Monday: Leuven to Malle

Leuven to Malle
~52 miles
Evening accommodations: B&B Aux Charmes du Passe, Oostmalle
Route/Ride Analytics: https://www.strava.com/activities/585645192

Well, bodyslamming myself into cobblestone and impaling myself with a beer bottle was not the best way to start my first tour.  I woke up with a bloodied bandage that had to be cleaned and redressed, which slowed us down.  We finally got out of the hotel around 1130am, just to head to the bike shop.  Carissa didn't like getting sprayed in the face with water from my tire, and the rain wasn't showing any sign of letting up for a couple days. As this was Belgium, many of the local shops were closed until either the afternoon or Tuesday, but we found a Performance Bike style chain on the north side of Leuven that was open.  We headed the two miles up there, got the friendly associate to sell us a couple pairs of SKS fenders, and then found out their service department was booked up, so I set to installing them in a light rain in the parking lot.

Installing Fenders.  Pic from Carissa

Installed!

The shop we stopped at

An hour later, the fenders were installed, the friendly associate came out with some bolt cutters to trim the lengths on the metal rods that actually held the fenders in place (as they were long to make them adjustable for many bikes), and we were on our way.  Mind you, it was around 120PM at this point, and we had 50ish miles to go.  No problem, right?  After all, at home I ride a good 14MPH pace at home, I'd be there by 5PM easy.

Nope.  It didn't take us long to get back to the cycle path, but then we came to a problem.  That notebook full of info that I left in the airport?  It contained my cycle maps.  An introduction on the Flanders and Dutch cycle routes: every cycle route intersection is marked with a number.  At every intersection, there is a sign pointing to the number of the next intersection, telling you which way to go.  There are many online route planners, or you can just look at a map, and plot out a route of sequential numbers to follow, which works great, except in many cases I'll describe.

This is case in which it doesn't work #1.  We left the trail I plotted from the hotel to go to the bike store, and didn't return to the hotel to start our journey.  We hit intersection #1 after rejoining the trail, with no indication of a point I needed to head to.  As I didn't have a map, I had no way of knowing which intersection we should actually progress to.  So, knowing we had to follow the canal, we moved on to point #2, further along the canal.  Still nothing.  Continuing the canal, we hit a few more intersections before finally seeing a number pointing towards a point I had to go to.  Phew.  Winging it paid off for once in my life!  Soon we were on route again, and the brilliance of the system was on display to us.

Quaint little farm at one of our decision points

The signs are simple in Flanders: you are at intersection 30, if you want to go to intersection 72 go left, if you want to go to intersection 66, go straight

We obviously wanted to go to intersection 72, as that is where we made it.  One of the many locations you may find these signs

Once we got going, two things became evident: the brilliance of of the Flanders cycle route system, and the fallacy that I would ride a loaded down touring bike in unfamiliar lands anywhere near as fast as I manage on a road bike back home.  Learning curve #1 was that about 8-9MPH progression average (total time of travel in a day divided by total mileage, all stops inclusive) was a far more realistic goal than the 11-12MPH I had been planning.

We quickly left the Brussels metro area, and found ourselves riding through little villages and along a dedicated cycle path alongside a canal.  The leg actually felt incredibly comfortable, minus getting on and off a bike.  As one with little legs and a long torso, I prefer a French fit, which puts one on the largest frame they can handle with little regard to whether they can stand over the top bar or not.  Along with the gash came a groin injury, that meant my mounting and dismounting of such a tall bike was an excruciating ordeal.  Luckily, if you keep moving, that is not problematic!

Canals are popular places for bike paths

We kept on moving for two and a half hours or so.  The trails were good, we were making time, even if not as fast as I planned, and things were going.  We happened along a little shop right on the path, and stopped for lunch.  A beer and a Croque Monsieur for me, and something that pleased Carissa, and we were on our way!

Red path signs are for hikers, green signs for bikers

Our lunch break.  A large group of Dutch bikers heading the opposite direction left just as we were arriving, so we figured it was cyclist approved!

By this point, I still really hadn't accepted that we were not moving anywhere near as fast as I originally planned.  I thought we could make it to the town of Westmalle, known for their Trappist brewery, by 6-630 and have a beer before heading to the Vrinden op de Fiets B&B we had booked.  We set off, at a pace I still hadn't truly accepted.

We faced on and off showers

Forests and fields near Vorselaar

The riding was beautiful, even if incredibly reminiscent of Michigan.  We had a mix of everything from dedicated bike paths to farm roads to muddy dirt trails, and it was all wonderful.  It felt good to just be out in the middle of nowhere, in a country I didn't know, riding a bike I had brought from America!  As the time started to pile up, though, there was more and more of a realization that my estimates just were not realistic.  5PM came, and we were still 23ish miles out.  6PM came, and we still had a good 15 miles to go, and in the middle of a dirt forest path.  7PM came, when I had told the B&B we'd be there, and we were still a good 8 miles out, and still in a forest in the mud.  The only real memorable from that afternoon of riding was a few hundred meters of the famed Flanders cobblestones!

Yep, the trail ran right through an active ship dock

Two tracks were also posted routes

And the famed cobblestone!

Both a biking (green) and foot (red) path turn marker

Actually a road, but only encountered two or three vehicles in a couple hours

We finally rolled into Malle around 8PM.  Sadly, the reason for going to the town in the first place (beer bar across from the Westmalle Trappist brewery) was not even realized, as we were staying in Oostmalle four miles away.  We met our hosts, put the tired bikes to bed in their shed home for the evening, and had dinner at a bistro a few hundred metres away the B&B hosts recommended.  Thankfully, they had Westmalle beer at the bistro, so it wasn't a total waste!  We came back exhausted and passed out pretty much on the spot.

Our guesthouse for the evening

Our bikes slept inside for the nite!

Brussels and Leuven

Brussels

Evening accommodations: Hostel Van Gogh

As mentioned earlier, there are a severe lack of cycle routes in Brussels proper.  We decided to take the train into town, as our hostel the first night was right near Brussels Nord station.  As a result of the bombings, the main train station at the airport was closed, necessitating us walking through many buildings and structures to get to an off-site station.  We paid for our tickets and bike supplements (about 14EUR each), only to run into the first of many broken lifts to train platforms we needed, and teaching us how to take bikes on escalators.  Not fun.  Hint: if you turn the front wheel perpindicular and shove it as far forward on the step as possible, letting the back wheel sit on whatever step it falls on, it actually works OK.  Thanks to Carissa for that find!

Getting off the train, I found out that the maps I had cached on my phone didn't actually cache.  To make matters even worse, the station was off the top of the paper map we actually had.  After an hour of trial and error, we finally made our way onto roads on the map, and to our hostel that was less than a mile from the station!

Our bikes got their own parking spot under a lean-to in the garden, we got our room, then we proceeded to walk around town for the rest of the day.  We sampled quite a bit of Brussels' goods, myself the beer varieties, and Carissa the chocolate varieties.  A stop at a LBS was necessitated, the rain and grime of the shakedown weekend took a tool on Carissa's chain and it was squeaky, and I thought I needed a more substantial lock than I had brought (as it turns out, I actually didn't, but caution never hurt anyone).  Some fries, a jazz fest with some more local beer, and then some more beer later, and we were back at the hostel.  Carissa went to sleep, and I went to sample some more beer at the hostel biergarten, and took the tools to make some adjustments we noticed were required earlier in the day.  I also had some lively chats with a group of Spaniards, and a Minnesotian who wanted to talk about my fishing trips at Glacier Natonal Park.  I also fixed my cached maps problem.

Part of the Royal Palace complex

Overlooking Brussels

Mannekin Pis, Brussels most famous statue fo a little kid pissing

Nifty little Belgian pub

Jazz Festival at Grote Markt

They make nuts, bolts and tools out of Chocolate!

Delirium Pub 

Well worth a visit if you like beer, they have over 2000 different types

Leuven

Evening accommodations: Novotel Leuven Centrum

Sunday morning we woke up bright and early, and were on the move at 10, I mean 11, AM.  We biked back to the bike station, knowing the path and it being downhill, what took us an hour the day before took all of five minutes.  We had originally planned to train it to the outskirts of town and ride to Leuven, but the pain of getting bikes on and off the train, coupled with the fact that even if we unloaded them on the outskirts of Brussels where the trails started and rode them into Leuven still only meant a five to six mile ride, we just said screw it and took the train all the way to Leuven.

Waiting for the train

No one would ever tell us where to put the bikes, and somehow we kept ending up in the toilet car

We got off the train, to run into broke lift #2.  That pretty much meant the end of train stations for Carissa, even thought at least this one had the steps with the little rolling platform for cyclists.  Our hotel was a short ride from the train station, and directly across the road from the Stella Artois brewery.  Our bikes had their own caged indoor parking, and we had quite a lovely room.  After getting settled, we took the bikes into town for lunch.  We ran into a triathalon, and stopped for a few minutes, before finding some food in the Old Market area.  Still being jetlagged, we went back to take a nap, with the plans of returning in the evening for a bit more exploration and dinner.

Bikes outside the Leuven train station

Biking to running triathlon transition

Old town Leuven

Just a cool Peugeot I want

The Old Market was quiet on a rainy Sunday

Our bike's parking at Novotel Leuven Centrum hotel

 After napping, we returned to the city center.  We walked around the canal a bit, before going into a lovely little beer bar with the coolest dumbwaiter I've ever seen.  The bartender there had spent some time in Battle Creek, MI as a child, so we chatted with him for a while while sampling some local brews.  I didn't have time to try the third beer I wanted, so they sold it to me to go.  After that was dinner at a place called the Night Owl, about the only place open at 11PM on a Sunday night in that town, which I can best describe as eccentric.  It was also my introduction to hearing long strings of French, Flemish, or Dutch, interspersed with randomly vocalized English obscenities.

Canal in Leuven

Lots of bikes in the canal

Functional dumbwaiter to bring up beers from the cellar

Cellar visible through the floor

That beer does have an expiration date of 2035

The Night Owl, on the left

Retrieving our bikes

The Injury

So, back to that beer I bought to go.  My meal at the Night Owl finished, we left to head back to the hotel.  The beer, in my right cargo short pocket, we took off.  Mind you, Leuven is definitely a cobblestone city, and it was raining.  Coming around the corner from downtown, past the train station, on a sweeping left hand corner, I cut over a steel rain gutter a bit too shallow.  My back tire hit the cobblestone on the far side of the gutter, slid out, and I went down.  Hard.  Right on said beer bottle.

I felt liquid all over my leg.  My first thought was blood, so I reached down and felt broken beer bottle.  Oh, ok, only beer.  Then, oh crap, I can't drink my beer.  Then, Carissa showing up and telling me I'm bleeding, and me telling her no, its just beer.  Then, the dawning realization that broken glass next to my leg might mean more than beer, lifting up my short leg (which was already red), and seeing a flow of bright red.  Then,feeling a bit of sadness that it was a beer unique only to Leuven that I really wanted.  Then, the realization this was not good for the impending trip.

I was still well enough to ride, so we went back to the hotel.  They, of course, had closed parking, so I got to walk into the lobby in a bloody mess and ask them how to get in.  We parked the bikes, went up to the room, and assessed the damage.  Luckily, while looking for that missing camera, I came across an old first aid kit that I decided to pack just in case, and for once in a half dozen trips I was right to bring it.  Carissa turned what was sure to be a trip to the ER for stitches into a couple hour hotel patch job with a suture stip kit she found in it.

Departing Toronto and Arriving Brussels

Packing the Bikes

After numerous shakedown runs, Carissa's bike was ready to be boxed a few days ahead of time.  I had secured a few bike boxes of different sizes from the friendly local bike shop (whom I try to frequent as a thanks, but who just keeps giving me stuff I need for free instead of charging me...).  The bike was broken down: handlebars off, front wheel off, rack off.  A chunk of a 2x2 furring strip was cut to size and taped in the front fork to prevent crushing.  Seat and pedals off, and in the second pannier (first were our carryons) in the box.  Some 97 cent foam pool noodles were cut up and wrapped around the frame to protect it, which turned out to be problematic with that mixte frame.  In the end, the top bars went mostly unprotected, which turned out fine.  The whole puzzle was fit together, and dropped in the box.  Problem solved.

Test fitting Carissa's bike to its box

My bike, on the other hand, turned out to cause much headache.  I had grabbed a couple boxes from the LBS.  One was for a 700c road bike (the one Carissa's bike was occupying), the other two turned out to be for 26" beach cruisers.  To make matters more fun, as my bike was built after hers and still going through shakedown, I didn't start to box it until everyone had closed the night before the trip leaving me with those options.  As a result, my seatpost stuck up about three inches from the box I had, and the third box was cut up to form a shield around it :/

I put as much padding on it as I could, as I was already past midnite and still cussing and swearing at myself, and hoped for the best!  Prep was the s
ame as Carissa's: front wheel off, wood block in its place, rack off, seat off, handlebars off, pedals off, all loose parts in the second pannier in the box.  Also in my pannier went spare tubes, and a tool kit: a roll of wrenches 8-13mm, hex key set, phillips and flat screwdriver, T-handle 5 and 6mm hex keys, 15mm and 17mm wrench (pedals for me, pedals and nutted back wheel for her), tire levers, cutters for zip ties, and cone wrenches all in a second tool roll.  Also included were zip ties (used almost daily) and duct tape for closing the boxes at the airport.

Departure, Transit, and Arrival

We set off for Toronto from Detroit at 9am sharp.  Ok, 10am.  Running an hour late was a theme of this trip!  I couldn't find my normal point and shoot camera, nor the charger for my SLR, and I spent until 4am looking, making me very tired and facing a 4 hour drive.  We stopped at my work, thinking I might have left it there, and then at a Wal-Mart to buy whatever was on the shelf.  We cleared Canadian customs with nothing more than answering that bikes were indeed in the boxes in the back of my car, and managed to make it to Toronto before rush hour.  I dropped Carissa, the bikes, and the luggage off at the departures ramp, and parked the car and caught the shuttle back.

Check-in was wonderful.  The head of the crew working the desk was a cyclist himself, and told his crew to bring us through the VIP line for front of the line privileges!  Our bikes were indeed accepted free of charge (as neither of us were traveling with other checked bags and neither box went over 23kg), putting to rest a fear in my head that I missed some caveat that we'd be hit with a charge that I missed.  I can't recommend Brussels Airlines enough for traveling with bikes!  After we checked in, we were sent to oversized baggage, where Canadian security proceeded to rip my carefully prepared boxes apart, toss them back together, and haphazardly taped it all back up.  Made me feel bad for all the duct tape I had wasted putting the boxes together, and a bit silly for having to sit there explaining how to tape up my reengineered bike box.

After check-in, on our way to oversized drop-off

From there, it was a normal airport experience.  Leave my folder of papers at the security counter, not notice it until it was too late, get a few drinks at the bar, fight through lines to get on the plane, eat mediocre food and have a few more beers, read about Eddy Mercx in the in-flight magazine, somehow fall asleep through the shooting pain on my bottom from tiny seats, and wake up in Europe.  Getting off the plane at the airport, though, it was obvious we were in a cyclist's dream :)

Eddy Mercx in the in-flight magazine

Cycling events in Belgium promoted in-flight

Decorations at the airport

Advertising exactly what we were doing!

We arrived at our luggage carousels oversized baggage area to find: NOTHING.  A big, empty spot.  Fear shot over us.  OK, not really, just using some artistic license.  Turns out when we got off the plane, we stopped to use the restroom, and in the meantime another international flight got in line at immigrations ahead of us, and the extra time it took they had removed our bikes for safe keeping.  A talk with a luggage agent too me to the back room, where our bikes were awaiting us.  We grabbed a cart, cleared customs with a breeze, and set upon the next issue.

Our found bikes: notice my reengineered box in the back.  Bikes are marked with a back end arrow, to get them through parts of the airport we had to stand them on end

Another quick talk with a lady at the information desk gave me permission to assemble my bikes anywhere I felt like it, so long as I wasn't obviously in the way of people.  Much to my surprise, especially considering the events that have recently transpired at Brussels airport, we were also told that so long as the boxes were broken down and laid flat, we could just leave them and someone would be by to collect them.  I found a quiet corner, sadly next to a walled off area leading to construction to repair the airport, and set to task assembling the bikes.  It was obvious the bikes had been handled with care, with no obvious critical damage even to the cardboard.  The only issues were some front brake calipers needing realigning, and an hour and a half or so later, we had two fully functional bikes.

In as many pieces as it should be!

Carissa's looks good as well!

Don't forget to torque the handlebars...

Rack goes back on

After the bikes were assembled, the panniers were attached to the back, and we had private luggage carts that could be taken out of the airport :)

Finished, with our trash neatly piled in the corner

Selecting and Preparing the Bikes

My Bike

Our preparation began in March.  Early in the month, I found a rather beaten up looking 1982-ish Miyata 610 for $85 on the local CL for myself.  It was in rough looking shape, with large areas of paint missing and covered in dirt and grime.  I figured at worst, the components would transfer well to another frame (I really like the Sakae Randonneur handlebar style, and heard good things about the Suntour shifters), so I bought it for $15 less than the $100 asking price.

As Purchased

Taking it home and cleaning it up, the paint got even uglier when the dirt was removed.  I had originally thought about powder coating it, at a quoted price of around $175 by a shop familiar with bikes in Ann Arbor, but upon completely disassembling it I realized there was a bit of rust inside the frame.  To take care of that, I gave it a bath in oxalic acid overnight, immediately neutralized it, and then let it dry for a few hours before coating the inside of the frame with Boeshield T9.  All the rusty areas turned into (and remained) a normal steel grey, so I was happy with the results.  Unfortunately, the time it took me to get around to do this put powder coating out of the question, so I took 0000 steel wool over the frame and coated it with Rustoleum clear enamel spray.  Three coats, and it actually came out fairly decent looking, albeit taking a month to get hard enough that I couldn't nick it with a fingernail.

In an oxalic acid bath, in my tub

Getting ready for a clear coat

By the time all that was done, I had gone from early March to late April, with the ride fast approaching.  All the components cleaned up well, minus the wheels covered in decent amount of ugly (but serviceable) oxidation.  I acquired a set of wheels from what I was told was an old Trek 720, Mavic rims on Maillard hubs for $5.  I had planned on using both of them, as the new rear was a 6-speed v the original 5-speed, but the nipples were frozen and I destroyed a few trying to adjust it.  So, starting to run short on time, I tossed the old wheel, oxidation and all, back on, tossed the new front on, gave them a fresh set of Pasela 27x1-1/4" and set upon the new controls.

I had decide from previous experience that even though the fit I prefer on a road bike keeps me up higher than a more competitive stance, I still wanted an upright position once I arrived in Amsterdam.  I added cross-top interrupter brake levers from Performance Bike, and the required new aero levers to work with them (Tektros).  Suntour barend shifters were cleaned up and reinstalled (as they sell on eBay used for half the total cost of the bike), and all new Jagwire cables and housings installed. Brakes got some generic pads I bought an entire card of on the back, and Kool Stop Continentials up front to help in the rain.  Handlebar tape was actually Carissa's old throwaway tape, as it was practically new.

Controls, with the bars before tape

Bike completed and on shakedown.  I liked the complete pink bars, but I compromised with only some pink accents

Carissa's Bike

Simply put, much easier.  She did not want to take her Specialized Ariel out of fear of theft, so we went looking for something cheaper.  Found at a local bike shop specializing in vintage stuff was a purple Maruishi LadyAce mixte that she loved, so we paid the man $150 and went on our way.  The bike looked clean, as if it had been ridden about 2 miles and put away, never to be looked at again.

As such, I did not rip it completely apart, it just got fresh lube and bearings in the axles and bottom bracket, new cables and housing (was going to leave the housing, but Carissa insisted on pink), same brake pad setup as on mine (which will come into play later), new Pasela tires, and some new pink handlebar tape.  As an interesting note, I just found out it originally came from a shop one of the Program Managers I now work with used to own!

Carissa's bike, complete minus new bar tape in front, on shakedown

Touring Prep

As far as touring modifications, we kitted out each bike with the same components.  Lights were a cheap Axiom Flare set that we found for $15 at Performance Bike, effective enough for our needs.  Rack was an Axiom Journey I picked up from a bike shop on eBay for $22.  Panniers were the Nashbar waterproof set we got on a super coupon day for $51.  A wired CatEye Velo 9 computer went on my bike, for distance tracking purposes, she is less caring of having a computer.  We also both got bells, mine an Incredibell mounted up under the left brake where I could ring it on the hoods, and hers just a generic department store one.  I'll have a full review of how all the gear worked at the end.

Netherlands Trip Prep

Choosing Airlines

Perhaps the most intensive planning of all: negotiating the wild world of airfares, and their associated add-on fees.  I am lucky enough to live with driving distance of three large airports: Detroit, Toronto and Chicago.  A cursory look at airfares took Detroit and Chicago out of the running immediately, Toronto was so much cheaper that no matter what bike fees we would have been subjected to it wouldn't have made financial sense to use the other two.  Flying out of Amsterdam was a requirement, solely for the ease of obtaining bike boxes at the airport.  A combination of roundtrip to Amsterdam and flying into Brussels and out of Amsterdam was also looked at, and the latter was considerably cheaper yet again, so the decision was made to choose a one way trip instead of it all being Amsterdam centric.  Finally, looking at individual airlines, we started to weed out options.  All the American airlines cost in the neighborhood of $150 each way with a bike with no exception, so they were tossed, even though Delta was really cheap.  Air Canada had a fairly reasonable $50 each way fee on the return leg, and a flight with Brussels Airlines (who flies bikes free in place of a checked bag) popped up, so we happily chose that pairing for a bit over $700.


Route Planning

Other than the fact that both Flanders and the Netherlands are known as cycling havens, there is scant little English information I could find.  The reason, as at least I have deduced, is simple: their cycle networks are not a tourist thing, not a recreational thing, but a functional part of their infrastructure.  I wouldn't expect to find in-depth information on Michigan highways on a Dutch website (other than maybe a scenic drive in a tourist area), and in that same way, I didn't find much in English on anything other than day trips from tourist centres.

In lieu of information, and knowing how extensive the routes were, I instead relied on printing out a wall sized map from OpenCycleMaps, sticking post-it notes to things we wanted to do, and soon enough an obvious path emerged.  A list of cities started to emerge as overnight spots.  As some were smaller villages with few accommodations, I invested in membership to Vrinden op de Fiets, a Dutch organization connecting human-powered travelers with families along cycle and hiking routes with spare rooms for 19 euros a nite.  More on this later.

We quickly established our first two days and last three days plans: arrive in Brussels on Saturday morning, spend the day in the city, move to Leuven on Sunday and start our bike trip from there Monday morning.  Looking at cycle maps, Brussels is a black hole of routes, and after consulting with a bike friendly coworker that lived in the town for a few years, we decided the best bet would be to train from the airport to downtown, and then from downtown to Leuven. Likewise, we planned out our end weekend in Amsterdam: roll in on Friday night, spend both Friday and Saturday nights at the same hotel, and move to an airport hotel Sunday night for our Monday morning flight.

After those plans were laid, it left determining the best way to plot accommodations for the rest of the route.  A hostel with secure bike parking was quickly obtained in Rotterdam.  It was not a city I had a great desire to visit, simply because it is new and industrial, but there was a need for accommodations in the area, and I found a great bargain.  The rest was left for the trip, mostly by chance.  I had been attempting to use the Vrinden op de Fiets organization for Monday and Tuesday, with little success.  It was only as we were boarding the plane in Toronto that the Monday location finally got in touch with me, and I confirmed our eagerness to stay when I landed in Brussels.  I failed three times to secure a location on Tuesday night, which as you read on will have turned out to be a good thing.  Thursday was deliberately left open to accommodate some wiggle room if necessary.