Wout van Aert is counting the cost after he indulged his\u00a0Paris-Roubaix victory a little too hard.<\/p>\n
The Belgian megastar is off the back and scrambling for form ahead of the Tour de France after he hit party-mode in celebration of beating Tadej Poga\u010dar on the pav\u00e9<\/em>.<\/p>\n He was gapped Sunday on the opening stage of the Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4nes-Alpes (formerly the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9) and unceremoniously dropped by his teammates Tuesday after just 10km of their winning team time trial.<\/p>\n But team Visma-Lease a Bike is not worried \u2013 yet.<\/p>\n Van Aert\u2019s just got to shake an eight-week hangover.<\/p>\n \u201cWout took the time to recover and enjoy himself after Roubaix,\u201d said team head of performance Mathieu Heijboer. \u201cA lot has come Wout\u2019s way \u2013 many celebrations, especially.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking on Sunday to\u00a0Het Nieuwsblad<\/em>, Heijboer asserted Van Aert simply has to catch up.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you have to get back into the rhythm of training and racing, it simply takes a little more time,\u201d Heijboer said. \u201cThat means Wout has to come from further back than usual in preparation for the Tour de France.\u201d<\/p>\n Van Aert capped his career with his emotional win in April at the Hell of the North.<\/p>\n After years of trying, the Flandrien favorite finally got his cobblestone prize in a for-the-ages duel with a seemingly unstoppable Slovenian.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s only natural that Woutjie<\/em> let loose a little afterward, right?<\/p>\n The 31-year-old went directly on holiday with his family to Marbella before he went hunting pastries on a bike-packing adventure.<\/p>\n Van Aert only swapped celebrating for cycling one month later when he won the Marly Grav gravel race.<\/p>\n Visma-Lease a Bike DS Maarten Wynaants said Van Aert\u2019s return to road racing this week in the most intense stage-race on the calendar came as a necessary shock.<\/p>\n He\u2019s scheduled to play MVP for Jonas Vingegaard at the Tour de France less than four weeks from now.<\/p>\n \u201cWout had to come down from his pink cloud after Roubaix,\u201d Wynants told Het Nieuwsblad<\/em>. \u201cBut he\u2019s got the harsh reality of an altitude training camp behind him now and has already picked up that rhythm again.<\/p>\n \u201cAs far as I\u2019m concerned, he is where he needs to be,\u201d Wynants said Sunday.<\/p>\n Van Aert said this weekend ahead of the Dauphin\u00e9 that he was braced for his engine to be slow to restart.<\/p>\n He\u2019s been away from the bunch for two long months, after all.<\/p>\n And he hardly did himself any favors by falling in what he admitted was a dumb crash while training on the time trial bike last week.<\/p>\n But still, the powerhouse rouleur<\/em> could barely hide his disbelief at how bad he was Tuesday in the stage 3 TTT of the Dauphin\u00e9.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the first climb, it was immediately too fast for me,\u201d Van Aert told Sporza<\/em>. \u201cYou don\u2019t count on this, but we have to stay calm and do the right things. It\u2019s not fun.<\/p>\n \u201cI assumed it was going to be a tough week, but I thought I would be further along than what I showed today,\u201d Van Aert said.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery day is a snapshot. Today wasn\u2019t a good one.\u201d<\/p>\n Visma-Lease a Bike started the week optimistic for Van Aert\u2019s racing legs.<\/p>\n That tone shifted Tuesday as Heijboer called the big Belgian\u2019s TTT \u201cdisappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n The clock is ticking on Van Aert\u2019s Tour de France form.<\/p>\n Vingegaard won\u2019t want to see him dropped after eight minutes of a grand d\u00e9part<\/em> TTT that will take no prisoners.<\/p>\n \u201cToday was a disappointing day for me. We will see how things develop. I don\u2019t intend to give up,\u201d Van Aert vowed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/van-aert-dropped-partying-too-hard-spring\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2270474045.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated June 10, 2026 05:56AM Wout van Aert is counting the cost after he indulged his\u00a0Paris-Roubaix victory a little too hard. The Belgian megastar is off the back and scrambling for form ahead of the Tour de France after he hit party-mode in celebration of beating Tadej Poga\u010dar on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1984661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1984661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1984661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1984661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1984661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Visma-Lease a Bike keeps calm ahead of Tour de France<\/h2>\n
![\"ROUBAIX,](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2270993411-2-1200x852.jpg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
TTT humiliation \u2018not fun\u2019 for Van Aert<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2280098000-1200x800.jpg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")