What’s it like to watch a Belgian cyclocross race?

A chance to get up close and personal with the top riders

Sanne Cant leads the women's race up the long climb at Gavere

(Image credit: Davy De Blieck)

Cyclocross is huge in Belgium. But that doesn’t mean that spectators are kept at arm’s length.

Cycling Weekly was a guest of Ridley Bikes at the recent Superprestige Gavere. Although the press pass opened some doors, with Mathieu van der Poel’s and world champion Wout van Aert’s mechanics happy for us to carry off bikes to shoot unsupervised, all spectators were still within touching distance of the pros’ bikes.

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Paul Norman

Paul started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2015, covering cycling tech, new bikes and product testing. Since then, he’s reviewed hundreds of bikes and thousands of other pieces of cycling equipment for the magazine and the Cycling Weekly website.

He’s been cycling for a lot longer than that though and his travels by bike have taken him all around Europe and to California. He’s been riding gravel since before gravel bikes existed too, riding a cyclocross bike through the Chilterns and along the South Downs.