Cycling in Belgium (Bruges to Leuven) 31/5/2006 - 4/6/2006

Just after the River Tweed trip, we headed back to The Continent for three and a half days of cycling in Belgium with friends Kate and Dave. Their plan was for three weeks of cycling. Our plan was to cycle the second, third and fourth days with them. The route took us from Bruges to Gent to Brussels to Leuven. We hired bicycles from a shop in Brussels that I found over the internet. The trick was to get to the shop before 6pm, which happened despite the cartoon of obstacles in our path.

Once we had our bicycles, we learned how to ride a train with them. The bicycles need tickets, too. A train conductor must be found to find the appropriate bicycle storage location on the train. Bicycles don’t really fit well in this space. We spent the train ride sitting on the floor beside them.

Bruges was a tad overcast and threatened to be rainy. We met Kate and Dave at the train station, cycled to set up camp near the outskirts of the city and then cycled back to town to find food for dinner. Sometime between Germany and Belgium, I went veg and gave up anything containing wheat. In short, I became high maintenance, especially on the Continent. Still, dinner was found. It was divine. Our companions enjoyed their first? Belgian beers of the trip. We cycled more through Bruges and then back to camp for a good night of sleep.

Breakfast in Bruges became lunch in Bruges, but eventually we were off to Gent. A light rain accompanied us for most of the way. Our route followed a canal, with only the most occasional hiccup, so getting lost was difficult. We found our way to camp easily enough, got warm and dry, and then cycled into Gent proper for dinner. Wheat-free and veg meant most restaurants limited my options to salads and, if I was lucky, a starter or two. My salad was gorgeous, though, so I can’t complain.

While we enjoyed dinner and our companions enjoyed more beer, some Belgian ned-equivalent helped him or herself to my bicycle’s saddle. I got to cycle back to camp without one and then find a bike shop the next morning to replace it. Just when my backside was getting used to it!

Bicycle saddle faff and other faff gave us a late start for our longest leg of the trip, Gent to Brussels. The guessed distance was 50 miles. A late start probably wasn’t the best plan, but we had lights, each other, and enough maps that we would figure it out eventually. Our route was more complicated. We no longer had canals to follow. Slowly, the terrain began to acquire some topography. My turn at map reading led the group through a brief offroad experience. I think the mapreading was taken away from me for a while for this trek. For lunch, we picnicked alongside the canal with sundries acquired from a grocery stop or two. We cycled onward, this time under pleasant sunny skies.

The mileage wore on as we pushed toward Brussels. Dinnertime arrived with about 20miles to go, so we stopped in Aalst for dinner. Here, wheat free and veg made it impossible to order from the menu. The menu was written in German, French and Flemish, so we didn’t know until after we sat down. The waiter spoke great English and promised me he would feed me something good. He did. It was another gorgeous salad. A little rested and definitely fed, we forged onward.

We transitioned maps just east of Asse and just as the road we were following transitioned to motorway. We headed south looking for a bike-friendly way into Brussels. I had booked a hostel on the west side of the city and phoned ahead to let them know we would be late. We just had to find our way there. Dusk became dark as we found our way into Brussels and began the urban adventure of city navigating. Brussels is not as bike friendly as Gent or Bruges with the cycle lanes and paths, but at least the motorists are used to looking for them. We took turns navigating, until Dave started getting flat tires. Then I was primarily navigating, with the occasional pitstop for him to refill. I could do two, maybe three turns at a time. We cycled into what felt like the hood with only a few turns remaining. I wondered what our hostel was going to look like.

Dave’s second to last refill was at a large junction. Just as I set up to make a big left turn across all lanes, some wahoo made a far right to far right u-turn in front of me, making a donation of rubber to the road. We turned. Another young Belgian resident gave me a raspberry as I led the group of cyclists down the street. Counting roads one, two, three, right on the fourth street. We stopped across the street from a mosque for one last tire refill. Kate was convinced the gentlemen standing around were the proselytizing type. I was just hoping I wouldn’t have the opportunity to sound American. A short bend in the road brought us back to a greener and quieter neighborhood and our hostel waited on our left. We rolled our bikes through the front door sometime after 10pm… and everyone slept well that night.

A light breakfast bright and early led to a late morning start. Once outside of Brussels, we would transition to the most useful cycling map ever for the trek to Leuven. It had every tiny road highlighted along with several recommended routes described in detail. Except not a single road or route bothered with the modern convenience of street names. We decided lunch in Brussels would be a good plan, so we stopped at a few wee groceries on our eastern trek through the city and lunched at a nice park.

As we climbed the hill beyond Brussels’s ring road, passing a few retail parks and finally transitioning into suburbia, we transitioned officially to our useless map. A few turns later and we were hopelessly lost. My appalling French came in handy when we visited a local mechanic whose shop we stumbled across. Literally. Je me suis perdue. Ou se trouve Leuven? Was replied with a few hmmms… and Anglais? Oui, yes. Ah. Leuven. He waived his arms, gave us some directions to get to a main road (including some town names that helped where he confused “straight” with “right”) and sent us on our way. The main road proved fruitful. Suburban became rural and hills grew larger. Not Scottish steep, but enough to be interesting.

The sun warmed our shoulders as we cycled east. I even went sleeveless for the last few miles. We rolled into Leuven definitely on a weekend. Tourists swarmed the city. We cycled and walked to a visitor information centre and got directions to the hotel where Dave and Kate were staying as well as the train station. Lucas and I had to be back in Brussels before 6pm to return the bicycles, so we bought our tickets and enjoyed a pudding with Kate and Dave before catching the train.

We couldn’t find a conductor or a way into the bicycle storage compartment as on the last train, so we improvised a bike storage location in one of the train corridors. Parked on their back wheels, with the luggage acting as an anchor, the bikes were not really interested in moving. The conductor finally asked for our tickets at Brussels North station. He informed us that Brussels Central does not permit bicycles to exit, so we could leave at the north or south stations only. I wasn’t so fond of the trek back from the south station, even though it would be somewhat easy to replicate, so I chose a few more miles of urban orienteering from the north station.

All downhill from the bicycle shop to the south station suggested all downhill from the north station to the bicycle shop. Right? Not exactly, but it worked out all right in the end. Lucas got annoyed at me once for either not letting him participate in the map reading or giving him enough notice to keep up. We repeated some of our Brussels cycling from the day before, including another pass near the arch and Brussels Central station, the latter being situated on a leg-burner of a hill. A few more turns and we were back at the bike shop unloading our gear. We had about an hour to spare, maybe just a little bit less. Well timed.

That night, we slept in a hotel in Charleroi so we would be close enough to catch our flight home without any hiccups. Aside from a block or two right on the waterfront, Charleroi is a bit of a ghetto. I wasn’t very hungry for dinner, so Lucas picked up takeaway from the Belgian equivalent of a chippie. We slept well again. Continental breakfast gave us a good start to the morning. We caught the bus and then the plane feeling more than a little bit jealous that the responsibilities of real world waited for us while Kate and Dave had about two more weeks of cycling adventures ahead of them.