TOUR DE FORCE

Pro cyclist Wout van Aert loves to push himself to-and beyond the limit.

- PETER FLAX

Wout van Aert is somehow not tired. He recently clambered off his bike after a five-hour ride in Spain's Sierra Nevada mountains, spinning and churning up 11,500 feet of climbing in summerlike heat. But let's not get dramatic; for the Belgian pro, this is an unremarkable training effort, a seemingly inconsequential building block. Yet these sorts of rides, piled together with intention, enable him to be a central figure at the most consequential races.

It is the middle of May-roughly a month after van Aert completed a campaign in the storied Spring Classics, a series of one-day European road races among the most prestigious on the international cycling calendar. But rather than head to the beach to recharge with a novel and a cocktail, the racer just got back to work. There is always a looming goal-in this case, he has joined his Jumbo-Visma teammates to begin his buildup for the Tour de France, which departs from the Basque city of Bilbao on July 1.

"To be honest, I also like to go to the beach, but it's the middle of the season," van Aert, 28, notes when asked about his current training objectives. "Here is the serious restart of preparation toward summer, and there are different accents necessary for a race like the Tour de France versus what I need for one-day races. But at this camp we are creating a stable base for the whole summer."

Professional bike racing is rooted in time-tested traditions, and one trend that has defined the sport's modern era is specialization. For decades, as the stakes have risen and training methods have advanced, the biggest races in every discipline have been dominated by riders who lean into their specific strengths whether it's climbing or sprinting or time trialing or racing off-road.