Zach Bell seems to have started off on the right track for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, England.

But with two years to go there's always ground to gain, mistakes to recover from.

The Watson Lake native took his first step in the two-year cycle leading to the London Games at the Track Cycling UCI World Cup Classics in Melbourne, Australia, last week.

Bell won silver with 31 total points in the omnium, the six-race event which will replace the individual pursuit, the points race and the Madison at the next Summer Olympics.

He lost out on gold to New Zealander Shane Archbold, who beat out the Yukoner in the elimination race, i.e. the miss and out, jumping ahead with a fourth-place finish in that event to Bell's 15-place finish to top spot on points.

"I missed out on winning the whole event based solely on the points that I lost in that event,” Bell said.

The 28-year-old finished the two-day omnium event behind Archbold, who won the event with 24 points, and ahead of bronze medalist Ed Clancy of Great Britain, who had been the previous world champion.

Archbold also edged Bell out in the individual pursuit by placing first to Bell's fifth.

Otherwise, Bell finished ahead of him in all other events, including the scratch race, in which the Canadian won first while the New Zealander placed fifth.

Bell also finished third in the flying lap, one spot ahead of Archbold; third in the points race to Archbold's fifth; and fourth in the time trial, another one ahead of the New Zealander.

"There were a few things to be learned about the event, because there were new pieces to it that haven't been there before, namely the miss and out event, and I didn't do as well as I would have hoped to do in that one but it was also a good learning experience moving forward,” Bell said.

"It's never really been raced at this kind of a level before, at least not in a few years, so there's a real steep learning curb with it for all of us, because most of us haven't raced it since the early parts of our riding, if at all.

"It was obvious at this World Cup that there were a few guys who had raced one at a big event already, so they were making fewer mistakes, and that was what dictated the results in that event.”

Bell has previous experience competing in international omnium races, winning the silver medal at the 2009 World Championships in Warsaw, Poland.

This year's omnium was modified, he noted. Some of the events have been lengthened, and the elimination race has been added.

"Everybody's got work to do right now; and for one of the first times in cycling, I'm one of the guys that's kind of ahead of the curb, having most of the events pretty dialed, so hopefully I can just get stronger with everyone else and stay on top of the bubble,” Bell said.

"At the moment (my adaptations) seem to be working. But it's been a lot of just going back to tools that I used earlier in my career, where I was trying to develop as a complete rider and not trying to specialize.”

The omnium's point system is all relative, Bell explained. If a racer blows everyone else away in one event that racer doesn't accumulate such a large number as in the heptathlon or decathlon events of the past, he added.

"It's really about putting space between you and your competitors,” Bell said.

In the miss and out, he added, he had 11 points to make up to catch Archbold.

"And at the end of the event I was only eight points down on him, so having removed that event I win the whole event.”

Bell said he prefers the omnium to the old format because mistakes aren't so costly.

"You can make little mistakes like that and still, if you're a strong overall rider, recover from those mistakes and still put in a good performance,” he said.

"In previous World Cups, if I make a mistake in one race, it's the difference between being on the podium and being 20th.

"And now, I can still make one of those mistakes, and I can still use my strengths in other areas to put myself back in a position where I'm on the podium.”

Last week's event is the first race that is counted toward qualification for the 2012 Olympics, and the first event in the two-year cycle Canada's been eligible for.

Now, after a 14-hour flight between Sydney and Vancouver, Bell will get in a couple days of rest before heading to Columbia on Thursday for the second round of the UCI Track Cycling World Cup.

"It's just a matter of trying to ride the form that I had in (Melbourne) straight into the next event, and then after that we'll step back and reset with a bit more training,” Bell said.

"I might still be on an upward trend, which would be fantastic. If you can recover from the travel and really use that downtime to let the body regenerate, then I think it can be a real blessing to have (big events) back-to-back in phases.”

Of adapting to the new form of the omnium, Bell added: "It's been a challenge for sure, and I don't think we necessarily have it completely right yet, but I think this race is a good indicator that we're traveling down the right road.”

Bell also won bronze in the scratch race at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India, in October.