Belgium Cyclocross trip
At the end of December, I went out to race cross in Belgium for the first time and what an amazing experience it was.
After travelling out on the Friday we spent the afternoon and evening in Bruges wondering around the city streets and through the Christmas markets on what was a very very cold day. It was good to get out and stretch the legs though and we found a great little bar/cafe for dinner, a large bowl of carbonara did me well after the disappointment of them running out of spaghetti bolognese which was the place's speciality. After the short trip back to the hotel it was an early night to bed after a very long day, getting up at 5 to catch the euro tunnel in time.
On Saturday it was my first race of two of the weekend at Brico cross Bredene, after a struggle to find the sign on with no one knowing where it was located it was out onto the course for a few laps of practice. After about 200 metres of riding my bike decided to stop working, not wanting to change gear sometimes then other times wanting to change gear randomly so it was back to the car for a change of bikes then back out onto the course.
The course was running very quickly and included some quite tricky little sections. The first quarter of the lap was focused around some off camber bankings which flowed very quickly especially with the ruts that soon formed after a couple of laps of everyone riding then course. After dropping down of the banking section there was a little loop down to the pits before heading into a sandpit, with the sand being a there and back with a hairpin in it was pretty tricky to ride the whole section and became quicker as well as easier to cycle down the first straight then run around the hairpin and out the other side. From here you then headed out to some off camber sections that were so dry you could just carry all your speed through, then over the hurdles before heading back to the start/finishing straight which made for a very fun course that I pretty liked.
Once I had pinned my number onto my ride for Charlie top it was now time to start warming up ready for my race, having number one meant no pressure ;), but I was still gridded last.
After getting a good start it took me a while to work my way up through the field with the first section of the course being pretty narrow and the off camber sections meant that it was pretty hard to get past other riders. Once through the first technical section and through the sand, I managed to get past some other riders on the fast flowing corners and the short, quick straights and then just spent the rest of the race working my way up through the field to where I finished which was 15th. I loved my first race in Belgium and it was an honour to race in memory of Charlie.
Once cooled down and a bite to eat it was time to watch the rest of the races which included the elite men’s and women's races before it was time for dinner. Another large bowl of pasta finished with everyone else having pizza it was soon time to head to our next hotel in Diegem right by the course for the next day’s race.
With Sunday's race being in the evening I managed to get a pretty good lie in and spent the whole of the morning just lousing around trying to kill the time. After a little grub eaten it was then a short drive down to the course early afternoon to get some practice laps in and everything sorted.
The course was based around the town centre of Diegem and was not your traditional cross course at all. After a fairly short starting straight you took a left-hander before heading into a series of switchbacks before making your way down the hill and onto the long off-camber section around the football pitch which caused a large number of crashes in every race. From here you started to make your way up the climb and over the first bridge before dropping back down the hill and out onto the street that took you all the way to the top of the town. After a few more bridges and up and downs along a banking it was into the sandpit, this time the sand was just situated in a long straight line of about 100 metres and with the sand being so fine it required a lot of power to get through without having to get off and run. Next, it was over the hurdles before you started to make your way back down the hill via some fast road sections and cut-throughs between houses, then it was over some more bridges and up a flight of stairs that took you back out onto the finishing straight ready to do it all again.
As darkness fell it was time to get warmed up again ready for my race, again I was gridded right at the back and with there being even more riders and the course getting a lot tighter a lot quicker made it even trickier. After making a few places up off of the start line I soon got boxed in through the switchbacks and off camber section which meant I had to get off and run losing a lot of time to people ahead of me. The next two laps I spent chasing hard working my way up through the field before settling down into a rhythm for a lap or two so as to not burn out too much before the end of the race with the course being so physically demanding. Every lap bar one I managed to ride through the sandpit which helped me massively to gain back time to the riders in front and soon found myself in a little group of 3 a few laps into work together with especially up the long climbs and fast straights. With two laps to go I pushed the pace on even further and continued to catch riders in front of me fo finish 28th which I was pretty happy with considering the amount of chasing I had to do and I had an absolute mega time racing in front of thousands of Belgium fans that lined the whole course, it was one of the best cross races I have ever done.
A massive thank you to the ride for Charlie fund for helping make this trip possible, it was an absolute honour to race in the jersey and in honour of Charlie.
