The eagerly awaited battle between Mathieu van der Poel and Tom Pidcock fizzled out when the Dutchman crashed onto the cobbles on the second lap at Saturday’s Superprestige Boom cyclocross race .
The young Yorkshireman then soloed to victory on his World Champion’s edition Pinarello Crossista F .
In a much tighter women’s race, Aniek Van Alphen outsprinted Denise Betsema. The 23-year-old Dutchwoman followed up her victory with 7th the next day at the Antwerpen UCI World Cup. Here van der Poel and Pidcock’s fortunes reversed with the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider beating Wout van Aert into second in the Belgian’s first CX race of the season.
Fem van Empel took her fifth UCI World Cup win of the season ahead of Puck Pieterse.
In early December, the hard, fast courses of the early season races in the United States are a fading memory. The weekend’s courses were wet, muddy and sandy and sorely tested the riders’ cyclocross skills .
Accordingly, the riders reverted to aggressively treaded cyclocross tyres to keep moving where possible but often were forced to run through the sandpits. Mathieu van der Poel’s Canyon Inflite CF SLX
Van der Poel bounced back from Saturday’s crash claiming victory in Sunday’s Antwerpen UCI World Cup on his fleet of Canyon Inflites in a special edition crimson colourway.The multiple CX world champion gets a full Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 drivetrain with wheels to match. Like many others, he ran Dugast tubs.Canyon specs its stock top-of-the-range Inflite CF SLX 9 with a 12-speed SRAM Force eTap AXS […]
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