📽️ Code red in Valencia: Wout van Aert and Visma | Lease a Bike fight storm Emilia

Many cycling teams are currently on the Costa Blanca in preparation for the 2026 cycling season, but the weather conditions have not been favorable in recent days. In the region around Valencia there was even a code red on Sunday and Monday, but that did not stop the men from Visma | Lease a Bike from going out.

With the terrible floods of late 2024 in mind, the province of Valencia became more vigilant about the weather, and that meant that everyone in the region received the necessary warnings. Public events, and professional soccer games, for example, were also canceled.

With storm Emilia coming, everyone was advised to stay indoors as much as possible, but in the end it was not that dangerous as expected. And so the cycling teams in the region could 'just' do their rides.

'Not a Belgian storm,' Wout van Aert wrote as a caption for his 110-kilometer ride on Sunday. On social media, the Belgian showed in his weekly review how the rain-clad riders had to go through the Spanish puddles.

Saturday in Antwerp, Van Aert will make his comeback in cyclocross. The circumstances will be a little better: about 8 degrees Celsius, and some sunshine expected.