Belgacom - St Vith

After a fantastic race weekend last week the team travelled to southern Belgium for the latest round of the Belgium National series.  Having elected not to go to Canada and the USA this year due to budget restraints this was surely the next best thing with a host of top names attending and a 100+ strong field in the Elite race.  Names such as multiple World Champion cyclo-cross rider Sven Nys made this a mini world cup.

The Belgians really know how to put on an event and based in the small town of St Vith, not far from the famous Houffalize World Cup course the beer was flowing and the fans were getting into party mode as race time beckoned.  

It was a late start on the dusty course with the Juniors starting at 2pm and the Elites at 4pm.  The course itself was one of the best so far this year with steep ups and rooty, dusty downs.

Alex started from the back of the grid with the gridding done on series position giving our youngster an uphill task, his response?  Challenge Accepted!  Racing through from the back he made up places every lap, even after a crash on lap two in the race arena left him battered and bruised.  After 5 tough laps, Alex finished in 23rd position, a solid result as he builds towards the remaining two European World Cups later in the year.

Our Elite riders also had bad gridding and had to work from the back, but some clever weaving put all 4 riders in the top 50 going into lap 2.  Rourke had made good progress and feeling fresh from a recovery week worked hard to get into the top 20.  Chris, Ben and Paul were not too far apart in the mid forties until lap 3 when Paul needed a wheel change from a puncture dropping him back a few places.  By lap 4 Ben had started to cramp and had to retire while Chris was starting to turn up the heat and had a blistering final two laps to come through the finish in 37th.  Paul had a solid ride after some recent problems to finish in 62nd.  Rourke had his best race for a few weeks to finish in 19th position and was in the top 5 under 23 riders.

It was another fantastic weekend for the team with all riders giving 110% on a challenging course.  The team then headed back to there hotel for a chilled out BBQ in the beautiful Belgian countryside.  A nice trip back to the UK in the team bus with a photo request at the Eurotunnel terminal and it was another weekend well done as the team continue to grow with more and more international experience giving the riders that all important form and confidence as we head into the business end of the 2011 season.

We now head to our National Championships as Rourke takes a 3 week break back home in South Africa.  Then it will be on to the two remaining World Cups and the World Championships in Switzerland.  It's been a busy season so far but at the half way point it's only really just beginning!

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