Wout van Aert was devastated that he couldn\u2019t race the Tour de France. So he\u2019s been finding other ways to have fun instead.<\/p>\n
The beloved Belgian logged a slightly insane mountain gravel ride on Wednesday while his Visma-Lease a Bike teammates were racing the fastest Tour de France stage in history.<\/p>\n
Van Aert took a detour off-road during his training camp in the Italian Alps to grind his way around a 104km circuit of high-mountain gravel paths.<\/p>\n
With a total of 3,400 meters of climbing, the loop took the long-time cyclocrosser and Paris-Roubaix champion along a stoney goatpath side route toward the summit of the hulking Stelvio Pass.<\/p>\n
He descended on the Swiss side of the border via the Umbrailpass.<\/p>\n
And it looked like he was loving every moment.<\/p>\n
Footage loaded to Strava by accompanying rider Aaron van der Beken shows Van Aert groveling up a steep rock-strewn stretch of singletrack with a broad smile. Or is it a grimace? Maybe it\u2019s both.<\/p>\n Van Aert has been a big missing piece from this Tour de France.<\/p>\n The 31-year-old was forced out of the Visma-Lease a Bike selection after he developed a serious infection in a wound in his elbow.\u00a0<\/p>\n He\u2019s been training on the tarmac of the Italian Alps since the start of the month in preparation for a return to racing at the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, which starts August 22.<\/p>\n The Montr\u00e9al road worlds are next on his docket.<\/p>\n And who knows? Given how well he was grinding around the Alps, maybe he\u2019ll add the October gravel world championships to the agenda, too.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/van-aert-gravel-crazy-tour-de-france-disappointment\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Untitled-design-9-1-e1784369089604.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated July 18, 2026 05:00AM Wout van Aert was devastated that he couldn\u2019t race the Tour de France. So he\u2019s been finding other ways to have fun instead. The beloved Belgian logged a slightly insane mountain gravel ride on Wednesday while his Visma-Lease a Bike teammates were racing the fastest […]<\/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-2049565","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\/2049565","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=2049565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2049565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2049565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2049565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-18-at-10.12.05-1200x2609.jpeg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")