Somebody has decided to repair a 10 metre stretch of Grand Chemin (the big path)
It is a former roman road that runs through our patch, a mix of cobbles and dirt paths, most of which are unfit for normal car and road bike use. Some of it is almost unusable except for tractors in winter.
I use it all the time as it links loads of useful tracks and trails. Even on road bikes we sometimes ride this way on the grass verge in dry weather, you can just see the worn patch we all use in the picture below.
But repair it? That would be something entirely odd.
These are the stones on the approach.
And these are the stones on the other side.
And just the road there are some much worse sections that look like nobody has replaced a single stone for several centuries. One of the reasons I like it up here is because you can almost visualise the French and Prussian skirmishers who moved through here en route to the Battle of Waterloo, it won’t have changed much.
So why these few distinct stones? Why do they deserve maintenance in a country where the quality of a road surface is a lottery?
Curious indeed. I expect nothing less than a magic carpet ride when the work is done.
Another enjoyable Belgian summer day out at the Jardins d’Annevoie.
This delightful place is a few kilometres north of Dinant, in the valley of the Meuse as it runs north between the French border and Namur.
Since the eighteenth century the gardens and chateau have been in the hands of the same family who have built an elegant network of gravity fed lakes, ponds, waterfalls and fountains in various styles representing the various fashions of formal gardening in the intervening 250 years.
It was tranquil and relaxing when we took friends to visit, like so many places in Belgium it is largely unknown outside the country and only gets busy in the height of summer.
I have to recommend the restaurant with its terrace overlooking the gardens too, the locally caught trout was delicious.
There is a cruel and extremely patronising saying in English “bet you can’t name five famous Belgians” which is a rude way of decrying the impact this country has had on the world.
However when tested sadly most of us can’t. Especially when we discover detective Hercule Poirot doesn’t count because he is fictional and cyclists are banned from rattling off anyone other than Eddie Merckx on the grounds that nobody outside our world has heard of Rik Van Looy.
Hergé, Rene Magritte?
A recent trip to Dinant in Wallonia threw up a name who deservedly needs to be on any list of people who have made an impact on the world far beyond their shores.
Where would my “Music to ride Bike By” be without Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street”, Pink Floyd’s “Us and them” and the Clarence Clemen’s solo on Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s “Jungleland”?
What links these seemingly disparate pieces of music? The saxophone. Invention of Alolphe Sax from Dinant in 1846 which makes him by far this region’s most famous son. Best saxophone solos ever? That’s a topic that keeps lots of lists going on the blogosphere.
Dinant itself should be an attractive place in the valley of the Meuse south of Wallonia’s capital Namur but it has a slightly down-at-heel atmosphere which reflects the economic reality of southern Belgium. Things are fairly tough in a region that once depended on coal, steel and shipping down the river which still acts as a freight route. Tourism is doing its best and the riverside is being gentrified to complement the Notre Dame Church and the imposing Citadel which overlooks the town.
The dark grey stone doesn’t help the scene, it looks slightly overcast even on a bright day. By far the most colourful scene in the town was the bridge named after Charles de Gaulle because the future French president picked up a war wound here during the first World War.
Here Sax was being celebrated with a colourful display of 28 painted saxophones, each painted to represent a country of the EU and the EU itself.
It is nice to go somewhere else this year where you just end up smiling and humming to yourself, it gives Dinant that something special, and I would much rather be in a place that should burst into a chorus of “Jungleland” than the “Sound of Music”.
Web site Famousbelgians.net agrees, they have Sax at number 2 after Eddie Merckx in their role of honour. That is almost perfect for Idonotdespair –cycling followed by music. Bring it on boys.
Collecting a bunch of flowers on my way home from work today I discovered the only way I could carry them home was in the small rucksack I had in my saddlebag.
So drivers and pedestrians travelling near Rixensart this evening were slightly surprised to see a bunch of flowers carefully riding a bike. On closer observation they turned out to have a man underneath.
Interesting observation.
I got lots of eye contact. The men gave me the look they save for the village idiot.
However the women all smiled.
Clearly this only of interest to you single folks, for me it is entirely academic research into cycling cultures. Honest.
There’s nothing unique about today. We didn’t go further than usual, it wasn’t especially hilly. We just cruised the rolling countryside to the South West of where we live. But it was just the perfect way to spend a cycling morning.
Just over 90 minutes into today’s club ride a thought popped into my head. I couldn’t recall us passing any moving cars, from the front or the rear. There might have been one in Ottignies at the start of the ride by the station, but after that I think we opened up with about 30 traffic free kilometres.
It was almost windless so that the even the giant turbines out in the flatlands were still. And if there is sound I can recall beyond the clicking of freewheels it is the sound of skylarks above the fields which are almost ready for harvest.
Some of that was definitely the wonderful network of tiny lanes found by our ride leader but also it reflects how sleepy rural Belgium is on a Sunday morning, especially a hot summer’s day when so many people are on holiday. The villages and farms were no more active than Spain during siesta. Imagine that just 50km from London, or indeed most big cities.
When we first came here it all seemed a bit old fashioned. No Sunday shopping. A ban on noisy implements on a Sunday – so no diy, lawnmowers or hedge cutters. Now we welcome the wonderful tranquillity and the fact that there is no incentive at all for anyone to get up early.
Except the cyclists. I wondered if our group would decline during holiday season but when I rolled up to the station meeting point for 8am if anything it was bigger than usual, well over 60. So in addition to the wonderful riding conditions there was lots of company for our 85km spin.
Not much chance for quality photography in a cruising club-run so only a few atmosphere shots on the mobile as usual.
Music of the day? When I am spinning in a group I am usually concentrating but to today I was so relaxed the music just flowed. What to recommend for “Music to Ride Bikes By”? Lou Reed and Perfect Day seems a bit obvious, but I did manage a few verses. So that’s a good start.
Much better “Summer’s here and the time is right, for cycling in the streets”. At least that’s what Martha Reeves and the Vandellas could have sung. For sheer exuberance let’s take the 1985 Live Aid version which was running through my head for hours today.
A small favour prompted me to revisit this classic Monty Python sketch.
I usually enjoy playing at Bicycle Repair Man, the opportunity to give someone back their cycling through a small tweak or adjustment or fitting a spare that I just happen to have in the shed. Last week it was a tweak to brakes and gears and my colleague was off.
However while I am happily tweaking other people’s bikes I am deeply in need of a bit of BRM magic myself. How would our hero have coped with the complexity and diversity of modern bikes? I have spent absolutely hours going nowhere in the last few weeks on just one bike while it holds up painful decisions on other machines.
The main problem is my clunker, the work bike that I actually do most of my miles on. It is a carefully crafted beast because it combines lots of thrown together parts that create a bike that looks really ugly but actually has exactly what I need. With a good layer of dirt and grease on top it is the machine nobody wants to steal, although I do get looks on the train that are almost as dirty as the bike. But it can do almost anything from the daily commute to low level mountain biking in all weathers.
Each incarnation has had a rigid MTB frame (currently a Giant Granite) and fat sturdy puncture-proof tyres from Schwalbe (Marathon Plus) which I ride until something falls apart. The main investment is the rear wheel where I use good quality, otherwise everything else is where I do my experiments, bodging together all sorts of combinations. I have learnt so much passing these bits from frame to frame over the years I reckon I can make most things work.
However this winter played hell with the machinery and in the last few weeks everything decided to pack up at once. The chain and sprockets finally got to the point where I was selecting about 3 gears from 24 and the bottom bracket was making ominous noises.
I spent hours in the shed trying to combine every set of chainrings and cranks I had into something that would work but there’s not a lot of point when the teeth barely exist.
Got that sorted eventually (spent money – hate that) but a week later the bottom bracket just seized with some suitably horrible crunching, fortunately just a short distance from home. I was about to start replacing that when I noticed a crack in the frame, so it has finally bit the dust, not bad for a machine of unknown history found abandoned in a Reading park several years ago.
New frame then.
Off to Cyclo, the well thought of bike recycler in Brussels that takes all the old bikes off the street and operates a social enterprise and community workshop in search of a frame.
What a treasure trove, buzzing with customers and atmosphere. Hundreds of bikes of all styles and vintages waiting to for buyers, most €100-€200. I would love to have had a few hours in there, I am sure there were some classics waiting to emerge.
However it was a practical visit and I was treated to a trip down the basement where the recently arrived and unused bikes were stashed. It was actually pretty easy, within minutes we had found a scratched and battered MTB frame with a bottom bracket and headset that looked just the job.
Back to the office on the metro and then I entertained the office when I set off for the station with my burden.
Nothing unusual about that in my mind, they obviously haven’t met enough bike bodgers here. Next stage of the chaos then ensued because SNCB had managed to cancel one train and tried to force two trainloads of passengers onto one half sized train. The bloke with two dirty bikes got lots of cautious looks from anyone wearing pale summer clothes although there was general good humour about my antics, climbing in and out at every stop with both machines to let people on and off.
But no matter how painful the process had been so far I now needed the satisfaction of getting the project moving properly to put the wasted hours behind me. So off to the shed.
I was actually making reasonable progress until I got to my final job of the night. Putting the wheels into the frame to set up the brakes..
I then stood back in amazement. I was going mad. The wheels had shrunk. Nothing would line up.
And slowly it dawned on me that the frame may have looked in every aspect like an MTB, but it was actually a typical continental trekking-bike set up, 700C touring wheels in a MTB set-up.
Arrggghhh – fallen into the incompatibility trap. And in this case one with a special Belgian twist. A check on the internet showed that indeed the Diamond Galaxy is a Belgian made trekker, not an MTB.
I spent last night and all my bike ride to work this morning stewing, cogitating and creating. Don’t have a plan yet – I need a sprinkle of some BRM magic.
Three types of brake possible but maybe not a full set of each, loads of wheels with umpteen gears, few of which are compatible with each other or maybe I can use it as the tourer for which it was designed and I’ll start again on a new work bike.
There is the common sense “take it back and try again” option, but that breaks just too many rules.
Thank goodness it doesn’t involve my other current maintenance hates – mainly hydraulic disk brakes. If you really want to annoy me just now put a post in a forum describing in detail a simple process that requires me to buy a kit, read about, understand and buy loads of different incompatible oils and widgets for two separate bikes and then enjoy fiddling with it for hours. Oh really? Please – wires and levers of single design – please!
Bicycle Repair Man you had it easy when bikes were black and the only thing involving pressures was a quick squeeze on the tyres. But you are still our hero and I’ll be reminded of you the next time I can tweak something that puts someone back on the road.
Our first Fête nationale belge, the Belgian National Day. To be precise our first National Weekend, because this year the 21st July fell on a Sunday enabling a whole weekend of festivities across the country, not least in the centre of Bourgeois, a small town centre/suburb of Rixensart near to where we live.
Special occasion this year because this year the festivities saw the abdication of King Albert and the swearing in of the new King of the Belgians, King Philippe, all carefully choreographed around the national day.
There are several elements that made this interesting from the perspective of a new resident or visitor.
We have been talking about the great sense of community spirit that seems to exist all over Belgium. Not just for National Day either, not a weekend goes by without a succession of fêtes, brocantes (street markets), kermesse, music, food or sports activities.
As I cycled around the countryside on Sunday morning with the local club we saw flags hanging form windows and we even got diverted away from one village to allow the marching band to march down the high street.
The event we went to at Bourgeois was on quite a scale for a small town centre. The bands booked were extremely good, most of them normally playing much bigger gigs than the 2000 or so people in the square. Lots of food tents, several bars, thoroughly enjoyable. A stunning weekend too, wobbling back home on our bikes after midnight under a full moon was glorious.
On the TV the swearing in ceremony for the King was an understated affair in the Parliament chamber, not the pomp and circumstance of British royalty or the American President’s inauguration. But from the TV it was clear that there were good crowds all day and the ending with the traditional fireworks over the palace was a good show. Colleagues who live in Brussels took their families along to watch the ceremonial parades and all had a good time by all accounts.
For us it is all part of picking up the flavour of our new home and enjoying our neighbours having a great time and showing their national pride without the undue jingoism or deference to monarchy that so annoys me back home.
As an Englishman I find myself reflecting our whole attitude to national days. There is little doubt there is a cultural cringe in England about our rather dodgy St George’s Day. Celebrations of a military figure who wasn’t remotely English that we share with dozens of other countries and cities. A symbol that has largely been adopted by right wing groups for insular nationalism. Then throw in a bit of further embarrassment about our colonial heritage and the need for nationhood is further weakened. And to be entirely practical having attended many St George’s Day parades as a Scout I can report that April 23rd is no day for a party, it has a habit of being freezing cold if not raining. So we just don’t do national day.
My first experience of a summer national day that showed me an alternative view was when I was about 17 years old and I stayed in Switzerland. August 1st on a hillside above Zurich with the barbeques cooking the wurst, the brass band playing and fireworks going off everywhere was a real eye opener.
I was in Whistler last year for Canada Day on July 1st and that was a lot of fun. Preparations for the Dutch National Day and their coronation earlier this year when I was in Almere, I gather that was a hell of a party lasting several days. The Belgian cycling TV commentators made much of the fact that Saturday was Columbian National Day and they expected a big celebration for the Columbian stage winner because they appreciated national day, just like the French hope for a winner on Bastille Day.
Since we Brits showed last summer that we really do love a big street party with the Olympics and the Jubilee and with the boom in outdoor festivals it seems clear to me that everywhere else seems to have captured the essential trick of celebrating in the right way at the right time. No surprise that 4th of July and 14th July are world renowned national holidays if they allow the country to have a summer day off and a lot of fun.
I think the best plan is to enjoy everybody else’s national days as a celebration of culture and heritage, especially the ones that avoid militarism and bombast, take place outdoors, in the summer with plenty of food, drink and music.
I think La Fête nationale belge, Belgische nationale feestdag, Belgischer Nationalfeiertag achieved that with a aplomb. Merci, dank u wel, dankeschön – as the new King now has to say every time he speaks to avoid upsetting one linguistic group or other.
About a year ago I wrote my Tale of Two Italian Cities post about how two cities just 50km apart could be so different were in attitude and approach to cycling.
I had a similar experience last weekend.
On Friday I got on a train from Brussels and travelled 40 minutes North.
On Monday I got left from the same station and travelled 40 minutes South.
In both cases I didn’t really have an opportunity to travel into the city centre so I had to draw my conclusions about cycling from the immediate vicinity of the station. You might do so too.
Go North
Go South
Maybe it is time to regain a little friendship from my colleagues in Flanders, for the apparent cycle friendly mecca is indeed Ghent.
The struggling cycling metropolis to our South is Lille, in France.
To its credit, it does have L’ville, an extremely good Bike Sharing system at the station, operated and supported by Decathlon cycling subsidiary B’Twin which is based in the city.
Personally I enjoyed my ride in the sunshine despite being limited to the industrial outskirts of the city but it is perhaps symptomatic of the limited progress by France as a transport cycling nation that the provision was very disjointed and there was such a woefully low expectation about cycle parking at this major transport hub.
Last Friday I was taken to the front line of a full on cycling row that has erupted in Flanders, finally forcing the Prime Minister who was on a foreign trip on to the front pages of De Standaard to insist that he “would be looking in to it”
I have to share this storm in the tiniest of teacups because I don’t think we would see anything like this anywhere else except in the cycle sports mad world that exists around Ghent. And the story also has the dumbest punchline.
The background to the story is common enough. The community in Gavere, about 10km south of Ghent have complained that the “wheeled terrorists” have taken over their riverside and that they are constantly afraid. We have heard that before in many countries, most recently in the UK where there is a simmering row about the numbers of cyclists on canal towpaths or around the Olympic Road Race circuit at Box Hill.
However the difference here is the scale and the political fallout as the “terrorists” hit back.
The battleground is a long wide and perfectly smooth traffic free path that follows the Scheldt south from Ghent for miles making a perfect environment for cycling and walking.
But its strengths are its weakness.
The smooth asphalt is a beautiful temptation for roadies to fly along at speed and the width means that the sort of club groups that are common in Belgium can travel down it in big echelons, especially at the weekend. And we are talking big, I see groups of 30-50 riders where I live and round Ghent I guess numbers are huge.
And speeds are high, as we rode the three of us were doing close to 20mph at times and we were passed by faster groups.
So out of the blue a series of white “rumble strips” – the now notorious ribbelstroken have appeared across the path.
The first row was apparently whether they were initiated by the municipality or by Waterwegen en Zeekanaal (waterway and sea canals) who manage the navigation. Had the mayor of Gavere exceeded his authority? Or does the fact that they are spread over a wider area implicate the navigation managers?
But regardless of the origins of the work the sports cyclists were soon up in arms that anybody would mess with their training route. With their influence it soon hit the pages of De Standard and ribbelstroken became a new hot topic. While we were out for a ride there was another newspaper photographer out for the evening getting background shots and pictures of the offending strips. His presence prompted a stop for a lively debate by the roadside.
By Monday it had got to the Prime Minister of Flanders Kris Peeters, far away in France on a visit to Le Tour. Another distinctly Flemish twist, when was the last time your Prime Minister nipped off to see the Tour in another country? Well it was all above board, he was there as a guest of DCM, the Flemish company that co-sponsors the Vacansoleil pro bike team in the tour, not a jolly of course.
He probably thought he was away from domestic concerns but in France he had the misfortune to be ambushed by Vancansoleil pro Thomas De Gendt who it turns out likes to use the offending route for his speed training.
I have to say that the prospect of one of the world’s top riders doing 50kmph down a riverside path probably confirms every local citizen’s worst prejudices about wheeled terrorists, but he certainly got the Prime Minister on the spot. So by Monday the ribbelstroken were right up there on the front page news of De Standaard right beside the pictures of Chris Froome and within the day the Mobility Minister was out there riding her bike up and down the towpath with the local cycling groups.
The punchline?
Well it looks like the Mobility Minister was discrete in her words when she said “It was not as dramatic as I had heard.”
Not dramatic? It was pathetic!
This is a country with some of the finest cobblestones on the planet. Cyclists go out of their way to race over the rumbly stuff. It is the world centre of cyclocross. And frankly Belgian road surfaces can at times be almost third world. Anybody who remotely considers himself to be a serious cyclist around Ghent should be laughing at the pathetic little ripples on the path.
In line skaters – yes, big disruption. Wheelchair users – definitely an issue. So yes the strips will be cut back to allow movement round the ends.
But the self-promoting hardest bike riders in Europe? Come on chaps, give us a break! Even the senior citizens ride didn’t bat an eyelid.
But the hard men of Ghent have spoken, apparently the experiment will not be continued.
As a result of an invitation from Vincent Meershaert of Traject Mobility Management in Ghent I spent last Friday evening on a scenic ride out from Ghent into the Flemish Ardennes and some bits of the Tour of Flanders race route.
Only my second time there on a bike after my visit in spring to watch the Tour itself so I was very much looking forward to new discoveries, especially with hosts who were rightly proud of their cycling heritage. I got an invitation because like Vincent I am one of the “odd guys”, people who work in the field of cycling for transport and mobility but who also have a love for sports cycling. That may not seem too strange to an English speaking audience but in Europe it is actually quite rare, they are usually two different worlds.
What a great way to start the weekend with a beautiful 80km route put together by Vincent’s colleague Kristof. And to see first-hand how big the Wielrenner (sports cyclist) culture is around Ghent, even though it was Friday after work there were lycra-clad riders all over the place, clearly enjoying a warm, if overcast evening.
However we were not the only ones out, we found this great group of “seniors” out by the Scheldt too.
The ride managed to throw in a whole mix of riding that seemed to capture the area extremely well. As we were returning from the ride Vincent and I were musing again on the fact that Belgium is so little known for cycle touring, a combination of lack of marketing and the competition from the surrounding countries I am sure.
The only people I know of who would consciously head for this area to ride bikes would all be like me, drawn by the legendary black and white images of mud covered racers battling across cobbles in the spring classics. (See earlier post about the Ronde Van Vlaanderen Museum on Oudenarde)
What we actually got was almost car free country lanes, excellent cycle paths, a 4 metre wide car free route along the river Scheldt and outstanding signposting and route choice. The tidy flower-filled villages and towns reflected the fact that this is a more prosperous area of Belgium and that civic pride is alive and well. Above all else the Belgians I ride with and talk to in both Flanders and Wallonia are genuinely surprised when I tell them the very best thing about being here is just how deserted the minor roads and lanes feel to a visitor and tonight was no exception. OK, we crossed some major roads but away from them it was peaceful cycling with almost no need to ride single file at all. Our group were sports cyclists, so our route took us well into the Flemish Ardennes by design, but flat earth riders could easily have stuck to the valleys for a very leisurely and attractive tour.
None of the climbs we did was a monster, the low lying countryside allows only about 100 metres of ascent each time and the climbs we did were mostly
well surfaced and no more than 5-8% grade with occasional steep corners. Not to downplay it, 100km of these coming back-to-back with some of the steeper cobbled beast climbs thrown in would be a really tough ride, anyone completing the Tour of Flanders sportive deserves respect.
But that wasn’t why we were here, we were enjoying fun climbing to get lovely views over the countryside with its patchwork of fields, trees and church spires in every direction. It was great to dip and roll with the landscape, both climbs and swooping descents. Some pave, but only one section was the full on experience of riding on a pneumatic drill for about a kilometre.
By the time we got back my legs knew they had been in a ride, but I was glowing with pleasure.
So once again I can issue the call to fellow cycling travellers. Come here. Get out of Brussels and Bruges, avoid the main industrial cities and try real rural Belgium, it is a great place to be a cyclist. More challenging perhaps to get the tourist authorities to market the area effectively to the outside world but I suspect that is part of a wider malaise in Belgium, it certainly seems to pride itself on “under-stated”!
The Route
Kristof put our route up on line so you can follow the route and the profile which at this scale does look a bit like shark’s teeth, but it wasn’t quite so fierce, honest. http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2711551
The British and Irish Lions beat the Aussies comprehensively at rugby.
Despite all my best intentions I am totally addicted to the Tour de France all over again. Incredible stage today, impossible not to watch.
There is a Brit in yellow at the Tour.
And some bloke called Murray won Wimbledon ending 77 years of famine.
How good is that?
To be honest I am almost as pleased by the bike ride as anything else. I had a 60 mile day with the Belgian club I have started riding with and I the brilliant weather it was outstanding. I avoided the calamities of my last ride and we saw our all the best of our local countryside. And once again it was almost car free! (Club Cyclotouriste d’Ottignies Louvain-la-Neuve)
The first few kilometres took us out of the dips and valleys of Walloon Brabant and then we rolled through the flatlands to the south with just a few ripples in the landscape. The villages were looking great, not least the beautiful chateau at Sombreffe which could have been almost anywhere in more celebrated landscapes in France.
On the way back we followed a similar pattern, to the point where one of the riders muttered that everything was a bit easy today. It looked awfully like we were going to get back about 30 minutes early, until the ride leader threw in about 40 minutes of climbing on a lot of the short, sharp climbs of in the area around Ottignies – we seemed to go up and down a lot of times and by the end my legs were hanging. But it was the sort of satisfied pain that comes with a good day out.
A few weeks ago I amused some of you with my post “Duel at Dawn” in which I told the tale of the old sporty cyclist faced by another cyclist on the morning road.
The tale took a new twist this morning.
I was thrashing my way through the hills of the Foret de Soignes at my usual lumbering pace when I suddenly heard the swish of a bike tyre beside me and a cyclist zoomed past up the hill.
Without even looking I knew that I was being passed by some flying roadie in lycra and I was going to have little chance of slipstreaming the passing rider even if I put on a burst.
Except
I was being passed by a woman on an upright bike in day clothes.
It took quite a few revolutions before the penny dropped.
E-bike.
The battery pack was the give away which I discovered when I got over the hill not too far behind her and then caught up freewheeling down the other side.
Amazing experience – we followed each other for about 3 km – me pulling ahead on descents and at any busy junctions but she absolutely flew up the climbs effortlessly and on the last one I just expired like a burst balloon and watched the green spot vanish.
It was the first E-bike I have seen in Brussels and you don’t see many of them on the commute in many countries because people are worried about storage at the other end. But we know from Germany and the Netherlands that the E-bike revolution is letting more people ride further, more often, in sensible normal clothes. Great to see it in Belgium.
Just not good for the ego of 50-something roadies. Time to move on.
I Do Not Despair 