Egan Bernal shows he's on the mend with six-pack photos and a Strava KOM above 3,000 meters

Bernal rode the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in 2026, so taking a substantial break after two Grand Tours wasn't unreasonable in principle.

That is, until Bernal stopped racing altogether in the final weeks of the season and then issued a statement: '“I still have a contract with the team through the end of 2029, and at this point, my intention is to simply start next season as usual,” it said.

So there were apparently doubts about that, and that wasn’t surprising. Bernal clearly struggled after a serious crash in 2022. And once he was back to his previous level, that level turned out to be insufficient to contend for the win.

“It’s clear that Bernal is a winner: he’s not satisfied with a tenth-place finish,” said his team director, Dario Cioni.

After the Tour de France, Bernal took some time off to relax in Colombia. Among other things, he attended Nairo Quintana’s official farewell, went out and had a good time, but also posted photos of an impressive six-pack he’d built up at the gym. Bernal was certainly on his bike, but with a clear head.

The sabbatical after the Tour de France came at a good time, as Bernal’s relationship with María Fernanda Motas also fell apart this year, a fact that came to light over the summer.

The two had been together since 2020 but decided to end things “amicably.” There are no longer any photos of Motas on Bernal’s Instagram account.

Since Bernal finished the Tour de France in July, his training workload on the bike has, understandably, dropped significantly.

Still, he racked up well over 2,100 kilometers in August and wasn’t completely idle in September (1,241 kilometers) or October (889 kilometers) either. In the first half of November, his training volume clearly increased again, and after just two weeks, the total had already reached 800 kilometers.

That wasn’t all, because during his final training session on Friday, November 13, Bernal showed excellent climbing form.

In his training territory, where elevations regularly exceed 3,000 meters, the Colombian shattered a Strava KOM that had been held by someone else for two years. Bernal beat the old record time on the Alto de La Herradura by 4.38 minutes (!).

The 6.1-kilometer climb, with an average gradient of 6.5 percent, reaches its summit at 3,227 meters. It is so irregular that the gradients frequently hit double digits.

Bernal rode up in 31 minutes and 4 seconds, averaging 11.8 kilometers per hour. That really shows just how incredibly tough climbing is at that altitude...