Brussels for Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2013 by kevinmayne

Remarkably I have hardly published any conventional travel content about Brussels on the blog despite my two years of working in the city.

The visit of family for Christmas is an excuse for an old fashioned tourist trip to the capital of Europe, with the twist that I have two teenage nephews to entertain so we have to pick out some sights that provide lots of wow. A small nondescript statue of a boy peeing in a fountain really doesn’t cut it I am afraid, the Manneken Pis must be the most underwhelming icon of a city I have ever come across.

The Atomium however, now that’s more like it. Out to Hysel, emerge from the metro to the symbol of modern life from the 1950s and work our way up into the structure. The high speed lift takes us nearly 100 metres up the central shaft to some great views from the top level, then there is chance to wander round most of the modules and levels where there are exhibitions and displays about innovation.

It is cleverly done because the lower levels have no windows, just an occasional porthole so you lose all sense of which level and which direction you are moving. Plus they have added some fun by playing with the linking escalators, for example one has been darkened and has coloured lighting and spaceship-like sound effects which appeals to big kids as much as younger ones. My first time inside, but a big tick box for the Atomium.

Outside the Hysel entertainment area is a bit sleepy for winter but as my visitors come from outside Europe we have to wander into Mini-Europe and have a bit of fun with the impressions of 28 countries of the EU. It is all a bit twee but they put in some good enough impressions of the countries and lots of mucking about such as steering your boat round the harbours, making Mount Vesuvius erupt, ringing the city bells and chasing thieves round Paris so it sort of worked. Some very odd exhibits which made me chuckle – somehow the entire display for Luxembourg consisted of a motorway bypass, which seems a bit unfair. Some sort of Belgian joke?

Time for a Belgian delicacy before we go back to the city. Waffles with the lot? Of course!

Then it’s back into the city centre of Brussels and the order of the day is very much Grand Place by day and by night, the Royal Galleries and window shopping seemingly endless quantities of chocolate. Now that’s a Brussels we can enjoy.

Ten best things about being a cyclist in Belgium

Posted on November 27, 2013 by kevinmayne

A year ago we moved to Belgium.

By way of an anniversary post and a thank you to my new country here are my musings about the best things about cycling here so far.

Next week I might throw in a few pet hates, although the scales are overwhelmingly positive for the first year in this great cycling nation.

In no particular order this British cyclist’s “Ten best of cycling in Belgium” are

Social cycling
The Classics
Tracks and trails of Wallonia
Long summer evenings
Being strange
The ever changing Belgian countryside
Belgians like a lie in
Bike fans
Somewhere near to everywhere
My bike shed

1. Social cycling – you are not alone.

Recreational and sports cycling in Belgium is overwhelmingly a collective activity. At the weekend you can hear the groups of cyclists passing our house not by the tyre swoosh but by sounds of talking and laughing. I have commented that I love the sense of community in the small towns and villages of Belgium that carries over into the cycling, everywhere I go I see people riding together.

It’s not just the big pelotons of club cyclists in the touring and racing clubs.

It’s the scouts.

It’s the youth clubs.

It’s the senior citizens on a Friday night near Ghent.

It’s just a couple of friends riding their mountain bikes.

It’s the randonnée à vélo for families that every village and town puts on for its jour de fete.

2. The Classics

The chance to experience the Tour of Flanders (Ronde van Vlaanderen), Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege are just fantastic days out for a bike fan.

All the legends – beer and frites, fan clubs, cobblestones and star riders come together in an atmosphere I have never experienced before after a lifetime of going to bike races.

And by pure chance this year I took the best cycle racing photo I will ever take on the Patterberg – Spartacus (Fabian Cancellara) making the winning move against Peter Sagan.

Hard to repeat that, but I’ll be back again this year for my next fix.

3. Tracks and trails of Wallonia

For the mountain bikers this time. Every commune in our area has hundreds of kilometres of farm tracks, forest trails and cobbled roads that together make an amazing network of rides for mountain bikers. Where I live in Lasne the brilliant folks at Lasne Nature have signposted 250 kilometres of the trails into circular routes from 5-15km in length, all of which can be joined together to give great rides.

And this continues for village after village.

It isn’t rugged and mountainous, it isn’t the flowing singletrack of a purpose built trail centre but it is an endless source of riding. Add an unexpected and freak layer of snow for four months last year and it was plenty tough enough for hard riding too.

4. Long summer evenings

An unexpected bonus. I didn’t think I would notice the time difference between Belgium and the UK. It seems a minor point but because Belgium is an hour ahead of the UK in clock time but geographically just a few minutes ahead this is like having a whole extra hour of daylight in the evening.

In the summer this means the evenings just seem to go on for ages. When I was a little boy I used to resent being sent to bed while it was still light in the summer. Now I can commute home in the light so much later or go ride my bike after work. We have had some just lovely riding evenings, even well into the autumn.

5. Being strange

When I had made a lycra-clad appearance in our office for the second or third time a colleague said to me “you are a bit strange”.

While I decided whether to be offended or not he quickly qualified himself. He said he had never met anyone in who worked in cycling who also enjoyed cycle racing and sport or was prepared to commute in from outside Brussels. I was a bit thrown, I had come to Belgium to be part of this glorious cycling heritage and I was being portrayed as a bit of freak.

In the UK I have always been around sports cyclists even when I was working in transport and tourism and many of my colleagues carried a passing interest or a background in the sports world.

But in some areas of Belgium, especially Flanders and in the EU district of Brussels what I think of as the Dutch/Scandinavian sub-culture is really strong and it is daily transport cycling, in normal clothes on normal bikes that holds sway. It is really great to be part of this multi-national community in the mornings, taking their kids to school, going to the shops and generally giving cycling status as a proper transport mode in front of the EU political classes, unlike in much of the English speaking world where cyclists can still be distinguished as a sub-culture by sport or hipster dress codes.

For me to be “the strange one” is a statement that cycling has healthy prospects in Belgium.

6. The ever changing Belgian countryside

I have written many blog posts about the changing light and weather of Belgium over the past 12 months. I don’t know what I expected, but I don’t think it was steep-sided valleys covered in beech trees or ever changing farming landscapes. The differences across the country from West Flanders to the Ardennes pack a lot of scenery into a small country.

Belgium farming and forestry practices have a big part to play in maintaining this landscape as does the maintenance of the historic buildings and villages despite it being the battleground of Europe.

There is a big push towards organic and pesticide free farming here which means that farmers have returned to traditional practices like crop rotation and green manures. In the fields just around our house we have seen wheat, barley, sugar beet, maize, potatoes, and parsnips just this year, all mixed up with fields of cows, sheep and horses and lots of coppices of deciduous trees. And in addition to the fields themselves this wide variety enables bird and animal species that are declining in other countries to flourish. Not the large monocultures of Britain or France or the horticultural factories of the Netherlands here.

It means that even familiar roads can take on a new feel from month to month, the sense of being part of the rhythm of the land is palpable. More examples of posts here, here and here, or just chose the Belgium tab to the right.

7. Belgians like a lie in

Just 30 kilometres from the capital city, the heart of Europe. And a group of cyclists can ride for two hours on a Sunday morning and not see a car moving.

Or a public holiday in mid-summer when the parks and woods are empty for hours, making them a personal playground.

Sundays especially are like a throwback to an earlier time. The shops are not supposed to open and tranquillity regulations ensure that mowing the lawn and noisy DIY are banned.

Thank you Belgium. Don’t bother getting up, I’m going out on my bike.

8. Belgian bike fans

Cycling matters here. Or more precisely cycle sport matters here. Especially in Flanders.

Every branch too, not just the impressive heritage of road racing. I mean, where else can cyclo-cross be on the TV every Saturday and Sunday all winter and Sven Nys be a national superstar. Do you even know the name of the national cyclo-cross champion in your country? I don’t. It is in the news, the television and even the gossip. Earlier this year I blogged about how the Prime Minister of Flanders got pulled into a dispute about cycling facilities while he was away on a trip to the Tour de France, everybody is sucked into the cycling world.

I loved my trip to the Tour of Flanders Museum in Oudenaarde to absorb the legends, to the classics to celebrate with beer, frites and people in birdie suits.

And amazingly this even carries over in to driving behaviour. Drivers have a remarkable tolerance for anyone in lycra out in the countryside, they seen to be prepared to wait for ages for individual riders or in groups. Maybe less so in the rush hour in Brussels, but I have certainly noticed that when I ride like a posing roadie I get a lot more space. If only they knew just how un-Belgian my riding actually is I might not get the same respect.

9. Somewhere near to everywhere

While I was in Poland last week at the COP 19 Transport Day I met a very dour Belgian railways official. When I said I used the service every day politely he asked me “how do you find it?”

He was genuinely shocked when I said I thought it was a good network with cheap prices and how pleased I was that it carries bikes on almost every service. He turned to his companion from the European rail association and said “See, I have to come to Poland to find a satisfied customer.”

Yes some of the trains are old and tired. Yes the strikes are a pain. But I cannot be fed up in a compact country, covered masses of country lanes, varying terrain, varying history, even different languages, all seemingly within about an hour’s travel in any direction and the chance to let the trains do the work.

And beyond the borders more great cycling countries to sample, all within such easy reach. Luxembourg, Germany, France, the Netherlands……

10. My bike shed

Ok, you can’t enjoy this with me. It’s my space.

All I wanted was a shed, or a garage. When we started looking at apartments in Brussels we quickly realised that space was going to be at an absolute premium so I started reluctantly selling off some of my old bikes and bits. But having decided against city life and headed for the countryside I raised my hopes slightly that the shed would be a bit bigger.

When I visited a former farm in Lasne that we had previously ignored off as too small, too remote and without any storage in the particulars it was a very long shot.

Ok the house was fine. But seconds after entering the former milking shed I just burst into a smile that has barely left my face ever since. And now it has been properly equipped with its new livestock it has a similar effect on visitors, although mainly they just bursting out laughing.

Mysteriously the bikes seem to like it here, for it appears their numbers are growing. When the rental finishes it is going to come as an almighty shock, but for now it’s in my top 10 reasons for loving being a Belgian cyclist.

Thank you Belgium.

A year ago I wondered what life might bring. The answer? I do not despair!

I have acquired a Flying Pigeon – icon of Chinese bicycles, the most numerous bike on the planet

Posted on November 4, 2013 by kevinmayne

This week I finally collected the Flying Pigeon bicycle that has been waiting for me on a Brussels street since May of this year. The classic Chinese roadster, first built in 1950 and believed to be the biggest selling bike of all time and source of a precious memory.

It is a PA-06, the double top tube model, so really up market!

I wrote about my experiences of riding in China in this post published in January of this year. If you were not following my blog at the time then I encourage you to go and have a look, there is a link to a lovely film by China TV about the peak and decline of mass cycling in China.

At the bottom of that post I mentioned that my colleague Julian had a Flying Pigeon in Brussels. Well he upped ship and returned to Australia and I quickly put myself forward to become the custodian of the Pigeon because it was not going with him. I should pretend I really don’t know why I wanted it or why I am going to love it. It is a pig to ride because the long extended fork rake gives it an awful turning circle, it has no gears, it weighs a ton and rod brakes on steel rims were never the best braking solution.

But that is the point. It is as strong as anything, built to carry loads and people and to get the job done, not for fancy Dan shimmying all over the road and certainly not for weaving around cars. And it is wonderfully and distinctively a Chinese bike, just as much a utilitarian dream machine as the upright Dutch black bike or a Brompton. If nothing else I will have it for special events and occasions as a talking point.

It also takes me back to another of my Chinese experiences in 1985. We were in Shanghai sightseeing when we arrived outside the legendary Shanghai Number 1 Department Store. I am no shopper but an early Lonely Planet guide said it had to been seen for the huge variety of Chinese products. We were allowed in because we were tourists but only higher cadres of Communist Party members and public officials were allowed to shop there, many Chinese were being turned away at the door.

As we left we were approached cautiously by a young Chinese man who spoke to us in perfect American accented English. He asked if we would be willing to go into the store and buy a bicycle. He explained “I live in America and I have come back to visit my father. What he really wants is a bicycle. I have the money but the store won’t let me in because I am Chinese. They will let you in, I can give you the money.” We were absolutely thrown by this. He seemed genuine but we were very wary of being trapped by some sort of scam that would see us in trouble. This was very much the beginning of the opening of China to Westerners and we had already had some odd experiences, we certainly didn’t want another.

If I look back now I realise that this young man must have had some sort of second sight. He could have asked us for any other item of the thousands in Department Store Number 1 and we would have walked away. But let Geoff and Kevin Mayne look on the face of an old Chinese man who has dreamed of a bicycle and we were never going to say no. The deal was done and a Flying Pigeon was passed out the door to the welcoming smiles. You never forget your first bicycle, nor the gift of a first bike.

Unfortunately there is a catch with our Brussels Flying Pigeon. The only way to hand over the bike when Julian left was to leave it locked to a signpost by a friend at a pre-determined spot in Brussels, some miles from our office or a convenient station. However these bikes can be a bit of a handful to maintain if you have never come across old school features like rod brakes and I was told it wasn’t really rideable by that point so I couldn’t just go and ride it to a station and then home. And thus it sat on the street for five months, a real test of its indestructible reputation.

Last weekend I had some things to collect which meant I reluctantly took a car into Brussels and the Pigeon finally made it on to a roof rack to be shipped out to Lasne. Sorry Julian.

It is a testament to the paint job on these bikes that the frame has remained in excellent condition, however unfortunately that can’t be said for the accessories which have taken on a rusty hue and are certainly going to need some rubbing down and some judicious restructuring or replacement of that rear wheel.

However it is now safe in a dry barn with my other bikes and it is going to give me hours of pleasure when I finally get round to polishing it up.

Look out for a wobbly Englishman on a Flying Pigeon on the streets of Brussels sometime next year, maybe after I finish restoring my Freddie Grubb fixie.

More about Flying Pigeons on Wikipedia here

Chute

Posted on October 24, 2013 by kevinmayne

It sounds so much better in French. Maybe more glamorous because that’s what the foreign TV commentators say during the cycle racing coverage. Like the professionals I had a “chute”, rather than “I fell off”. Chute also sounds like one of the English words that I might have used when I was lying on the ground yesterday morning after I hit a road defect fast enough for it to knock me off.

It was one of those classic falls. The bump was so hard it bounced my hands off the bars and I still had time to take in the event it as I lost control, hit the road and slid.

I am really annoyed about this one because I feel like I rode down a hill and hit a pothole I haven’t got. Despite riding this route to work many times I have absolutely no recollection of there being a pothole at that point. British comedian Jasper Carrot used to do a comic sketch where he read out silly car insurance claims. One man apparently told the insurance company “I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I haven’t got” and for some stupid reason that was one of the thoughts in my head after the crash.*

Ironically I had just taken one hand off the handlebars to switch my light from flashing mode to steady beam because I wanted to be able to see the poor road surfaces on the next section through the forest. I am not sure if was off my normal trajectory, it is all a bit of a blur now. Given the state of those Belgian country roads I suspect I may have become a bit complacent because there are holes all over the place and I have got used to them. This was the earliest I have been out for a while too, it was a good twenty minutes before sunrise and I was relying on lights.

I first wrote about falling off way back in just my 10^th post on this blog.

Back then I commented that there are very different attitudes to crashing among cycling’s tribes. Mountain bikers and road racers pretty much regard it as an occupational hazard while fortunately many commuters never experience a fall due to the terrain or other riders.

However my brother summed it up nicely this weekend when we were talking about mountain bike falls. He said “it just isn’t the same. I don’t seem to bounce any more and it takes longer to recover.” That is most certainly true, I feel like that even if I trip on a step while walking.

It also noticeably affects what I call “the audit”. It’s the process you go through while you are still on the ground when it starts to hurt. As I ran my mental eye over my body I was thinking “oh no, not the shoulder, that still aches from last time, and that was five years ago. Ouch, skinned knee, that’s two weeks of healing….”

What I definitely don’t do any more is leap up and go “how’s my bike?” which I might have done a few years ago.

At first this audit told me that I might be in trouble because the shoulder took the full brunt of the fall at about 30kmph. After wandering about for a few minutes I decided nothing was serious and that the only way out was to ride somewhere and under the circumstances Brussels seemed as good an option as any, I could clean up and hand over my work tasks for the day even if things were not too comfortable. I must apologise to one or two very disturbed looking fellow cyclists and even the odd driver who suspected I wasn’t testing a Halloween costume as I dripped blood through the suburbs.

The ride took about an hour (pure adrenaline I suspect) and after “clean up” at the office and a shower I thought I might be able to get through the morning but by lunchtime I was off for my first taste of Belgian emergency medicine because aches started to emerge in all sorts of places.

As a Brit I avoid A&E if at all possible, those endless hours waiting in unpleasant surrounds really have no appeal but I had reasonable hopes that the well regarded Belgian health services could do better. Best of all was that the Belgian doctor was so apologetic for my wait, that never happened to me in the UK. Lots of dressings, three stitches in the knee and fortunately no breaks on the X-rays. 3-5 days enforced rest.

Worst – boy do I ache. You are right bruv, we just don’t bounce the same way anymore.

But worse might be in store. As I crawled stiffly to bed last night Mrs Idonotdespair hinted at what she thought about me cycling for an hour and then staying at work for four hours before going to hospital. “At some point I am going to be really mad at you” I was told.

Now that could be really painful.

…………………….

*To cheer me up, here’s the classic Jasper Carrot Sketch on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJtnXMyfmzI

Out to lunch in Brussels by bike – we should do this more often

Posted on September 10, 2013 by kevinmayne

It has been a stunning week in Brussels. Sunshine almost all the way.

Tempted by the weather and a visitor we changed our usual habits and went out for lunch by bike on Tuesday. I mean we are a cycling organisation but frankly being positioned next to a popular Irish pub and lots of the EU districts cafes means we rarely stray far when we nip out for a quick bite.

What a good idea, rustling up a couple of folders and some Villo! public bikes for visitors and those who walked in so 14 of us could set off in convoy to a delightful Sicilian run restaurant just far enough away from the political bubble to be friendly and relaxed.

We all agreed “let’s do this again!”

We need a cycling hero – Bicycle Repair Man – Classic Monty Python

Posted on August 1, 2013 by kevinmayne

A small favour prompted me to revisit this classic Monty Python sketch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxfzm9dfqBw

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. ECF facebook image

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.

Meanwhile back to work…………………

Duel at dawn – part deux

Posted on June 4, 2013 by kevinmayne

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.

30 days of biking: days 1-6 @30daysofbiking

Posted on April 6, 2013 by kevinmayne

A great idea from Minneapolis, now in its fourth year.

Pledge to ride every day in April and join thousands of others who have signed up to the same idea. Not too late to pledge for the rest of the month if you have missed it. http://30daysofbiking.com

I have a strong suspicion that many of my readers may not regard riding every day as the slightest bit challenging, but I have to say even an addict like me does have down days, not least in this year’s interminable European winter. But what the heck, why not. It might just become spring at some point.

The only slight problem bothering me is that the wonderful Mrs Do Not Despair reads at least some of my blog posts. Now she has probably worked out why I was prepared to take the dog out Wednesday evening even if it was awful. And when she reads this post the words “Don’t you do enough cycling already?” may just pass her lips.

I move quickly on.

1st April – shadow ride. Lovely late evening sunshine for me and the pooch. 30 minutes.

2nd April – station ride – pretty standard stuff but so nice to do it without much ice around. 25 minutes for out and back.

3rd April – The I really wouldn’t be doing this if I hadn’t made that stupid pledge ride.

Cold, bleak, horrible. 30 minutes of bashing round the tracks and the cobbles under the leaden skies of Lasne.

4th April – Station ride again – but where are they all?

Easter holidays seem to have emptied the roads and streets of the area.

5th April – The long commute ride. To Brussels through Foret de Soignes. First time since the clocks changed so the woods have reverted to dawn. Saw the family of deer again and listened to the bird life pretending it is spring. 80 minutes – I’m getting quicker.

6th April – Test a couple of bike adjustments ride to Limlette. Cold, but maybe there is a glimmer of sunshine. And the key question. “is it bad form to bring your own mud to Paris Roubaix?” 25 minutes riding, 15 minutes spannering.

What else would today’s Belgian train be made of other than chocolate?

Posted on December 4, 2012 by kevinmayne

Just walking through the main Brussels station, not really paying attention because it was early in the morning and I was off to the Netherlands.

So I did an almightly double-take when my path was crossed by a huge model train, in fact two model trains with absolutely wonderful detailing. Made of chocolate! And a world record apparently, over a tonne in weight and 30 metres long.

Now that is how to celebrate your national obsession with chocolate. I’ll have one of these for Christmas please Santa.

Cannot beat cycling to work on a forest road with a layer of golden beech leaves #magiccarpet

Posted on November 21, 2012 by kevinmayne

The middle of one of my new commuting routes, before I hit the roads of Brussels (sigh)

Blogging in temporary suspense

Posted on November 16, 2012 by kevinmayne

Belgian telecoms companies being a law unto themselves I have no internet at home at the moment. It seems it takes as many technicians to get a line to a rural spot as it does cyclists to fix a puncture.

Haven’t quite mastered posting via my Blackberry so I am stuck with the dilemma – start blogging after work or go home to my wife who is struggling to put together a new house?

Hardly a choice is it, but I am building up some nice material for the dark winter nights!

Follow me on twitter @maynekevin but otherwise a cheery holding photo from Brussels – great street art!

Brussels had a lazy Sunday morning on Wednesday. So let’s go cycling!

Posted on August 18, 2012 by kevinmayne

The first part of last week I was working in Brussels, but I was completely thrown by discovering a Belgian public holiday on Wednesday when I had planned to work. I still can’t get out of my British habit of assuming all public holidays are on Mondays and I certainly haven’t got any knowledge of Belgian holiday dates in my head yet.

However this prospect quickly turned to optimism because the weather was forecast to be great, I was staying close to a good route out of the city – and best of all Brussels likes a lie in:

Even on normal work days I find this is a city that is slow to get started. The urban commute is squeezed into a relatively narrow window and very few people even consider early starts in their workplaces. I anticipate Brussels folks being really shocked by the number of suits already at the main London stations by 7am on most weekdays, let alone 8 or 9. I am almost always the only cyclist on the roads before 8 here and when I have been here on weekends and public holidays I know that the lie in is always extended, even better during school holidays.

I love early morning bike rides so I was up and away on Wednesday knowing that the place was going to be deserted and I could come back and knock off a few hours undisturbed work too.

First heading south through Bois de la Cambre which is a popular and attractive large park. Crazily its perimeter roads have been allowed to become part of a car commuting racetrack on weekdays, but at least they are closed on public holidays and weekends so they were very welcoming today. The park pavilion was optimistically offering its deck chairs to all comers, but it would be several hours before they were needed.

The mansions of the wealthy that edge the park and the surrounding routes to Forêt de Soignes looked appropriately exclusive in the morning light, but I also felt exclusive to have a four lane boulevard almost to myself – extraordinarily quiet for a big city.

And then into the forest (Zoniënwoud in Flemish). I have quickly discovered this area for morning and evening rides since I started working here. It is great that just 6km from the centre of the modern capital city this area there is a forest of over 4000 hectares, stretching across the southeast of the city as a green belt. It is disturbed only by a few roads and unfortunately the motorway which does bring some resented noise to the tranquillity. Wikipedia tells me that like many such forests it has been eroded over the years, not least by Napoleon but now I am told it is one of the successes of Belgian political gridlock – the forest is split over the regions of Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia and nobody is going to let Brussels expand into their territory.

I can strike out through the woods on the signposted round Brussels greenway and a number of other better surfaced tracks, or as much as my small wheeled folding bike will allow I like go off on the dirt tracks and side paths discovering dips, hollows and tranquil ponds in ancient woodland settings. I do get some funny looks from the mountain bikers, not too many small wheelers in here.

On Wednesday after well over an hour of bouncing around I returned to a recent discovery, the smooth asphalt surface of the Dreve des Tumuli, a beautiful car free route that swoops and climbs through the forest contours back to the edge of the city and my ride home.

On this day I had seen almost no one except a few dog walkers but as I returned it was approaching 9am and the first cycle tourists were beginning to wander out sleepily. By the time I got to Bois de la Cambre the jogging community was in full flow. Maybe it was to avoid the later heat, or just an ingrained daily habit which gave them the best of the day – but where are the cyclists? Perhaps by lunchtime many more will be out in Forest de Soignes along with the walkers and families however I am told it is rarely crowded.

But on Wednesday it was nice to believe it was almost exclusively mine. Thanks Brussels.

Googlemap of the area below

Brussels cycle lanes – taking the rough with the smooth

Posted on June 11, 2012 by kevinmayne

Last week’s trip to Amsterdam prompts me to revisit one of my pet rants.

The surface of cycle lanes in Brussels.

Typical state of Brussels cobbles

There was lots of cycling on cobbled streets in Amsterdam and in Brussels. I like a nice cobbled street, even if it does play havoc on a small wheeled folding bike. Cobbles are part of Belgian cycling folklore, you can’t be a Flandrian icon without that background as a hard man of the pavé. So I’ll forgive the truly diabolical state of repair of the cobbles in what is supposed to be the capital of Europe.But why, oh why do so many Brussels cycle lanes have to be made of tiled surfaces? It’s an awful surface, effectively a pavement for bikes. And mostly built beside smooth, welcoming tarmac.

Avenue de Tervuren cycle path

Harder to ride on, difficult and expensive to maintain, really unwelcoming.The most frustrating stretch I have found was on Avenue de Tervuren, the Tervurenlaan. Direct cycle route all the way to Brussels, nicely segregated from the main road. But every bone in my body wants me to move to the welcoming tarmac beside me rather than stay on the tiles.

This looks really inviting, doesn’t it?

I am house hunting out here at the moment but the idea of this being the first 5km of my daily commute is a bit depressing.It’s not as if there is a design standard that stops them.

There are much better examples – to the north of Brussels a new section around an industrial estate and to the south in Walloon Brabant a lovely smooth descent through the rhododendrons near Chateau de La Hulpe which is more common out in this province. Critics will say that it is deficient because it isn’t properly segregated, but frankly this is supposed to be the transport of delight, you shouldn’t need to be hard man of Flanders to bike to work.

A welcoming cycle lane on road to La Hulpe

Proper tarmac cycle lane!

Springtime 2 – Brussels

Posted on March 22, 2012 by kevinmayne

Eglise St Augustin SaintAugustinuskerk

Just as spring transformed England last week it is amazing to come back to Brussels after 3 weeks away and see what a bit of sunshine does to the grey old dame. It was funny talking to one of the ECF staff tonight – like me he is not Belgian but when we were discussing cycling experiences he said after two years he has forgotten what it is like to see things through fresh eyes.

I’m like a kid with a new toy and I’m trying to ride different roads every day. This morning I rode for about an hour, looking for the views that suddenly open.

This piece of brutalist 1930’s architecture appears unexpectedly on what could have been a simple roundabout, completely out of context with its surroundings but sun makes it light up and dominate its surroundings.

And at last some other cyclists – sweeping down to the grand Jubelparc.

And this evening we grab a quick beer at Flagey – coolest outdoor drinking in town. And recognising that cycling here is an activity for the young and active there are far more bikes around, and I love the culture of just sitting round the bikes with a beer when there are no seats left.

By bike for a beer at Flagey

There are lots of moans about cycling in Brussels – especially if you come from the Netherlands, or even Germany. But I really won’t complain. there is nowhere that cannot be transformed from the saddle.

But Brussels has two secrets that should make one of the best places in the world to ride.

The first is the most simple. This is a really, really, really bad place to be a driver. Congestion, no parking, confusing layouts, trams in the way. And the “give way to the right” rule which seems to work at some junctions and not others, and nobody really knows why, especially the 40% of ex-pats that live here. It has always be said that the safest drivers are the ones who have to think and observe. In Brussels driving is such an awful experience drivers have to concentrate all the time. This means they might do some stupid things to get through, but the cyclist seems to be noticed much more than I expect in the UK, and the drivers often wait because they seem to have no more idea than I do about who has the right of passage.

My second favourite feature.

The simple sign that lets cyclists ride down almost all one way streets against the traffic. Why did we have to fight so hard in the UK for such a simple measure that gives the cyclist charge of the whole road network. In Brussels it is like a golden key that makes us the only people who can actually travel in a straight line. OK some of the streets are really narrow and bouncing your way down the cobbles towards oncoming vehicles takes a bit of nerve so it isn’t yet a solution for the fainthearted, but it should praised for the freedom it gives us.

Pass or fail the cold weather test?

Posted on February 17, 2012 by kevinmayne

I was going to put down some of my thoughts about cycling in the cold weather that hit Europe last week, especially after experiencing Germany at -15C and Brussels-9C.

However I have to take my hat off to this great film put together by David Hembrow which steals the show. It passes every test you can set for a cycling clip “Do I want to be there?” “Do I want to try that?” Oh yes, on every count. If you do you can look at his holidays and study trips here

The man I defer to on all things cold weather is Morten Kerr, President of SLF (Syklistenes Landsforening) the cyclists’

Morten Kerr demonstrates winter cycling in Norway

organisation of Norway. He seems to ride his 15km to work whatever the weather, studded tyres and all. Although having spent time in North America he apparently rates Canadian gear as the best, especially his amazing gloves.

I was impressed on my visit to Memmingen in the Lower Allgau region of Germany last week. Memmingen is a few hundred metres above sea level so the combination with the cold weather system across the whole of Europe dropped the temperature at the station to -15C, as far as I know the lowest temperature I have ever experienced. And just like the cycle lanes in the Netherlands shown in

Memmingen Cycle Route, still clear at -15C

David’s film the cycle routes here were completely clear. I don’t think it was particularly about the cycling, the pavements, roads and station platforms were all immaculately clear. I’m not sure what they use, it doesn’t seem to have the properties of the salt and grit we have on our streets in the UK, but that may be because the temperatures were too low for the wet salty coating that we always get which covers your bike in a corrosive film. What it did mean was that all the cyclists were flying around full tilt without any apparent concern for a hidden ice patch.

I failed the cold weather test miserably. I don’t really cycle on icy roads in

Not everyone in Memmingen got away from the snow!

the UK if I can help it, I love cycling in snow on a mountain bike if I can. My stepfather had a badly broken hip after he went out once too often in February, I really could do without it.

I had planned to spend an evening cycling around Brussels to check out a couple of communes as possible places to live. I’d prepared double gloves, socks, hat etc but I failed miserably after 40 minutes when it was my hands that couldn’t take any more and I shot back to the hotel for dinner.

However after the clothing failure I was put firmly in my place when I dared roll out the Danish expression “No such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing” which has become such a feature of every presentation on cycling in Denmark. “I hate that expression” said my Danish colleague to the amazement of our lunch group. “I’m Danish, and I like to be warm”.

The following day I was keeping a careful eye out the window around lunchtime when the snow started to fall. By the time I set off for the Eurostar there was a slushy mess on the streets of Brussels. I’d like to say I shot off confidently taking cobbles, traffic and pavement cyclepaths in my stride. What I actually did was fold the bike and walk to the Metro. I am sure I have let the side down somehow, but something tells me that I was not going to enjoy the small wheel experience in those conditions.

So hats off to the cold weather cyclists, a pair of proper Nordic gloves needed for me to join you next year.

I Do Not Despair

When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. ~H.G. Wells

Tag Archives: Brussels

I have acquired a Flying Pigeon – icon of Chinese bicycles, the most numerous bike on the planet

Chute

We need a cycling hero – Bicycle Repair Man – Classic Monty Python

Duel at dawn – part deux

What else would today’s Belgian train be made of other than chocolate?

Cannot beat cycling to work on a forest road with a layer of golden beech leaves #magiccarpet

Blogging in temporary suspense

Brussels had a lazy Sunday morning on Wednesday. So let’s go cycling!

Brussels cycle lanes – taking the rough with the smooth

Springtime 2 – Brussels

Pass or fail the cold weather test?

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