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

For a group of 14 US teenagers who have enjoyed success at home cyclo-cross races, competing for results in Belgium with the EuroCrossAcademy took an unexpected back seat to lessons in humility and patience during the intense two weeks of racing at 'kerstperiode'.

Graden Daume of Missoula, Montana, and Matthew Crabbe of Buford, Georgia, both 16 years old, who will race in the 17-18 division in 2026, admitted that he larger fields, elevated level of competition, and highly-touted course conditions were indeed formidable and downright "fast and messy".

The Christmas period adventure finished with the Superprestige in Diegem, the Exact Cross in Mol, and in Zonhoven for the non-World Cup junior race for the seven women and seven men on the ECA's 17-18 team.

Latest Videos From

Watch full video here:

Zonhoven featured the same technical plunge into De Kuil, 'the pit' of deep sand, as conquered later in the day by elite winners Mathieu van der Poel and Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado, both with Alpecin-Premier Tech.

Three of the US junior women finished with top 15 honours at Zonhoven: Tessa Beebe came in sixth, Kira Mullins in ninth, and Daume in 13th. A trio of US junior men finished in the top 20: Crabbe in 16th, while his compatriots were close by, Noah Scholnick in 13th, and Jacob Hines in 17th.

“ECA worked with a total of seven women, seven men during this recent kerst block, and we couldn’t be prouder of how they all put their best foot forward and finished what they started, fully invested, and fully motivated," said Geoff Proctor, ECA founder and director.

"To date, it was probably one of our best European blocks. Holistic relationship and character-building, caring coaches and mechanics, optimal performance environment, and great communication and organization. With this culminating kerst' block, I really feel like we helped bring these athletes to a competitive European level.”

Both Daume and Crabbe had raced in Europe prior to the ECA block, coming off stellar seasons at home. Crabbe earned a silver medal at US Cyclo-cross Nationals in the men's junior division, a year after winning the 15-16 men's title and a national junior title on the track. He started the 'cross season in the US, winning two of four races before he traveled to Europe for two blocks racing, netting top 20s in half of eight races.

Daume came off a fourth-place finish at US Cyclo-cross Nationals in the women's junior division, having stacked up 10 top 10s at US races in the fall. Last year, she earned a silver medal at 'cross nationals in the 15-16 division as well as silver at Pan-American Cyclo-cross Championships.

The ECA provides an opportunity for the 17-18 juniors to experience different cultures and nurture life skills while developing cyclo-cross talents along the way. Daune and Crabbe provide their insights with journal entries about the knowledge they gained, coming on a slippery slope for both athletic and character discovery.

Graden Daume - Within the chaos come lessons about humility and pride

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.

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 - I need to be more patient

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.

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.

ECA 17-18 December 2025-January 2026 races

• December 20 - Antwerp, Belgium (non-world cup for juniors)
• December 22 - Hofstade X2O Trophee, Belgium (MJR only)
• December 23 - Zolder SuperPrestige, Belgium
• December 26 - Beernem Concap CX Cup, Belgium (WJR only)
• December 29 - Loenhout X2O Trophee, Belgium
• December 30 - Diegem SuperPrestige, Belgium
• January 2 - Mol Exact Cross, Belgium
• January 4 - Zonhoven, Belgium (non-world cup for juniors)
• Roster note: Graden Daume was among four riders joining ECA for the final three races