Toon Aerts recalls, in the wake of Remco Evenepoel's accident, a car accident he suffered: "I find it terrible to have an accident during training"

Toon Aerts was once the cyclocross rider closest to the level of Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert. A two-year ban for a doping case prevented him from competing and slowed him down. Little by little he seems to be making a comeback, and at the age of 31 he seems to be at the prime again with a 2nd place at the last World Cup in Dublin. On the Live Slow, Ride Fast podcast, the Deschacht Hens Maes star talked about Remco Evenepoel's crash, recalling one he suffered himself.

A few years ago, Aerts was run over the week before the Namen Cross. "I saw a truck coming and thought, 'I can still get through,'" Aerts began to recount. "I crossed the intersection at full speed, but there was still a car coming. I hit that car head-on."

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The cyclist came out all right. "But the person was completely out of it. He started crying because he had run over Toon Aerts. And on top of that just before the Namen Cross. He just started crying more and more."

Aerts suggested he sit in the trunk for a while to calm down. "He said, 'That's not possible, it's full of sperm.' I thought, 'I must have misunderstood.' A day later I went to fill out insurance paperwork and he turned out to be a pig farmer."

Next, Aerts spoke on a more serious note about the training crashes that plague cyclists today. "A nephew of my girlfriend has also started racing. A bit motivated by me. I'd find it terrible if he had an accident during training."

Aerts also commented: "I often tell him, 'Do your drills there, or do your sprints there.' Because, for example, they could be doing sprints on a main road between trucks. It's also a matter of knowing it. We learned that; the older you get, the more aware you are of it."

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