Crashes, mistakes, heartbreak – US juniors discover humble cyclo-cross rewards on slippery slopes during final Belgian block of EuroCrossAcademy

Cyclo-cross racing is fast but messy, painful yet joyful, individual but deeply communal. Riders line up with clean bikes and high hopes, only to be swallowed minutes later by mud, sand, barriers, and fatigue. Within this chaos, cyclo-cross teaches a powerful lesson about humility and pride.

Humility in cyclo-cross is really important. No matter how much preparation and training you do, nothing can truly prepare you for race day. There will be crashes, mistakes, and heartbreak. But if cyclo-cross has taught me anything, it’s that every time you cross that finish line, you have learned something new.

Whether the race was horrible or the best race of your life, you come out of it with humility because you know that everyone on that start line desires to be the best, to be the one who stands on the top of the podium. Even when you are doing your best, you must stay humble and thoughtful to the people around you.

USA’s Graden Daume competes in Mol, Belgium at junior Exact Cross race in January 2026 (Image credit: EuroCrossAcademy / A Crow Photography)

Being able to listen to your teammates, provide support, understand how they are doing, and keeping in mind what it feels like to be in that moment where something did or didn’t go the way you wanted, is part of what makes cyclocross so communal. Cyclo-cross humbles riders by forcing them to accept failure publicly and sometimes repeatedly.

Pride is also very present in cyclo-cross. Pride fuels perseverance. So many things can happen or go wrong in a cyclocross race, between your body, bike mechanics, the weather, and finishing a race despite everything builds a deep sense of self-respect, resilience, and grit.

Crossing the line, muddy, tired, and spent, brings a quiet confidence. You feel proud of what you have accomplished and learned, and when you look back to see just how far you have come, it makes you realize that one bad race is not going to define you; if anything, it will help you grow and discover what you need to work and build on. Pride is a strong emotion, don’t try to hide your pride, be happy and be proud of what you have accomplished but it’s important to balance pride with humbleness to continue growing.

In the end, cyclo-cross is more than a race; it is a mirror. It reflects strengths and weaknesses. Riders learn to accept both with grace. The mud strips away ego, while the struggle builds confidence.

Through every lap, cyclo-cross teaches that true pride is grounded in humility and that the most meaningful victories often happen far from the podium.

Matthew Crabbe of EuroCrossAcademy men’s 17-18 team competes on slippery sand at Zonhoven in January 2026 (Image credit: EuroCrossAcademy / YefriFotos)

The cyclo-cross season isn’t very nice most of the time. It’s long. The weather is crap. I had six travel days of 14 hours each across the Atlantic (three trips to Europe). The season is especially hard when the results I had hoped for at the beginning aren’t coming my way.

For the last three or four years, I have found a good bit of success domestically, but also internationally last winter. I had won four straight US National Championships. Half of my races in Europe were over the EuroCrossAcademy 15-16 November block.

I think I carried this success into the season with a bit of a chip on my shoulder. I felt like I would be able to jump straight into the new UCI 17-18 category with the same level of success. I was misled by early success in Rochester and Waterloo, with two wins and another two top 5’s. I went to Belgium at the beginning of October to try my hand at my first set of European UCI races. I was hoping for some top 10’s and maybe even a podium or two. I ended the month-long trip with half of the races ending with top 15 finishes and the other half ending with costly mistakes.

The Pan-American Championships (in Washington, DC) were very shortly after I came home, but I was hoping to feel recovered enough to give it a good go for a boost of confidence. I was in fact not recovered and burned the only match I had left too early in the race that ended with a fifth place.

Going into the end of November was the first US National Team trip of the season to the first two World Cups in Tábor and Flamanville. These were a big step from the races I had done in October. Those were only the best of Belgium, but this was the best of every country in Europe.

A mistake that costs you one place at home costs you almost ten places here. Those kinds of mistakes led to two top 35 finishes. It was okay, but still not what I wanted.

I had a strong showing at the National Championships with a second place, and that was good confidence coming into the ECA block we are in now. I was hoping to carry that great form into the upcoming seven races in Belgium with ECA.

I almost did that at our first race, Antwerp, where I came 12th. It matched my best result from October and I wanted to build on that into a top 10 finish. This hunger became too much.

In the following races, I went out too hard or too aggressively trying to achieve this. It led to mistakes or blow ups halfway through the race. What was once within touching distance now seemed miles away. The results were falling down a slippery slope.

USA’s Matthew Crabbe on the men’s junior start line at Mol Exact Cross (Image credit: EuroCrossAcademy / A Crow Photography)

The racing is different in Europe. Nothing is handed to you. Forcing things leads to catastrophic mistakes. I was striving too hard and trying to force a result. The struggles of the season were bearing on me. I needed a result that I could look back on the season and could say it was good enough. But this panic and over-eagerness led to mistakes that could have been easily avoided to get me to a better finish.

Going forward, I need to let the races come to me. I need to be more patient. More resilient. Smoother.

I caught myself on this slippery slope in Diegem. I made no major mistakes, no crashes. There was still room for improvement, but it was an improvement, 22nd. This is compared to the bottom of the slope the day before in Loenhout, 73rd.

I want to be one of the best. I want to ride at the front. But it will take time. For now it is still learning. But learning I am, so, soon I will get there.