Mathieu van der Poel appears to be preparing for a racing comeback, as he continues to build the kilometres while training in Spain.
The Dutchman had to cancel his cyclo-cross season and take an indefinite period of rest this winter in order to allow a long-running back injury to heal fully.
At the end of January, he got bike on his bike, completing short indoor rides on virtual platforms, before progressing to the open roads near his home in Belgium at the start of February. He then headed to Spain and started to break the 100-kilometre barrier, although his Alpecin-Fenix team boss was keen to point out it was "not a resumption of training".
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, van der Poel could ride the Giro d'Italia as part of his recovery and return to racing. Christoph Roodhooft avoided saying when van der Poel will return to racing but title sponsor Fenix is based in Italy and so could sway any decision for van der Poel to rebuild his form in Italy in May.
Despite Roodhooft's comments, van der Poel has since been taking things up a level, with eight sizeable rides in the past nine days according to Strava. In that time he has racked up 1176 kilometres and spent 32 hours in the saddle.
He may not have been carrying out targeted sessions, such as interval training blocks, or massive endurance rides, but the increase in distance and consistency would seem to indicate that he is on the road to recovery. He and the team had indicated that any flare-up or hint of pain would cause him to immediately back off.
Van der Poel has been linking up with other professional riders who are currently based in south east Spain, notably Lotto Soudal's Victor Campenaerts and Florian Vermeersch. He is staying in the same hotel, Syncrosfera, which was set-up by former pro Aleksandr Kolobnev and features special altitude rooms, although Van der Poel is not using them.
In the past nine days, the Dutchman has completed four rides of five hours, and has also broken the six-hour mark on a 179km loop around the inland hills, clocking an average speed of just under 30km/h as he accrued some 3,428 metres of elevation gain.
That ride took place at the end of a five-day block and earned him a rest day on February 19, but he returned on Sunday with a three-hour ride, before two more heavy five-hour rides this week.
Van der Poel will not ride the Opening Weekend of the Classics and Strade Bianche the following Saturday, which he won last year, has also been effectively written off.
The big question is whether he can get fit for the main spring Classics period, which runs from Milan-San Remo on March 19 and then onto the cobbles of Belgium, with Tour of Flanders on April 3 and a later-than-usual Paris-Roubaix on April 17.
