Back on the bike already! Wout van Aert rides outside as gruesome Instagram photos reveal reality of season-ending ankle injury

Only ten days after his heavy crash in Mol ended his cyclocross winter, Wout van Aert is already back riding outdoors.

The Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider shared a gentle one-hour spin from Herentals on Monday, his first outdoor ride since undergoing surgery for a fractured ankle.

The session was clearly controlled and cautious, covering flat roads at low intensity, but its significance was obvious. Simply being back on the bike at all marks the next phase of his recovery.

On his Strava account, Van Aert captioned the ride “Gewonnen maandag”, a play on the Belgian tradition of “Verloren Maandag”. Literally meaning “Won Monday”, it is a light-hearted twist on “Lost Monday”, and a subtle way of framing the day as a small but meaningful win.

Alongside that hopeful update, Van Aert has also posted a series of stark images to Instagram documenting the past week of recovery. The photos show the full reality of his injury: deep bruising around the ankle, heavy swelling, protective support and early rehabilitation work.

They strip away any illusion of a smooth comeback. While Monday’s ride suggests progress, the images make clear how severe the damage was and how early he still is in the process.

The contrast between the two platforms tells the whole story. On Strava, movement is back. On Instagram, the cost of that movement is still written clearly across his ankle.

Van Aert’s recovery began in the worst possible way, with a cruel end to what had been one of his strongest cyclocross performances of the winter.

At the Exact Cross in Mol, run in brutal snowy conditions, he was locked in a high-level battle with Mathieu van der Poel when he crashed heavily in a slippery corner. He remounted briefly but was clearly struggling, eventually abandoning and limping away in visible pain.

Medical checks later confirmed a sprained ankle combined with a fracture, forcing the decision to operate immediately. Surgery was carried out the following day and his cyclocross season was officially ended, ruling him out of Zonhoven and the Belgian Championships.

At the time, his team confirmed the operation had been successful and that the focus would now be entirely on recovery and preparation for the road season.

The photos from the past week show that early phase in detail: swelling management, protective support, limited movement and cautious early work. Before Monday, his riding had been limited to indoor sessions only.

That makes the outdoor ride a clear milestone, but not a shortcut to racing. There is still no public timeline for a full return to training, let alone competition. Any decisions about his early road programme will depend on how smoothly the ankle continues to respond in the coming weeks.

Visma are gathering in Spain this week for their annual media day, and Van Aert is expected to be part of that line-up despite still being in the early stages of recovery.

After another winter disrupted by injury, being able to turn the pedals outside again already counts as progress. The images show how far he still has to go.