Wout Van Aert has a easy want for 2025, mixed with lofty objectives and an attraction for gear restrictions in professional races to assist scale back high-speed crashes.
After his 2024 season was wrecked by two main crashes and complicated accidents, the Visma-Lease a Bike rider hopes to keep away from an identical destiny in 2025. He has clear ambitions of returning to combat within the Classics and Tour de France sprints.
“Stay on my bike,” Van Aert stated together with his standard sense of dry humour when requested by Sporza, throughout an interview at his house close to Antwerp in northern Flanders.
“I need to have the ability to participate within the races I need to participate in. Because having to look at all the large Classics and occasions in 2025 is sufficient for me.”
Van Aert turns 30 in September and hopes to look again on 2025 with a victory on the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix on his palmares.
“I dream of having the ability to look again in a yr and have a victory on the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix. That is my precedence,” he stated.
Van Aert crashed at near 70km/h throughout Dwars door Vlaanderen as riders fought for place earlier than the Kanarieberg climb. It has been faraway from the 2025 race however Van Aert believes a restrict on gear sizes would improve security within the skilled peloton.
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The pace of the boys’s skilled peloton has regularly elevated, and so too have the gears. Riders more and more go for larger chainrings for mechanical effectivity and to provide them a alternative of even larger gears.
The UCI eliminated gear restrictions for Junior riders on January 1, 2023 however Van Aert is satisfied that some type of restriction within the peloton would enhance security even when pre-race checks can be wanted.
“It is an important level within the race and a small mistake there may be by no means a ‘fall’,” Van Aert stated of his crash earlier than the Kanarieberg climb throughout Dwars door Vlaanderen.
“It’s made an fascinating debate among the many riders as a result of biking is getting sooner. Limiting the gears would make the game loads safer, for my part. Other riders do not suppose so however I’m satisfied about it. If you might be on that descent with a gear restrict, nobody can transfer up. Now the gears are so huge that you just nonetheless take into consideration overtaking.”
Van Aert’s second main crash got here within the Vuelta a España after a formidable come-back by way of the Tour de France and silver within the time trial on the Paris Olympic Games. He gained three phases on the Vuelta however crashed right into a rockface on stage 16. He suffered large cuts and injury to his proper knee, with scars nonetheless seen on the Visma-Lease a Bike crew images.
“The fall wasn’t critical in any respect. The dangerous luck was that there was a rock face. It actually reduce into me,” Van Aert defined.
“At first I assumed concerning the sporting loss within the Vuelta however that modified after I did not really feel nicely within the ambulance after which due to the intense knee injury that was recognized in Belgium. If there had been grass, I might have simply continued within the Vuelta.”
Van Aert struggled with one more lengthy spell of harm rehabilitation and so opted to journey a decreased cyclocross marketing campaign this winter so he could be at his finest within the spring Classics.
“I had no want to start out that rehabilitation in any respect. I had no vitality left to start out from scratch once more. That was a tough interval,” he admitted.
“How did I get began? I had little alternative.”
Van regularly returned to coaching within the low season, working within the gymnasium to rebuild the power in his knee. He completed fourth within the Azencross in December and can subsequent race on Saturday on the Superprestige Gullegem. He won’t journey the Cyclocross World Championships, prioritising his street racing as he turns 30.
“I’m virtually worn out in racing phrases,”
Van Aert joked about his age.
“But I do not imagine that, though the top is nearer than the start. Though that birthday actually hit house. I do know for certain that expertise would not go away, even after so many setbacks, I nonetheless reached a excessive degree within the fall, so that may in all probability come again.”