farthest west he had been was Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2016, when, as a 22-year-old, he won the elite men’s World Cup event at Cross Vegas.
Since that 2018 race trip to the Midwest, the three-time cyclocross World Champion has added four silver medals at CX Worlds, more than 30 cyclocross victories and, most notably, won 14 stages in Grand Tours, including 10 at the Tour de France.
“It’s been a while since I was in the States. I was here a few times for cyclocross, and never been back. Also, my first time in California, so it’s pretty exciting,” Van Aert told Cyclingnews on Tuesday by telephone, a day after he landed in the Los Angeles area for a week of events with his Visma-Lease a Bike sponsor Cervélo and his personal sponsor Red Bull.
“The main reason is visiting a few of our sponsors here, mainly Cervélo. I think it’s a really good thing to see people in person working here and having a few meetings on the development of the bikes and giving some feedback.”
Van Aert shook out the jet lag with a pair of three-mile runs in Laguna Beach to begin the week, where he visited Cervélo’s headquarters and spent time with employees, including a question-and-answer session where he described how special it was to win stage 21 of the Tour de France in Paris this summer.
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