First Belgian Podium!

Yesterday was a non-UCI CX race held by the VWF (Flemish Cycling Federation). It was closer to the Dirty Deeds races in size than the World Cup I raced a few weeks ago.

The course featured muddy singletrack climbs and descents in a little forest, followed by a muddy slog through grass, with two grassy  climbs (one of which needed to be ran) and a tarmac straight to te finish line. As I hadn't raced with them before, I was one of the last called up. In a field of 26 riders I was about 20th on the grid. It may've been a smaller race but there were still plenty of elbows as I fought through everyone to the front.

After the second lap I moved into 5th, riding with 2nd, 3rd and 4th. I managed to drop them on the climbs, however 1st was a fair way in front at this stage.

Check out the grass in my rear wheel!

I stayed on the TCX Advanced the whole way, and managed to roll through and record my first podium in Belgium!

Beautiful post race phlegm

I'm very happy with the result, and hoping to do another of these races before I go home. After a little google search I found out the bloke that won, has won 37 of these races before, and used to be on a fairly strong CX team. A win would have been nice, but it makes me feel a little better about coming through after him!

Sven after his first CX race.

Tomorrow is the UCI C2 race in Otegem. It's the day after all the National Champs so maybe I can record a half decent result as a few riders might be taking it easy. Right now it's time to prep the bikes... Oh and that bloke Yannick who gave me the pointers about tyre pressure nabbed silver in the German u23 Nationals. Nice!

Yannick is now the German u23 silver medallist!

Again massive thanks to Roeland and Rose for getting me out to the course, and helping out before, during and after the race!