TdE - Day 42 Gent - Elewijt

Route: Gent - Schelde - Dendermonde - Mechelen - Elewijt 
Distance: 88 km
Elevation: 136 m
Duration: 4:43 h
Weather: Sun and clouds, and a bit windy, 20 C 

Frankly speaking, today was a rather unremarkable day, probably also because I missed the planned highlight of the day, as I started WAY too late. Bad planning…

So the planned highlight was to try to see the U23 men road race world championships somewhere between Antwerpen and Leuven, probably around Bonheiden or Keerbergen, which are both after Mechelen… only that Mechelen was at nearly 80 km from Gent, and I didn’t stay in Gent before 10ish… which was definitely too late for me to make it all the way. 

Apart from this, the Ride was quite similar to riding in the Netherlands: rivers, canals, dikes and wind. 

Only in Dendermonde I took a probably wrong decision to already cross the Schelde in order to avoid a ferry crossing where or seemed that the ferry would travel only once an hour… But the Schelde on the Dendermonde side doesn’t really have a cycling way. So for some time I was stuck in heavy traffic (on a cycling path which was just about acceptable but not nice not good). 

Only later I made it on a cycling path along a train line which was only for cyclists… but it had to cross the train line a bit too frequently, so that one couldn’t really just ride on. 

Today I also found the second bucket of utilitarian cyclists in Belgium: in Mechelen! I only crossed the city on a canal, but wow was there bicycle traffic! I mean, just normal amount from a Dutch perspective, but not sure I crossed any other city on my trip with that many cyclists around and about.

The night today I am spending in a congress hotel, somewhere not too far from Mechelen, the highway and the airport. 

When I checked in, the receptionist informed me that there is also a fitness area… but I think that 88 km of cycling is sufficient fitness for a day… so instead I switched on the television and watched the last 30ish kilometer of the bike race, while washing my kit (with the hotel’s rubber duck).

TdE - Day 41 Kortrijk - Gent

Route: Kortrijk - Oude Kwaremont - Paterberg - Koppenberg - Oudenaarde - Gent
Distance: 79 km 
Elevation: 296 m
Duration: 4:19 h
Weather: sunny and some clouds, more in the afternoon, 20 C

Well, so I have to admit that sometimes I am in delay with my “homework” and this is one of these posts. So instead of writing it actually on the evening after climbing the Oude Kwaremont, the Paterberg and the Koppenberg, I am writing this while sitting on the pavement close to the Saint Antoinusberg in Leuven, waiting for the men’s World Championship to pass for the second time. 

But back to this ride, which took me over some pretty iconic climbs in Flandern, all three of them cobbled climbs. 

The first, Oude Kwaremont was actually reusable for me (and my luggage), this one being at an average of 4% and a maximum of 11,6 % (on cobbles!). The other two where much steeper with an rebate of 11% or 12 % and a maximum gradient of over 20% both of them. Who invented such hills? And then paves them with cobbles???

But then I was also able to ride over the pictures of Fabio Cancellara, Tom Boonen and Johan Museeuw on the top of the Paterberg. 

I wasn’t always a cycling aficionado, when living in Spain I was definitely following football and not cycling, but since rediscovering my love for cycling (myself, not necessarily watching others doing it), I got more into cycling and since last year watched my fair share of cycling races (on TV). So it was special to ride up (or push up) MY bike on a climb I had seen several times in television already, seeing the curve at the top of Paterberg … or the other day, seeing the chapel on top of the Muur. Something like being able to play football in a proper stadium. Maybe not like playing football in the Camp Nou, that would probably bring riding up the Stelvio , but still…

The day however started in the flat along a canal out from Kortrijk to the Schelde river. 

And if I hadn’t actively chosen to see/ride those three iconic bergs, the ride from Kortrijk to Gent would have been pretty flat, just along canals and rivers. 

I also came through Oudenaarde, an other city with cycling races named after it. 

And the night I spent together with Roubaix in a apartment hotel in the center of Gent …

… and tried an other version of Kwaremont.

TdE - Day 40 Geraardsbergen - Kortrijk

Route: Geraardsbergen - Ronse - Roubaix - Wevelgem - Kortrijk
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:

TdE - Day 39 Waterloo - Geraardsbergen

Route: Waterloo - Bosberg - The Muur - Geraardsbergen
Distance: 72 km
Elevation: 722 m
Duration: 4:52 h
Weather: nice and sunny, but the temperatures are getting more autumn-like, 18 C

While until now I have been following my original plan (more or less), from today and until next weekend I am “free” to make new plans. And being in Belgium in the week of the UCI world championships, Belgium the country most crazy about cycling (see the spectators waiting on the road side hours before a minor race, I came across 2 days ago…), well what better to do than to visit some of these iconic places of Flanders cycling: The Muur!

Admittedly I didn’t ride it all up, but actually there was probably only a short part that would really have been impossible for me to ride up (the same part that I also felt was impossible to ride DOWN!) and I think that I was able to ride it up quite far. More than I would have thought. 

Before the Muur, I had already been up on the Bosberg, but I came from a different direction than the famous cobbled climb, which was still a challenging climb, but without cobbles… but I did get the cobbles for the descent. That’s not much better either! 

Talking about road conditions in Belgium this is probably a good place to rant a bit. There are essentially 3 types of cyclable  roads in Belgium:

1) Well planned cycling roads e.g. along canals or on old railway tracks.

2) “Bicycle paths” from hell. These are official bicycle paths that varyingly have: 

• No space to the cars, but a white line that seems to make drivers think that it is okay NOT to give you any space.
• Debris or challenging surfaces (see also below)
• Start or end in the middle of nowhere
• Take up all/most of the sidewalk not giving space to pedestrians

3) Small or medium sized roads that theoretically would be okay for cycling, if it weren’t for the challenging road surfaces, and I don’t mean the cobbles, which are challenging, but willingly so. No, I mean potholes and stripes “of death” in the middle of the road. (The examples below aren’t even the worst I came across, literally)

So really no wonder that Belgium excelled at cyclocross. It is a necessary skill to be able to ride on the roads!

In Flanders the cycling paths are also less well indicated, compared to the Belgian Ardennes and Wallonia (Or Elsass or Germany). But here the knooppunt system similar to the Netherlands is being used, but without maps printed and hung at important road junctions. And you never know, if your knooppunkt brings you over the death traps of bicycle paths, cobbles or a beautiful lane far away from the traffic.

So specially on descents one needs to pay more attention to the road than I would normally do. 

But well, besides the roads nice panoramas await:

Before I forget, also today there was time for a second breakfast and it so happened, that a palace with a rose garden was around the corner:

My accommodation for the night is also in a small castle, right outside of Geraardsbergen:

TdE - Day 32 Lutzelbourg - Saarbrücken

Route: Lutzelbourg - Rhein-Marne Canal - Saar canal - Saarbrücken 
Distance: 123 km

Elevation: 358 m
Duration: 6:07 h
Weather: cloudy and humid, only a little bit of drizzle later in the day, 21 C

After the relative test day of yesterday, today the first 100+ km day of September! Normally I now ride at least one if not two 100+ km rides on a weekend, back at home in the Netherlands, but it is a difference if riding completely in the flat, without any baggage and with less kilometers in the legs from the previous days. But still, I managed the 100+ km today. 

The day started with an exceptionally poor breakfast. Old bread, old pain au chocolate, an orange juice that didn’t taste too well… all in all probably the worst hotel I have had on the entire trip. Luckily in the small village of Lutzelbourg there was a bakery so after breakfast and before departing I went there and got a TASTY pain au chocolate plus a sandwich. 

And then I set off along the same canal I had come riding up yesterday afternoon, now getting higher and higher into the Vosges, which for a canal means a LOT of sluices! Sometimes so many that one could see the next sluice hut from the previous one. 

And always a well maintained bicycle path alongside. With surprisingly little cycling tourists. Considering the nice, gently upsloping path through the nature, far away from any traffic for miles and miles. 

For the ships there is now an elevator, constructed some 50 or so years ago, which bypasses another many sluices and apparently reduced the travel time by an entire day. 

I haven’t seen it in action though. 

What I did see is where the canal disappears into a tunnel, and where as a cyclist the hardest part of the ride starts, because there is no tunnel for cyclists, we are “forced” to ride OVER the mountain! 

The tunnel wasn’t the only engineering master work, there were also bridges OVER which the canal flowed. 

A huge investment into all the canals, clearly indicating the economic relevance of the black gold found in the region, which is still being extracted to the day. 

Also in order to habe enought for the canals, there were huge artificial lakes often along side the canal, but the region is apparently so remote that these lakes don’t get used for major outdoor activities.

Here a schematic presentation of the Saar canal, its sluices and the water reservoirs:

But enough about engineering and back to cycling… This was me and good “young” Roubaix on the top of the climb and I rewarded myself with the pain au chocolate. 

From there in general terms downwards, but it isn’t so easy, there are always some small ups and downs, when leaving the canal. 

At some time I wanted to have a break and didn’t find a bench along the canal but saw one of the few villages that I encountered and stopped in front of the local church. Luckily in the same village there was also a bakery which doubled up as basic grocery shop, and I could restock with one more sandwich (with foie gras) some Haribos and water. 

The region itself was incredibly unpopulated. Only a few small villages and not a lot along the canal. Luckily I hadn’t planned on having lunch in a restaurant along the canal, as that could have been a difficult search. 

Only shortly before Saarbrücken does the canal become ugly due to industry and parallel highway. But more of that tomorrow. 

TdE - Day 31 Breuschwickersheim - Lutzelbourg

Route: Breuschwickersheim - Marmoutier - Lutzelbourg
Distance: 45 km
Elevation: 437 m
Duration: 2:50 h
Weather: very sunny, but not that hot, 22 C 

Today was kind of a rest day, just 45 km in a day and a long test on a bench in front of this church:

The day started late after a breakfast at 9:15 on a small terrace in front of my gîte accommodation. Finally I started shortly after 11:00, probably the latest start of the entire tour. But the plan for today was quite short on purpose, to relax and now I feel ready for over 100 km tomorrow. 

After a short time I ended up in the middle of some major road works, but luckily and with the permission of the workers I was able to use their service roads so I didn’t need to find an alternative or mingle with the real traffic. 

A little bit later I rejoined a cycle path which was running on old train tracks, which is such a comfortable way of cycling. Even better than canals, because the landscape in general is more varied, i.e. not continuously along a canal. 

Shortly before Marmoutier I met an other cyclist and he a restaurant at Marmoutier where he was going to meet his mother for lunch, and yes it was as very nice place for lunch. In that village there was also this originally medieval church, but inside it wasn’t very interesting. 

In contrast to the last two days there weren’ta lot of vineyards today, but normal fields and getting closer to the Vosges, and starting to enter them. After Saverne I joined the Marne-Rhein canal which is an engineering achievement with a lot of sluices in order to get up through the Vosges and over to a canal towards the Saar. Today it seems to be only used by pleasure boats, but originally it was built in order to transport building material from the mountains to Strasburg. 

Each sluice makes an enormous step as one can see in this “before - after” picture: