Video: Charge Bikes boys race a Swiss castle (& Philippe Gilbert) at Red Bull Velodux

As if the madness of regular cyclo-cross weren't enough, the skinny-tyres-and-mud discipline is perhaps the most open of cycling formats to mixing it up with off-beat courses and obstacles. Here's a video of the Charge team at the recent Red Bull Velodux that illustrates this perfectly, with course sections down steep street steps and through a castle.

Held on November 8 in the Swiss town of Estavayer-le-Lac the Red Bull Velodux was a different kind of cyclo-cross race. For starters riders raced as teams of two in a relay format with a baton change, and rather than trudging round a muddy field they raced round a medieval castle. As you do.

Etymology fans will know that dux is the Latin for leader (from the verb ducere, to lead), which gives us the word duke, so the idea was that the winner of the Velodux would be the leader of cycling if you will.

The Red Bull Velodux saw riders from across all the different disciplines of cycling race with and against each other: roadies, mountainbikers, cyclocross specialists and track riders were all in the mix.

The field included Olympic mountain bike gold medallist and frequent world champion Julien Absalon and BMC rider, classics specialist and former road world champion Philippe Gilbert.

Both have ridden cyclo-cross in the past, Gilbert as a Junior and Absalon trains on a cyclo-cross bike in the winter but the discipline is neither of their specialities. Gilbert was racing with his BMC team-mate Danilo Wyss, and Absalon was paired with BMC associate, mountainbiker Ralph Näf.

Representing Blighty was the Charge Bikes pairing of Nick Barnes and Ben Simmons, whose progress is followed in this video. They gave a pretty good account of themselves to finish mid-pack against a world-class field, and came in ahead of Gilbert and Wyss.

The Velodux was won by Swiss under23 cyclo cross champion Lars Forster and Michi Wildhaber of Towersports VC Eschenbach.

Here's your bonus official video, courtesy of Red Bull:

John Stevenson contributed to this story