Mountain Biking in Belgium: Sunday, January 6, 2007

Jan had asked us if we wanted to join him and some buddies on a mountain bike tour on the south side of Brussels. He said our cross bikes would be fine, so for the experience and the early wake up call (he picked us up at 7:45), we couldn't resist.

I can't even begin to describe how fun this experience was. Probably our most fun ride yet, but was it really mountain biking??? We were on paths through fields, short parts of singletrack, roads through villages and fields, lots of mud and it was a blast on a cross bike. Pretty much perfect, as we would zoom by the fat tire riders. But let me explain a bit further. There were probably over a 1000 people participating. You sign up, pay 3 euro and follow the arrows. You can start in a 3 hour window and there are different distance routes marked. Of course, we did the longest at 46 km. I thought this was an annual ride they did, but no, this is every weekend, both Saturday and Sunday in various locations around Flanders and Brabant. It is crazy how many people ride. All sorts of shapes, sizes, etc. Bike shops set the course and they have a food station and even people at dangerous sections of road crossings. Sure, we may have singletrack that is amazing, but they have the masses of people enjoying mountain biking every weekend, all year long. And of course beers at the end. I had my first beer by 12:30. (Don't worry Kendra, I only had one.) But it was pretty darn fun.
And to top off an already fulfilled day, we got to watch the Belgium National Cyclocross Championships on TV live. Nys pulled off the title, but Albert was amazing. A weekend in Belgium without racing survived...
Sorry I have no pictures. The camera was with Emily and Wendy and they were in a race. I got a flat pretty early on and we never saw them again, and they were having too much fun to take pictures. Apparently too much fun beating up on the Belgians on their Cross bikes.

Although weeks later, I found some pictures on a website to give you an idea of what I was talking about! Enjoy...

The initial climb...

Typical signs for the routes.

We rode this. Cross bikes rule!

Food stop. Spice cake. MMMMM.

The start/finish.

Awesome bike wash station.

Beer afterwards is mandatory.