It’s a typical Wednesday afternoon in Antwerp – these children have left school early so they can ride around the course. Although, when I say ‘typical’ it’s the Wednesday before the Scheldecross race (subsequently won by Dutchman Mathieu Van der Poel), and the atmosphere is tinged with a hint of anticipation and expectation. Closed Coca-Cola stalls and pop-up snack shops are dotted around the course, with portable toilets and sanitary basins stacked into a corner near the start/finish straight, ready for distribution, while the media and dignitary centre is halfway through it’s construction.

Everywhere: happy faces, excited for the action to come, and loving every second of their playtime on the course. And here I am; a lousy Brit, completely unable to let go of the brakes and roll down the hybrid grassy-sandy-muddy downhill.

All too soon, though, I encounter the beach section and all rules are thrown out the window. Riding through sand isn’t for mortals – and it’s no surprise when I’m forced to dismount at the first switchback corner. I drive and drive and drive my legs, pushing as hard and fast as I can to keep the traction (what little of it there is) underneath my rear wheel.

It’s a losing battle. With every furious pedal stroke, I lose precious momentum at the cost of a huge amount of energy and I’m forced into a hurried dismount to avoid toppling over on top of a passing teenager.

But it’s not over: I swing my bike over my shoulder and run, desperately searching for the most solid patch of land I can find as I attempt to beat this boy to the end of the section. Obviously, I fail – by the time I make it to the end if the section, he’s hopped back onto his bike with the grace of a lad who’s been doing it for most of his life, leaving far behind the newbie.

I remount, and fail to clip in. The sand that I’d trawled through to make it to this point had clogged up the cleats, so I whack the base of the shoes against the pedals as I roll forward in an attempt to unblock them. Eventually I succeed – another group of children happily riding past me – and I clip in and roll around the curvature of the river to the marshland section.

In fact, when I arrive it’s a three-way split between a damp sandy, muddy, grassy surface, complete with worn tracks and little rollers that you need to attack to ride through. It’s now or never to try to at least approach conquering my fear and I don’t even think about stopping, throwing the bike down the little drops, up the small rises and thundering my legs to power through the soft bases, tyres scrambling for purchase.

But before I leave, I want one more crack at the high mounds – and after stopping to take a few photos of my colleagues succeeding – I hand my camera to one of them, and tell them I’ll meet them back at the start point. I need to concentrate, and not have the pressure of the lens on me. All I want is to be brave enough – mentally strong enough – to roll down one of them and to be able tell the tale.

I attack the uphill section, driving, driving, driving, until I make it halfway up and am forced to unclip. That’s all I have, but that’s ok – I’ve only seen one person make it up the entire time I’ve been there, so I’m in good company. I put it aside though, and remount at the top edge of the climb, picking my line ahead of me, planning to follow the diagonal trajectory that everyone else deems to be taking. “How hard can it be…”

And so, it’s at this point the story comes to it’s climactic conclusion – a triumphant rebuttal of my fear, succeeding where I never thought I could in the face of my own mental and physical limitations. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to end.

There’s never an easy way of admitting failure – we all want to succeed, and when we don’t it can be so very embarrassing and deflating. But as I approached the crest of the descent, successfully clipped in and with no pressure from behind as a clear track opened around me, the devil in my head kicks in, and applies my brakes suddenly. I’m devastated, disappointed, downright confused at my inability to just roll over the crest.

I know it’s game over – I’m simply not brave enough, yet – but I want to finish on a high, and roll round the lowlands of the course once more, attacking the sandpit with continued comedic effect one last time, and attacking the rollers on the marsh section, before heading back at speed.

And that, I think, is what I want to take from my experience on the Scheldecross course. Despite the crippling fear, the uncomfortable nervous sweating and the frustration of having to dismount every thirty seconds or so, I’ve had a taste of the action, and I think I want more. No, maybe I’ll never want to actually do a cross race, but I’ve had my eyes opened up to a new way of riding a bike that can be as exhilarating as climbing an alp or descending off a Pyrenean col, or powering over the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix.

As long as ‘cross can provide this much fun, despite the difficulties I had, why wouldn’t I give it another go? Only maybe next time, I’ll start on my local course first.