“I would be tearing my hair out” – Rival team DS warns Visma weather-hit altitude camp could affect Wout van Aert and co
Cycling
Altitude camps are designed to bring control and structure to a rider’s build-up. Instead, Wout van Aert and his teammates have been forced into constant adaptation as winter weather repeatedly disrupted Team Visma | Lease a Bike’s Sierra Nevada training camp.
Heavy snowfall, freezing temperatures and unstable conditions at altitude have pushed Visma indoors for significant stretches, with rollers and indoor sessions replacing much of the long outdoor volume usually prioritised ahead of the spring classics.
That scenario prompted a blunt assessment from Loïc Segaert, performance coach at Bahrain – Victorious, who questioned how far indoor-heavy preparation can realistically go for riders targeting races that demand six hours or more of sustained load.
“I would be tearing my hair out if I were in the situation of Team Visma | Lease a Bike,” Segaert said, speaking to Het Nieuwsblad, pointing not only to physical limitations but also to the mental strain created by repeated indoor training blocks.
Why the weather matters more than usual
Altitude camps in the Sierra Nevada are nothing new for Visma, but this winter’s conditions have been particularly restrictive. Snow-covered roads and poor visibility have repeatedly ruled out long outdoor rides, forcing riders onto the rollers even on days originally planned for endurance volume.
Publicly available training data shows Van Aert completing multiple roller sessions on several days, sometimes splitting training into two or even three indoor rides across a single day. The approach is deliberate, but also reactive.
Segaert underlined that while teams can reshuffle sessions, there is a clear limit to how much compromise is sensible. “What I certainly would not do is complete your entire training week on the rollers as if you were riding outside for a week,” he said.
The concern is not that rollers are ineffective, but that they fundamentally change the type of stress placed on the body. Indoor sessions are shorter, more static, and less varied in muscular demand. Dehydration becomes harder to manage, saddle discomfort appears sooner, and the repetitive nature of the position increases the risk of overuse.
Altitude and the interval problem
Weather disruption becomes even more significant when combined with altitude. In normal circumstances, riders descend to lower elevations to complete high-intensity interval work. When storms keep riders indoors at 2,000 metres or more, that option disappears.
“At altitude, you cannot do the same intervals because it is simply too hard,” Segaert explained. “You will inevitably have to reduce the intensity of your rides and keep the efforts shorter.”
That limitation matters in a classics build-up, where specificity is crucial. The ability to combine long endurance days with race-intensity blocks is difficult to replicate indoors, particularly when altitude already restricts intensity.
To compensate, teams look for alternative stimuli. Segaert pointed to repeated sprint training as one effective method at altitude, alongside heat adaptation work, both of which can add quality without relying on long outdoor sessions.
Why Visma’s approach is still deliberate
Visma’s response has not been to abandon the camp, but to adapt it. Multiple shorter sessions per day allow the team to manipulate carbohydrate availability and fatigue, provoking similar physiological responses with lower total volume.
Segaert noted that Visma have used this approach consistently in previous altitude camps, particularly during training blocks on Teide. By riding several times per day, riders can deliberately train with reduced energy stores, triggering specific metabolic adaptations even when conditions limit outdoor riding.
The question is not whether the approach works at all, but whether it can fully replace the demands of classics preparation.
“If you are preparing for races that last more than six hours, it is also simply useful to spend six hours on the bike in training,” Segaert said. “That neuromuscular fatigue is part of the preparation.”
A balancing act ahead of the classics
Crucially for Van Aert and his team-mates, the camp has not been exclusively indoors. Weather windows have allowed outdoor rides in recent weeks, including longer sessions that begin to restore some of the missing endurance load.
Whether the disruption ultimately proves meaningful will only become clear once the classics begin. Segaert’s comments, however, underline a broader reality of modern preparation: altitude camps offer major benefits, but when weather intervenes, even the most carefully planned programme can quickly become a compromise.
For Visma, the task now is ensuring that compromise does not carry over into the races that matter most.
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
claps 0visitors 0
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- as excellent as maga rednecks chloe dygert (and quinn simmons)?Ketterechts09-11-2026
- so what i understand is: i left a comment calling out the endless author CVs for being an unnecessary flex of expertise, and you responded by lecturing me (and others) on discrimination and value systems. hats off to you. you definitely lost me!Ketterechts09-11-2026
- I just love the flood of Americans into the top ranks of world cycling. In addition to being studs on the bike, they all seem to be excellent emissaries for our country.Occam09-11-2026
- ANATOMY OF A G.O.A.T. EDDY MERCKX about TADEJ POGAČAR: Merckx: “He has revived a style of cycling that we had almost forgotten. He is now better than me.” Key statements by Merckx about Pogačar in 2026: - Acknowledging his superiority: This time, Merckx openly admitted, without any subsequent backtracking or reservations, that Pogačar had surpassed him and was now above him. This contrasts with 2024, when he quickly softened his remarks about Pogačar being faster. - The possibility of a historic triple (Giro, Tour and Vuelta): During the July Tour de France (where Pogi claimed his fifth title), Merckx stated that Pogi was the only cyclist in history capable of winning all three Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España) in a single season, provided the conditions were right and he had sufficient team support. - Lack of serious competition: Merckx emphasised that Pogačar has no real rivals in the mountains since 2024, thanks to his extraordinary climbing ability and the fact that he continues to improve despite still being under 28 (he turned 28 in autumn 2026). - Praise for his racing style: Merckx highlighted how Pogačar is bringing back the aggressive, uncompromising spirit of cycling's golden era, when races were not merely about calculated stages and tactical conservatism, but about attacking from long distances. PS: This is not "boring" ... this is called making real history, not only statistical history. Capish?PogiSloFans09-11-2026
- It’s off-season mate, I’m bored and fed up with the mediocrity of people unwilling to provoke change when they admit things aren’t right. What have you done lately to make anyone realise you won’t put up with things? What conversation, are you dictating to me which part of the incident I have to be interested in or telling me other parts are taboo? That’s what I guess the UCI would really like, let them moan, let it blow over for them pass on to the next thing, let’s keep the status quo, let’s try our best not reviewing or revealing anything about decision-making just like every time before, they’re used to it by now so we can take the risk they’ll never give us grief.Jumpyjohn09-11-2026
- As far as CUTD headlines go this is far from the worst. It helps if you look at it twice and realise it’s a list of descriptions from distinct events. You can’t deny the reality of being a rival if you consider the picture immediately below, frontrunner is unfortunate but I’m guessing this time it’s more a linguistic failure than a clickbaiting opportunity. Just a reminder that this is not an anglo website, for those who find it too tedious to interpret text to get the gist of things which are rarely of great importance (as opposed to eg purposely biaised DOJ extradition translations in order to achieve hidden agendas), there are plenty of anglo cycling websites google can suggest.Jumpyjohn09-11-2026
- Ah, finally someone willing to be a bit proactive.Jumpyjohn09-11-2026
- So? Do you understand the way instructions, decisions and authority work? Do you think in a football match if after a match (or even after play has gone on) a player tells the referee he did touch the ball with his hands when the referee didn’t award opponents a penalty that they will revise the score or force a replay? You really don’t get my point, it’s not against the rider but everyone here is so emotional for her they can’t get back to an issue which needs resolving for the future and the first step (or maybe second) is to try to understand how and why it happens, none of you have contributed in the least to that. All everyone is interested in is letting everyone know they agree how unjust it was, not even sure anyone thinks that could affect anything.Jumpyjohn09-11-2026
- Shouldn’t you be in MOUrning?Jumpyjohn09-11-2026
- Maybe you don’t like it and that’s fine, we all have different sensibilities and topics that touch us, but as you try to show me, it doesn’t hurt to reflect and compare ourselves to others behaving similarly. What precisely is the difference between a sports fan interested in every detail of his/her hero’s life and a celeb fan having the same hobby? It’s far more interesting to learn and think about how and why (which) people do things than reading about what they are actually doing. And just to add another level, maybe you’ll agree we don’t use the same value system for everyone, we discriminate in an enormous number of systematic ways. For example, when is the last time you saw a discussion arguing about the achievements of two politicians to compare or for that matter two business leaders apart from the comparison of hypothetical wealth accumulated? Perhaps you misunderstood the intention?Jumpyjohn09-11-2026
Loading
Write a comment