Bermuda national mountain bike champion Robin Horsfield turned his attention to cyclocross as he secured his second Ontario provincial championship last weekend.

The 25-year-old Bermudian took to the snowy course at Albion Hills, the site of his first elite men's Ontario Cup Mountain Bike podium seven years ago, to finish ahead of Dan Souter and Theodore De Groote.

Horsfield, whose mountain bike season was not his best due to health complications, showed conclusively that he is now near the best form of his career.

“It was really nice to end this year of racing on a high note after the difficult season I experienced on the mountain bike,” Horsfield told The Royal Gazette.

“Once the sicknesses I experienced passed, I was able to get back to regular training. With the lack of races I competed in this summer, I decided to enter more cyclocross races this fall than I normally compete in.

“It was really fun to mix up the racing style and just focus on having fun. It’s a cool discipline of racing with short laps and riders often needing to get off the bike to run up stairs or over barriers.

“Often the course will be so slippery or steep that you have to run the bike through sections. It’s a lot different from mountain biking so it was nice to focus on getting faster in other areas.”

Mark Brown, Horsfield’s longtime coach, saw the victory as a perfect way to conclude a tough season.

“To me it's one of the best possible endings for this season because it is the definition of never giving up,” Brown said.

“This past mountain bike season was largely taken from him — but here he is, a newbie to cross racing and now the provincial champion.”

“Robin had said that he was enjoying the lack of notoriety in his cross events — I'm afraid that’s over now.