The Flemish word for cyclocross is "veldrijden," which when broken into its parts - "veld" and "rijden" - means "field ride." This race certainly lived up to that billing.

Editor's Note: Freewheeling is the ongoing column of features editor Jason Sumner. From time to time, he uses this space to prattle on about all things cycling, be them interesting, innovative, inane, or in this case, humbling. If you have a comment or question, or just want to sound off, drop a note in the comments section below.

It's a cold Saturday morning in mid January. My friend Anthony and I are lost somewhere in the endless rural flatness that is West Flanders - Belgium's equivalent of Midwest farm country.

A steady drizzle is causing the car windows to fog up. We can barely see the road in front of us. Then it appears, a small sign planted low on the right side of the road. Its one-word message plus an indicator arrow provide relief. Finally, we're getting close. After prepping for months, flying across the Atlantic Ocean, and then stumbling around this sparsely-populated land that smells distinctly of manure, we've found what we came for: Cyclocross.

And no, not cyclocross like the kind where rabid Belgian fans show up to drink beer, eat frites, and yell, while men like Sven Nys and Niels Albert defy the laws of physics, traveling through mud faster than most of us pedal on pavement. Our destination is a small amateur cyclocross race where we'll be the ones traveling through mud - at a much slower rate.

Like a pair of amateur hoops aficionados visiting New York City's Rucker Park, or a wannabe ski racer staring down Kitzbuhel's Hahnenkamm, we've made a pilgrimage to the motherland: Belgium, where cyclocross is king.

Indeed, 12 of the last 16 elite men's world champions hail from this tiny country that's population is slightly less than Ohio, and land mass is just a shade bigger than Massachusetts. Yet somehow, the Lion of Flanders continues to roar when summer turns to fall, and the roads of France give way to the bogs of Benelux.



Left: Destination found. Right: No unpaid registration table volunteers here. These guys meant business.

Our goal is to see, taste, feel and smell cyclocross at the source, here in Belgium, where the country's best athletes don't pick up basketballs or baseball bats in their youth. They ride bikes. In the rain. In the wind. In the mud. On days like today. Shitty, cold, wet days. Days perfect for cyclocross.

The frustration of being lost quickly fades, replaced by the jitters of pre-race nervousness. I think back to an email forwarded from a friend during the lead-up to our trip. He'd made a similar journey the year before. "Be aware," he advised. "The categories don't really match up well with what we are used to in the U.S. A, B, and C have nothing to do with speed or skill. All the races are fast. Even in the master's categories."

This wasn't exactly good news. I'd started the season as a cat. 4, and only recently upgraded to a 3. And that was more than a month ago. I tried to train through the void between then and now. But that's tough when holidays and snow and ski season get in the way.



The author's three-race slate in Belgium included the Master's world championships in Mol where the course was punctuated by several long sand sections.

Ten minutes after spotting the "cyclocross-this-way" sign, we were inside the community hall in the small town of Langemark. If I had to guess the population, I'd say 2,000. If I had to guess the primary industry, I'd say farming. At least that's what the smell indicated.

In the farthest back room of what amounted to a VFW was race registration. Several older men in collared shirts and ties sat in front of laptops, ready to collect 10 euros and pass out a reusable number. No pinning on paper here. Instead race numbers are printed on reusable plastic that's emblazoned with "Het Laatste Nieuws" Belgium's version of USA Today. It means, "The Latest News." That's about all the Flemish I know. Bring your number back after the race and you get half your entry fee back.

Race categories are based on age, not skill. Anthony's race is later in the day against a group of fellow 30-35-year-olds. I'm up first in the 40-45's. "You can change in the building next to the frites," advised one of the blue-shirted men, pointing. "Over there, across the street."

This building, I soon discovered, was not so much a building as a primitive stone shed. There was no door, just a thick brown plastic curtain, which did a poor job of stopping the wind and cold from slipping inside. I imagined its normal residents are farm tools, but on that day this dirt-floored enclosure doubled as a locker room, its occupants about a half dozen male 'cross racers in various states of undress.

Some had just finished competing and were wiping mud off tired legs. Others prepared for the elements, lathering up with pungent embrocation cream. There were no sinks or showers. Instead an old oil drum filled with water and placed over a heating flame served as the sink. Some racers dipped towels into the warm water. Others had brought plastic dish washing tubs that they filled up, carrying it back to their folding chair where they could sit and clean up. I didn't have a towel, a tub or a chair, and instead wobbled around in a corner, trying to pull on my knee warmers over my shoes without falling over.





Left: Not exactly world record speeds. Right: Like peanut butter - mixed with super glue.

The mood in the room was serious, bordering on somber. Unlike its jocular American cousin with its back slapping, bell ringing and beer drinking, amateur cross in Belgium is serious business. Even at this tiny race in the middle of nowhere. That notion was further enforced 15 minutes later when the start whistle blew. In the time it took me to fumble my way into my left pedal, the front of the field was long gone never to be seen again.

Up ahead was a first-person lesson in Flemish. Around these parts, cross is often referred to as "veldrijden," which when broken into its parts - "veld" and "rijden" - means "field ride."

In other words, cyclocross in Belgium is field riding, which is exactly what the Langemark course was, a figure-eight slog that alternated between short sections of pavement, and long sections of soul-sucking farm-field mud and wet grass. It was deep, sticky, and slow. So slow, that despite being dead flat, there were sections where it seemed the spectators on the side of the course were walking faster than me and my fellow back-of-the-pack racers were riding.



Left: In three days of racing this was the only true barrier we encountered. Right: Belgian soup anyone?

It's also worth noting out that the course did not have a single barrier or required dismount. In fact, of the three races Anthony and I contested during our two-plus weeks in Belgium, we encountered just one set of barriers. Indeed, instead of the sometimes-contrived obstacles used by U.S. course designers to inject difficulty into races, the tracks in Belgium stand on their own. They are hard because they are hard. Not because the have a spiral of doom or a staircase of death.

About 48 minutes after the start, I limped across the finish line, 17th among 20 finishers. It seemed disappointing at the time, but turns out finishing on the lead lap was a semi-significant accomplishment. In our ensuing two races, Anthony and I went a combined 0-for-4, each time being pulled from the race early because we'd gotten lapped or were about to get lapped.

"Thank you very much Jason Sumner, your race is over," the finish line announcers would say from inside their mobile PA trailer. It was a polite way of saying, "Get off the course, please. You're in the way."

Back in Langemark, after catching my breath and hosing off my bike, I returned to the locker room shed to clean up. Inside were a mix of my older aged peers and a couple juniors preparing to race. Judging by their baby faces, they couldn't be more than 13 or 14 years old. One of these kids wore a particularly stoic expression, while his doting dad rubbed embrocation cream on his legs and mom offered a final swig of warm liquid from a thermos.

It's at that moment that I thought to myself, if my parents had signed me up for a race like this, I would have run away from home. Then it occurred to me: This kid on the other side of the room is exactly what I'd come to see. Cyclocross at its source.