UCI World Cup round 2 Houffalize, Belgium

My latest race was last weekend for Round 2 of the UCI World Cup in Houffalize, Belgium. We headed out there early and got some course practice in, the course was new compared to recent years and it had lots of new technical features which livened it up, as well as that there was the usual short hard climbs and false flats . Due to my bad luck at the first round in South Africa I had no UCI points and therefore got a gridding of 96th which meant that I would be on the 12th row at the start so I was expecting some first lap carnage. I warmed up for the race then went to the pens before lining up for the race. The race started well and went straight into a long steep climb which quickly bottlenecked and I spent my time running and trying to overtake, I moved up not to bad and after the start loop I had got to about 50th.  Once I settled down in the race I started to move up well which was easier early on in the race because there was big groups of people but got harder as the race split up. I felt quite good thoughout and found myself in top 30 at about half way through the race, then I kept pressing on to move up on the last two laps and eventually crossed the line in 20th place after 5 laps of the course. I was pleased with this result as my main aim was to try and finish in the top 25 which gives you UCI points so that at the next round I would have a better gridding which will be very helpful. :)

Alfons Benz

So it was a good world cup for me and now my next race is round two of the national series this weekend at Dalby forest.
Thanks for Reading
Grant