Zdenek Stybar's cyclocross season got off to a modest start with 12th place at the Ethias Cross in Essen for the former world champion. A botched start and a flat tire midway through the race ended any hopes of a top finish in the rain-slicked race.

"It was tough. It was fun."

"I didn't get a good start. I had a bad start, on the first lap I was just following the wheels and couldn't pass anyone, on the third lap I found my rhythm and caught up to David Van der Pol, but then I had a puncture. I had a very hard time getting back into a rhythm. I got my rhythm back in the last three laps but it was tough."

Stybar, a three-time world champion and 2010 World Cup and Superprestige winner, moved from cyclocross to road when he joined Quickstep in 2011, but has continued to incorporate some cyclocross in the off-season. The 33-year-old has not won a cyclocross race since his 2014 world title, as he has focused on evolving as a classic racer.

The Czech won Strade Bianche in 2015 and finished second behind John Degenkolb in Paris-Roubaix and again in 2017 behind Greg Van Avermaat. This year he won both the E3 Classic and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.

After a road season that lasted from the Volta ao Algarve in February to the UCI Road World Championships in Yorkshire in late September, the 33-year-old is a bit behind his cyclo-cross rivals in Essen, but he is a bit behind the curve with more technical turns and fewer power sections, He said he found the perfect course to start on. He said, "There were very few sections where you needed power, so I couldn't blow it.

The absence of top stars like Mathieu van der Pol, Toon Aerts, and Eli Iserbitt also worked in Stybar's favor. I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of supporters."