Thread by @jens_dekker

Last year the World Cup in Dendermonde was the disastrous kind of epic, with huge running sections, and riders getting literally stuck in the mud. This year, same location, but was the course a bit better?
#CXWorldCup #Dendermonde 1/17

The location is possibly the most boring on the entire UCI calendar. There’s nothing to it, it was just 3 grass fields before Jurgen Mettepenningen got his hands on them. His organisation added 2 hills last year, and a sandpit and a pumptrack this year. 2/17

They also added 2 sets of steps on the hills, which were arguably unnecessary, but they added some colour. That, with the flyovers, gave the course the little amount of colour that it really needed, but the most important question is; Did it break any rules? 3/17

Not really, it was on the edge of the minimum distance requirement, one of the pit-loops took quite a bit longer than the other, but the distance was fairly equal, which is what the rule says it should be. I definitely want to commend the start-finish straight. 4/17

Nice and wide, straight, and easily long enough. I just feel weird about how crooked the barriers were. There were nice lines on the road to mark where the barriers should’ve been, and I don’t understand why they weren’t completely straight. 5/17

Then we come to the opinions section. I’m torn, on the one hand it was a huge improvement compared to last year. Last year was more drowning than cyclocross, this was a real cyclocross race, with the right amount of running for such a race. 6/17

I just feel a serious unease about almost everything, somehow. Not the terrain, just the design choices (course builder was Mario De Clerq btw). I’ll start with the new pumptrack. I honestly don’t know what the idea was here. 7/17

Obviously they couldn’t have predicted the weather, and how the newly planted grass would react, but it really didn’t look good. Even in dry weather it would be weird, because the hills are just a bit too high to really make them a pumptrack. 8/17

Next is the sandpit. Also weird. Half of it was deep sand on the hillside, presumably the water drained nicely from the hill. The second half was flat, and rock-hard because the water didn’t drain from there. It resulted in a short descent which was very treacherous, 9/17

But not much more than that. The ground was just too wet to make it a good sandpit, but the effect of putting it on the hill was very weird, I don’t really know what to make of it. I would probably prefer a traditional flat sandpit. 10/17

Next the steps. I liked those. Nice and wide, maybe having 2 sets was unnecessary, but that’s nitpicking. Traditional cross feature that isn’t used enough anymore. Cool. 11/17

The final thing that I found especially weird was the addition of various short bits of bitumen in the middle of a field. My guess is they wanted to prevent last years problem of descending the hill and running into a pool of mud at the bottom which caused crashes. 12/17

But it was again a weird thing, and a little dangerous too (see Sanne Cant’s crash in the final descent on lap 1). The goal of making the course rideable is fine, but the concrete edges that can cause punctures with low tyre pressures are just not ideal. 13/17

A few positive points then: I liked the width. Always creates more interesting racing if it’s easy to pass and to choose different lines. I also really liked one climb in particular, the off camber-to-hairpin-to-steep-climb just after the sandpit. Awesome design. 14/17

I was less wild about the descents, but that’s personal taste. One other thing I said last year as well: It would be great for the race if it was possible to add a section through that bit of forest in the middle of the course. Even if it was only 200 metres. 15/17

A bit of variety would be welcome. A last general comment: I’m curious how it would look without the mud. It might come close to a full grass crit (think Loenhout ‘16 won by Meeusen). Only the fidgetty descents might cancel that idea and break up groups. 16/17

Conclusion: Better than last year, I’m not super excited to see this in the World Cup for another 4 years, but it’s good enough.
Rating: 6/10
UCI rules broken: 0
17/17