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.
Big stage races like the Tour of California and Tour of Utah were never on his programme in the early days at the Visma team, as by his first season with the WorldTour squad in 2019, the Californian race was gone and the Utah event succumbed to closure later that fall. And then the World Cup cyclocross races dwindled, so the return to the US has been slow to develop, with him also missing the 2022 CX Worlds in Fayetteville.
The mid-week California activities include a private event at The Thermal Club, a private motorsports facility 100 miles west of metro Los Angeles, which hosted IndyCar Series races the past two years. He will appear with Red Bull athlete Jackson Goldstone, the 22-year-old Canadian who won the UCI Mountain Bike Downhill World Championship for elite men in September.
On Thursday, Van Aert will be the special guest at a Red Bull Rollout in Santa Monica alongside fellow Red Bull athlete Justin Williams, founder and rider at US-based Continental squad L39ION of Los Angeles. That ticketed community event includes a bike ride, which sold out in two hours.
Williams said 350 people attended the first Red Bull Rollout six weeks ago, and next year, he said that L39ION of Los Angeles and Red Bull planned to host a minimum of three similar events to build community. The Van Aert appearance certainly boosted notoriety for their mission.
Across their global stable of athletes in sports ranging from cliff diving to motor sports, Red Bull endorses 101 individuals who compete in various cycling disciplines. Van Aert and Williams are just two of the six athletes who compete in road cycling.
With such an impressive resume and global star power, the 31-year-old said he was still amazed that his popularity was high in the US and was impressed with the advanced enthusiasm for the Red Bull Rollout.
"Even though I'm well known in Europe, and already so far away from home, it still feels pretty weird to have a fan base here as well," he said. "My goal is to meet people here and to feel their excitement for us as a team, and me personally as a cyclist. It's a cool opportunity. It's more exciting than an autograph session.
"I hope to be racing again here at some point, because I haven't had the chance. I think there is a big platform here for big cycling events. I did the previous two Olympic Games, so for sure, a big target for me is to be here for the L.A. Olympics," Van Aert confirmed.
The next summer Olympiad, July 30-August 14, 2028, will be the third time Los Angeles has hosted the Olympic Games, which were previously in southern California in 1932 and 1984.
Well before then, Van Aert will return to cyclocross, but he was not ready yet to discuss his plans for the winter off-road racing season.
