TdE - Day 44 World Championship in Leuven

Route: Tienen - Leuven - Tienen
Distance: 
     Susanne: 0 km
     Julian Alaphilippe: 276 km
Train: 40 km
Duration: 5:56:34 h (Julian Alaphilippe) 
Weather: sun and clouds, a bit colder but no rain

Today was I think the first rest day for me in 44 days of cycling through Europe, but only because I had other people cycle for me. Including the eventual two times world champion Julian Alaphilippe: 

But not only him, the local hero WVA (Wout van Aert) also came by a total of 8 times…

As well as MvdP (Mathieu van der Poel) his “nemesis” from the Netherlands and not loved by the crowd along the street:

I found out about a good week ago, that the World Championships would be at Leuven, right at the time when I would be in Belgium. So instead of using a more direct route from the Ardennes back to the Netherlands (and probably just arriving back home a few days earlier), I did hang around in Belgium in the last days slowly and indirectly approaching the Leuven area. 

After seeing yesterday the women's World Championship from the side of the road in the Flandrien loop, i.e. outside in the countryside on a cobbled climb, for the men's event, I decided to head to Leuven city center, where they had a loop that they would pass a total of 8 (!) times as part of a much longer race, which started in Antwerp, heading to Leuven and the first city loop, then out into the countryside around Overijse for 2 loops, than back to the city for 4 loops, back again to Overijse for a bit more hills and cobbles out there before coming back for 3 more loops and the finish line in Leuven. 

I had targeted the Saint Antoniusberg for viewing the race, but it turned out that no spectators where allowed on that rather narrow climb, so I took a spot in the street on the top of the Saint Antoniusberg, just about 1,6 km from the eventual finish line. 

I went to Leuven by train, which was definitely a good idea. A bicycle in the city would just have been a hindrance, although there were more than enough people around with a bike. The city was full with spectators lining the streets, but surprisingly the trains weren't that incredibly crowded. I even got a seat both on the way in and out of Leuven. 

One of the riders, Tom Pidcock, after the race said that it felt more like racing in a stadium (because of the cheering crowds) rather than racing on the open streets. And yes, people were chanting a lot along the road where I was. Mainly "Woutje Van Aert", some also "Forza Remco" and others were more supportive of Yves Lampaert, but the main roar was for WVA. While when Mathieu van der Poel passed the crowd generally was booing. Strangely enough they didn't show the same animosity towards other riders of other nations, so apparently for the Flemish fans it was a Netherlands against Flandern race. I say "Flandern" not "Belgium", because I think there was not a single rider in the Belgium squad who was from Wallonia. 

The peloton got smaller and smaller with each round, clearly a lot of the riders were drawing out of the race once their part of the job was done. A few rolled through very relaxed, greeting the crowd and enjoying the atmosphere... others looked utterly done in.

Julian Alaphilippe attacked right on the Saint Antoniusberg in the last but one lap and got a distance quite quickly. Already by the time he was were I was standing, maybe 200 m after the end of that berg, he was clear from the reduced bunch (of I think 17 riders, containing all the favorites), and they didn't manage to catch him in the remaining lap. The people along the street were not happy with that. Right opposite to where I was standing was a bar with a small TV set screening the World Championships, which was great, specially for this final loop. And as we watched Julian Alaphilippe staying away from the bunch, the mood got more gloomy and the "Woutje van Aert" chorus died. When Julian Alaphilippe, still the sole leader came by a last time just a bit over 1 km from the finish line half of the crowd was actually booing... while the other half (me included) was animating and applauding him. He got there first anyway. 

There were however also non Belgians along the road:

BTW, this is how the ride into the city looked like when I first came to Leuven walking from the station into town:

Real cycling fans might not be surprised, but I was. Instead of using team bicycles, e.g. a bicycle of the Belgian national team all cyclists were using their "own" bicycles from their normal teams, as one can observe on these pictures of team mates from Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium respectively. 

They even had different sponsors for their bib shorts, e.g. Quebeka and Bahrain Victorius the two Italian riders above. While the shirt seemed to be the national shirt. 

In retrospective, probably a logical thing, as you are used to THAT bicycle, and not just any bicycle, but must be a logistical nightmare for the mechanics to have that many different bike brands and components to care for.

As I didn't ride a single meter today... here the Strava from someone who did ride:

TdE - Day 43 Elewijt - Tienen

Route: Elewijt - Huldenberg (World Championship) - Tienen
Distance: 61 km
Elevation: 521 m
Duration: 4:00 h
Weather: very sunny, 20 C (but felt hotter in the sun)

Somewhere midway through my cycling trip through Europe I learned that this weekend there would be the World Championship of road racing in Belgium!

Marianne Vos, would ultimately be just second and be really disappointed 

… And I was most likely going to be in Belgium at the time. I no longer got a as room at Leuven, but Tienen isn’t far away and has a direct train line to Leuven, which I plan to take tomorrow (to watch the men’s race in town), but today I went out to what is called the “Flandrien circuit” a bit to the South of Leuven in a hilly part around Overijse (a name I first heard about half a year ago when watching my first cyclocross races - from the comfort of my sofa). 

Today I planned my day MUCH better than yesterday, and arrived with ample time in the area of the circuit. Actually I thought that I arrived with even more time to spare than I actually did. I hadn’t realized that they close the course more than 2 hours before the riders would come through. 

Initially I had planned to view the race from the Smyesberg, the only hill the women would do twice…

…but when I came there, there were no spectators yet lined up, so I just went up (pushing the bike) and over it, following the official route. But already at the next climb, the Moskesstraat, the route got closed off. But this was actually great timing, because  this was such a Flandrien climb: short, sharp, cobbled and narrow (and crucially for me: in the shade), so I decided to stay there. 

When I decided to stop, I was virtually the first spectator on that hill. And that was totally fine with me. I had enough water on the bike (for which I found a good enough space along the climb) and I had bought a sandwich shortly after my hotel, and I even found a reasonably comfortable twig on which to sit… so I relaxed at the wayside, observing the preparations until a few more spectators arrived:

And the second mechanic of the Swiss team with two replacement wheels, but no Allen key, which he borrowed from a spectator.

Then at some point also the official photojournalist arrived and searched for the ideal place where to stain themselves. And after even more time, finally the peloton: 

The peloton did not pass without difficulties this climb. Demi Vollering had gearing issues and needed to push up her bike! 

What was interesting on this second hill of the Flandrien course, the time difference between the first and last rider was probably something like 3 minutes. Compare that to the time difference at the end of the Flandrien circuit. 

When all had passed I slowly took my bike, pushed it up the rest of the hill and then set course towards Tienen, but after not that much I crossed again the course and the professional cyclists hadn’t arrived yet! So I waited with some other spectators there. This was after all the Flandrien hills and from there they would head back through relatively flat terrain to Leuven for the final hills. What was surprising that by then big distances between the different groups on the road had opened. By then the peloton was split in several groups (echelons, only that it wasn’t really windy) plus a good number of solo riders struggling to find a group with whom to ride. I think the time difference at this point was more like 15 minutes between first and last rider. Waiting for them to pass I also was again very happy about my prior decision to have the main view on the shady cobbled climb. In the plain sun it was really hot! 

Once all of the riders had passed, we, the spectators got on our bikes and rode on. 

The second part of my ride was much like a Paris - Roubaix with a lot of cobbles and even some gravel roads, but that seems to be the price to pay in Belgium for cycling on roads with little car traffic. 

When writing this post I was really surprised about the elevation, over 500 m! Really? Yes, there were the two climbs of the world championship (that I pushed my bicycle up), and the terrain was a bit rolling… but 500 m ??? Either it is wrong, or it says a lot about just how flat the Netherlands are. Not sure I will enjoy riding in that flat terrain again just as much as I did before setting out for this 5+ week trip through Europe. 

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 36 Martelange - La Roche en Ardennes

Route: Martelange - Bastogne - La Roche en Ardennes 
Distance: 72 km
Elevation: 537 m
Duration: 4:19 h
Weather: sunny but not too hot, 19 C

Today right into the Ardennes, and well, I have to admit they are very nice indeed!

Actually much nicer than the picture above. I wasn’t very capable of converting the nice landscape also in nice pictures. Probably the nicest valley was the one just leasing into La Roche en Ardennes. 

My hotel tonight was on the top of a very steep hill, and even after breakfast the clouds were still hanging low in the fields. 

So the day started with a steep descent back into the valley where I would rejoin EuroVelo 5 route. In contract to Luxembourg here in Belgium the route is very well indicated. 

Nevertheless the first 15 or so km were a bit hard, not because of any incline/descent but because of the road surface. (I actually didn’t take a picture of the worst parts of the path, were it was covers in huge rocks and I had to push the bike)

When I finally hit asphalt again, it was the smoothest tarmac ever! Such a beauty:

And actually for Belgium this was so far the best tarmac, as a lot of the smaller streets are a bit deteriorated. But more about that in a future post. 

I had planned my first stop of the day in Bastogne, at about 25 km. I am always planning ahead where are bakeries or restaurants so not to run out of calories (and rest stops). Bastogne was at a great distance as a first stop. What I didn’t know that the would be a cycling race (probably of under 19s) starting in the center of Bastogne shortly after I arrived. When I first came into the city on an other one of these rather uncompacted gravel roads, I noticed a lot of cyclists in team gear. I thought that maybe some teams are training there, but actually it was the last few minutes before their race. So I witnessed the “depart fictif” …

Within minutes of the depart everyone, all the team cars had left and I went to a local bakery which had been my objective for even going into town and got myself a tartlet and a huge baguette. It turns out that in Belgium baguettes (ie sandwiches) are prepared at the moment instead of already lying around since hours waiting for someone who wasn’t exactly this kind of sandwich. The one I had prepared was with salmon and really good (and enormous, although I had taken the smaller one). 

On through the rolling terrain and small villages where many people were busy mowing their lawn or cutting too precision their hedges, both seem to be a Belgian obsession. 

My accommodation for tonight was in La Roche en Ardennes, a small town I had never heard of before, but which seems to be THE center of an outdoor activities in the Ardennes. Coming to my hotel I did cross some incredibly dirty MTB riders (all male I think), and down at the river, there were lots of kayaks waiting for the next day. 

However for being a Saturday with really nice weather there weren’t a lot of cyclists on my route today. I am on an official EuroVelo route, but nevertheless I meet maybe 1 or 2 other long distance riders per day. So different from the Danube or the Altmühl where it was sometimes even too much to greet all of them. Not only cyclotourists were missing, even just plain normal cyclists weren’t around either. Until hitting La Roche, where all the MTB guys were rolling around.

I was lucky that I still got a room at La Roche, as it seemed to be very popular. Most of my bookings I do though Booking.com, but they had nothing available for this town, so I searched on Google maps and mailed a few of the hotels and only one answered with some availability. But it was nice enough. An old, big hotel overlooking the valley. 

In the late afternoon/evening I went down into the village, which is spotted with tanks from the offensive of the Ardennes. (One of them actually right in front of my hotel.) 

But the village itself is quite nice. 

TdE - Day 34 Kitzing - Luxembourg

Route: Kitzing - Schengen - Luxembourg 
Distance: 51 km
Elevation: 497 m
Duration: 3:23 h
Weather: Sun and clouds and for the Forest time a bit chilly, 19 C 

Today I crossed so many boarders! France to Germany only to leave Germany again after less than a kilometer and cross over a bridge into Luxemburg, nothing less than to Schengen. And later in the day crossing again into France, without really noticing it, until I came by the typical French “mairie” and “liberté, égalité, fraternité” signs so ubiquitous in France. But my path quickly turned back into Luxemburg. 

Around Schengen a lot of streets were kind of closed for some Rally by Skoda. Or so I thought. I just saw “Skoda” and “road closure due to race”, so I assumed it would be a car rally. But I was wrong, but pure change I had a break right along the route when the race came by. 

 

First a lot of cars with spare bikes, then more police, then the peloton of the Tour de Luxembourg… and finally a LOT more cars.

I had no idea that the Tour de Luxembourg was underway, and even less so that they would use parts of MY route! 

So I got to see my first bike race of the year swooping by me. And although I had a lunch stop underway I was at my hotel before they made it to their destination, so I could watch the last 16 km of the race live on GCN!

I continued on over the false flat landscape of Luxembourg. It’s true that once I had managed to push up the bike the steep incline close to Schengen, the rest of Luxembourg is relatively flat, but RELATIVELY flat only. From a Dutch perspective still quite a lot of up and downs. The landscape of the rest of Europe really puts the Dutch landscape into perspective. That kind of flatness is NOT normal. 

Close to Luxembourg city Komoot planned for me the cycle path on the left, but luckily on the other side of that small river was a well asphalted one, reserved for cyclists and pedestrians. 

And that’s how I came into the city and my basic Ibis hotel by the station, where Roubaix can sleep with me:

After a shower and washing my clothes I went by foot to explore the city. Somehow I had imagined Luxembourg as this fabulously rich country, where everything would be extremely posh and emanate wealth, but that isn’t really the case. It seems a pretty normal city, and I still wonder why it is a UNESCO world heritage site. Probably every country has a right to at least one UNESCO site and Luxembourg tried with it capital. 

What was nice though is the view from a bridge down into the deep valley that divides the city and has been planted to be a garden. 

Luxembourg, both the city, but also smaller villages all seems to be under construction. Everywhere construction workers, machinery, closed streets…the local tourist office of Luxembourg city was no exception.