{"id":395148,"date":"2026-01-06T10:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/395148\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T10:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:51:08","slug":"belgian-pro-switches-to-gravel-to-secure-his-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/395148\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgian pro switches to gravel to secure his future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>There is a great season for that. \u201cThat race is only for invited professionals. Tim Wellens finished second there last year. There is a huge amount of prize money to be won, AED 3.5 million (around \u20ac800,000), which is quite a lot.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>After that, he is then expected to ride the Sharjah Tour. The key question remains: in which jersey? \u201cAt the moment I can\u2019t say anything about that,\u201d he replied enigmatically. &#8220;It\u2019s a team that is very ambitious and that could offer many future opportunities. I think it could turn into a surprising team over time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The road to this new beginning has been marked by significant obstacles. After a stressful period earlier in his career when he had to leave Israel &#8211; Premier Tech in 2023, 2024 appeared to signal an upward trajectory. That changed in the summer of 2025. \u201cI was in talks with a number of WorldTour teams,\u201d Reynders explained.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;July collapse&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He handled the negotiations himself, without an agent, but then misfortune struck. He suffered a knee fracture, sustained during the Kemmel criterium, which came at the worst possible moment \u201cIn mid-July I broke my knee. Everything collapsed, because everyone waited to see what would happen.\u00a0That was a difficult period for me, because I was almost back at my best and ready to peak for the Renewi Tour. I only had a training camp left, and then I would have been ready.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Uncertainty on the transfer market, <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/cycling\/official-lotto-and-intermarche-wanty-make-bid-to-merge-and-form-new-world-tour-team-in-2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">compounded by merger talks between Lotto and Intermarch\u00e9<\/a>, completed the picture. \u201cIn the end there were a few offers, but they weren\u2019t what I had hoped for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Instead of accepting a worse offer,\u00a0Reynders decided to look elsewhere. And the rapidly growing gravel scene offered an interesting alternative. \u201cI knew there were opportunities in gravel. Several major bike brands are starting their own teams, following the example of Ridley last year. I found that interesting, because I\u2019ve always performed very well in gravel races.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reynders will become a full-time professional gravel rider, supported by his own sponsors, targeting the most important gravel events. \u201cI think, financially, I can get much more out of this than from the road offers I received,\u201d he argued. <\/p>\n<p>This is far from the end of his career, but quite the opposite. \u201cI\u2019m still very ambitious. My best years are still to come, my peak is still ahead. I can feel it in training, I\u2019m getting stronger and stronger,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; There is a great season for that. \u201cThat race is only for invited professionals. Tim Wellens finished&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,17738,210995,12067,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-395148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-israel-premier-tech","12":"tag-jens-reynders","13":"tag-lotto","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}