Photos from Tracy Moseley's post For the last couple of years now I have been supporting a few young riders with the help of Trek Bicycle UK and countless hours of bike mechanics/ maintenance and preparation from Mtb Sprocket Skills & Adventures !
We have supported riders at Cross Country, Downhill, Enduro races in the UK and abroad and some UK Cyclocross but this December we decided to head out to Belgium to take in a few Belgium Cyclocross Races for young Hattie to gain some amazing race experience. It was actually a great learning experience for James and I too !
Cyclocross in Belgium is like football is in the UK....it has a massive following, its live on TV, and has some die hard fans who like to have a beer and eat chips !!
What it does create is an amazing atmosphere to race in and top quality races 3 or more times a week..
Having finally navigated my way around the Belgium CX race entry website, part in english and part guess work as my Flemish is not good, I assigned myself and James as pit crew for the races and then had to cross my fingers and hope I had entered Hattie for the right races when we arrived in Belgium... Thankfully it was all good and with no entry fee to pay and prize money down to 20th, I was starting to like this discipline even more !!
Just a shame its in winter, freezing cold and muddy most of the time !!
We had two trips to Belgium, one in early December where Hattie was part of the British Cycling CX team and she competed in two races over a weekend, gaining top 20 finishes at both with a star studded Elite field.
We then had the job of driving back thought the UK snow to get her back to school on Monday morning !!
Our next trip was then over New Year, where Hattie competed in 3 races over 5 days, all within a 50km radius of where we were based just east of Antwerp.
Again all top quality races, with a big field and Hattie finished the trip off with an amazing 12th place finish at the Sven Nys GP on New Years Day !
It really was a real eye opener to just how big cycling is in Belgium and also the huge difference in acceptance of cycling in that culture. Every race we have in the UK were are always worrying about parking / marshals and some extra organisation or health and safety.
Over there we parked up outside someone's house for the day, many people opened up their driveway for teams to park there camper vans, shared a beer and just generally were welcoming of an event taking place in their neighbourhood, shame we cant say the same about every event in the UK !!
What I can say about the UK is that the Cyclocross race scene is definitely growing and if this season of local and national races are anything to go by I hope we can keep the momentum going and create more support for the crop of British riders who are leading the way in this discipline fro years to come.....
The National Championships take place this weekend and rumour has it may be live on the British Cycling website, so keep an eye out for that !!
Thanks to Sue Thackray for the pictures that look pro !!! ... See more
