Juan Ayuso kicks off his season in Portugal this week – he explains both how he’s prepared and what he hopes to achieve
After a few weeks of hard training through thin air on a Spanish volcano, Juan Ayuso’s race bike awaits him at sea level. With altitude camps and winter miles steadily fading to distant memory, Portugal’s glittering coastline sets the stage for the 23-year-old to begin the 2026 season – his first as part of Lidl-Trek.
“I’m starting in Algarve because it’s a really nice race that has a bit of everything. It has a time trial and doing a time trial in a new team is always different because those days are very specific and everyone likes it their own way. It’s good that the team gets to know how I do it,” Ayuso explains, a few days before he will pin on his race number.
Algarve has some easy stages where I can just start getting the kilometres in the legs in race competition, then also has two hard days where I can get a good result. I think overall it's a nice race and also has good weather for the start of the season with less risk of getting sick or suffering from the cold.
There are a lot of things for the Spanish rider to get used to in a new team, but the last few months away from the chaos of the peloton and on training camps have allowed Ayuso to build strong relationships with his teammates and staff. It hasn’t taken long for him to fit into the Lidl-Trek organization and acclimate to a new environment.
“The image and sensations I get from everybody is that they’re super welcoming. I think there are incredibly good people here who want you to be successful and thrive. It’s great to know everyone is really part of the project and help the team to take the next step, I’m really proud to be a part of that.”
With a 19.5-kilometre time trial on the menu in Algarve, the Portuguese race is an opportunity to test out Ayuso’s time trial set-up that has been optimised in the wind tunnel over the last few months: “I’m confident my set-up is going to be good but this is a chance to keep improving on those small details. Having the support of the engineers from Trek has helped create a really fast set-up and I had really good values in the track test.”
While the Volta ao Algarve marks the beginning of Ayuso’s path to the Tour de France in July – the main goal of his season – the Spaniard states he doesn’t want to put too much pressure on his performance so early on. This is the first in a number of building blocks with a focus on getting used to the logistics of racing with a new team of people.
I think the first two races will be about the internal dynamics of racing in a new team and getting to know how everything works. Getting comfortable with that is something that I have to pay attention to, but to be honest I’m not worried because everything’s rolling super smoothly. I have no doubt that everything is going to work out when I get to the first races.
Ambition, of course, is written in Juan Ayuso’s DNA. Whether he is at the very start of the season or the very end, the 23-year-old has an insatiable hunger to succeed. It is this tenacity which has helped him achieve stage wins in the Vuelta a España and Giro d’Italia, plus GC victories in Tirreno-Adriatico and Tour de Suisse, so far. Volta ao Algarve is not only his first race of 2026, but the start of an exciting new chapter in Ayuso’s career.
“These last two years, I’ve always started my season winning so it would be really nice also to continue that trend, especially this year to give this team what I think they deserve.”
