Jay Vine has yet to fix a date for his return to competition after he was forced to abandon the UAE Tour last month with a knee injury. The Australian has expressed hope that he will be able to return to training on the road next week.
"Training is back on after 3 weeks of on/off riding (3 weeks too long for my liking)," Vine wrote on Instagram.
"I’ve been doing some easy indoor training rides, coupled with extensive Physio and hopefully by the end of the week, I’ll be riding outside.
"Going to see how the knee goes and the team and I will make a call about potential upcoming races later on, just focusing on getting this injury solved!"
Vine moved from Alpecin-Deceuninck to UAE Team Emirates during the off-season and he made an immediate impact with his new team by winning the Australian time trial title and the Tour Down Under in January.
The 27-year-old struggled in the stage 2 team time trial at the UAE Tour, however, and he was a non-starter the following day. His team stated that his withdrawal was as a precaution due to "some light knee pain from a training injury which has not improved this week".
Vine, who won two stages of the Vuelta a España last year, has been slated to ride the Giro d’Italia alongside João Almeida, but it is not yet clear if his injury and time off the bike will force a revision of those plans.
"Feeling like we’ve been in the trenches a bit," Vine wrote. "But all-in-all we are coming through the worst of it into a hopefully magical spring."
