Distance: 95 km
Elevation: 362
Duration: 5:42 h
Weather: sunny, 19 C
Today Roubaix went to Roubaix! And I with her.
Unfortunately the velodrome was closed to the public, they were repainting the advertisement on the track, probably in preparation of Paris-Roubaix race coming up in a few weeks. So I missed out on my first ever attempt at riding around a velodrome.
Roubaix itself is a quite depressing place. Clearly very poor, quite dirty, high number of immigrants and in general in disrepair and apparently abandoned by the local administration.
Getting TO the velodrome however, except the last kilometer or so was quite nice.
Shortly after leaving Geraardsbergen I joined one of the train track bicycle roads.
In Ronse (another Flemish town with a lot of cycling history), I had my first stop and stocked up on a baguette, which is really ideal. My cycling shirt even comes with a dedicated bag for it:
And while it is not too comfortable walking with it, riding feels great. The baguette gently resting on my back waiting to get inside the belly.
It had to wait until I made it to the canal, the first canal in a lot of days (since the Lorraine) and the first flat canal probably since leaving the Netherlands. Yes, there are a few sluices, but nothing to compare to the sluice infestation in Alsace and Lorraine, where the canal had to overcome a proper mountain.
This canal a little bit later bifurcated and a smaller one went straight to Roubaix. The border as such wasn’t indicated, but it must have been where the tarmac ended and a fine gravel started, which was fine though.
After the visit to the velodrome the next fine part of the ride was only in Belgium once back on a canal towards Kortrijk. Crossing Roubaix and the towns around it however was quite awful. Truth be told, there were mostly some kind of cycleways and some weren’t really that bad. There was one along a small canal, and another one shared with the public buses, which was actually quite fine, because it had separate traffic lights and there weren’t that many buses. I think actually none in the time I used it. But the problem was just generally the traffic, the pollution, the chaos and a constant search for if there is a cycle lane, where does it continue, how to get there…
What a contrast the canal made! Peaceful quietness, no cars, good tarmac, continuous riding, leafy trees, no stress.
And this canal brought me right into the middle of Kortrijk which so far was the best place for utilitarian cycling in Belgium. Without a lot of infrastructure but a simple rule, the city administration achieved a very cycling friendly city center:
Cars are allowed maximum 30 km/h PLUS they are not allowed to overtake any cyclist!
And the effect was immediately visible, the city was teeming with cyclists of all kind.
And Kortrijk also had a nice center:
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