Signing with Team SpiderTech has helped cyclist Zach Bell ramp up his training schedule over the past eight months.

And the Watson Lake cyclist is keen to boost his fitness level with the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London looming in the distance.

Earlier this week, the Canadian Cycling Association announced the 12 cyclists named to the selection pool in the Men's Elite category for both the road race and time trials at the 2011 UCI Road World Championships to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, from Sept. 19-25.

Bell made the cut, quite a feat considering the 28-year-old has made his name in track cycling.

"To be part of the pool is positive as well, because it's something I'm hoping to focus on later on, but it's not an immediate goal,” Bell said.

"I've basically just been racing the road and getting as much fitness as possible.

"Especially for track endurance, you've got to have a lot of road miles; a lot of training is done on the road. The intensity in road racing, especially at a high level, is something you can't find on a regular basis through training.

"I do this every year. This year has probably been the heaviest calendar I've done on the road, in terms of miles and hard races. I'd say the races I've done this year were all as big as the biggest races I've done in years previous.”

In June, the North Vancouver-based cyclist won bronze in the 2011 Canadian National Road Championships with a time of four hours, 32 minutes and nine seconds over 180 kilometres. Bell also nabbed a fourth-place finish in the time trials of the National Championship.

"It was a good ride, kind of a big deal for me to get onto the podium, and then our team swept the top three spots,” Bell said of his fellow SpiderTech riders.

"It's not something I've been really focusing on or thinking about. I've been using the road more for fitness than as a specific goal.”

In his previous two stints at road nationals, Bell failed to make the podium in the road race but was among the top three in the time trial.

But results in road races are not the only area in which Bell is improving.

His regiment has increased when his two-year contract with Team SpiderTech Powered by C10 began in January.

"They were a bigger team that could get into bigger races,” Bell said, adding his contract will last through the Olympics. "I did that because of needed the bigger races to ramp up my intensity and fitness towards the Olympics. We needed a really big year, and this year they kind of build a base for the next 12 months.”

Bell clued up his track cycling season with the 2011 UCI World Championships in Apeldoom, Netherlands, in March – crowned first-ever World Cup champion in the omnium, a six-event race which will make its Olympic debut in 2012.

He then hit the road with SpiderTech for UCI races in France, Germany and Belgium, even competing against Tour de France riders, before returning to North America for Tour California and the Philadelphia International, both of which he's competed in before.

Bell said adding the high-caliber European races to his schedule has helped put him into another class.

"It was challenging, but it's what I needed to do to push the fitness to another level. The major difference is the miles; and there's more of a depth of field in road racing, especially in Europe right now, a lot of strong guys to compete with,” Bell said.

"Definitively it remains to be seen exactly how much of a benefit it's going to be. But based on certain training factors that we can measure and things we can track, I'm at a level that I haven't been at before, so that's exciting.

"It doesn't mean anything until you get the results, but I feel like I'm in a position far ahead of where I've been, kind of pushed through a plateau finally.”

Bell returned to road training in August.

His final pro-tour road race of the season will be in Quebec City over the coming months. Then, he'll move down to California to begin training on the track.

"I'm a bit anxious about how it's going to turn out, but I'm more excited every day because it seems to be going in the right direction,” Bell said, adding of the lead-up to the Olympics: "I feel like there's a lot of work to do still and time is kind of ticking away, but I'm excited that basically with the year I had last year on the track, I can focus on addressing some short-falls that may have prevented me from reaching the podium before. Instead of just chasing points, I can really look at things I need to improve in the next 12 months.”

Bell finished seventh in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China.