I don't find your arguments convincing either. Basically what you're saying is van Aert is not suspicious because he trains climbing a lot and the competition is just weak?
Regardless of how much each rider is training climbing there is no doubt that van Aert has a very high climbing level - he's able to outclimb some decent pure climbers and on his day some of the very best climbers. I'm not saying he's the best in the peloton, that would be most disgusting. But there aren't that many riders in the peloton that can outclimb him when he's in form.
Also there are maybe two, three or four guys who can rather reliably outsprint him (I'd say Ewan and someone like Groenewegen when he's on form). And he's among the very best time trialers: only the very very best can, on their day, do that better than him on a rather flat course. He can do all of this within days.
I don't consider that in the realm of clean riding.
What would make him seriously suspicious in your eyes? Only if, in addition to being among the top5 sprinters and top3 time trialists, which he already is, he would also be among the top 5 climbers?? In this age of specialists, with a peloton where everybody is, with nutrition, training science, altitude camps, professionally scouted and evaluated, at the limit of what he can do?
I don't really want to rate how suspicious one rider looks in comparison to another, but no, he doesn't look much more unsuspicious to me than Pogacar for instance.
I mean, there are several factors that make a rider very suspicious to me, sometimes it's one factor, sometimes another, sometimes many.
- sudden huge rise of performance (Wout: no)
- very late clear rise of performance (Wout: no)
- complete change or huge addition of a discipline, e.g. time trial specialist becomes complete GC rider (Wout: not really)
- absolute numbers seem out of this world (Wout: pushing it, but, no, that's not really the thing about him)
- can do it all, combines disciplines on the highest level when you would think that to be the best in one of them you would have to sacrifice another (Wout: yes. Absolutely.)
Like I said, what I can't explain to myself is how someone can be among the best time trialers, compete on a level just below the amazing Ganna, and the best sprinters, just a bit below someone like Ewan. Those are really, really different disciplines, you can be strong enough to be somewhere up there, but to be among the very best in both disciplines - with my limited knowledge of human's physiology I don't see how that's possible, without even talking about his climbing, which in my eyes then just adds more to the jaw dropping.
I guess you have to go back to a guy like Sean Kelly to find a rider that you can somehow compare to van Aert. Riders before my time. In this age of specialization, the times I've seen, I can't think of anyone. And in a doping-burdened sport that is enough for me to call that incredible as in incredible.
Sorry, I'm repeating myself here a few times, a bit of a messy text, but I think you get what I want to say.