After maniac researching for a new photo site, finally: Photos from my riding in Lasne one week ago!
My favourite organized ride Les Boucles de Lasne comes off on Monday, but I wonder … it might have rained a little too much lately. Expect patchy mudbaths? Excellent for training bike handling!
Tags:
While my doctor has ordered me off my bike once again, this weekend I saw two events come off that took me down memory lane.
Magic Finnmarksturen in Sweden comes off every year. Mentally the hardest ride I’ve ever done. Fantastic nature. Excellent organization.
And in Belgium, Houffamarathon, where I lost my precious magnesium on one of those rocky downhills, and with rest stops 20k apart, I was not the only one to abort from severe muscle cramps. What an excruciating pain. I need that revenge! Saying that, though, many have complained that starting fees have been raised too high, and that organization is not as it was in the beginning.
An upcoming event I have been looking at for years, and which brochure I came across when participating in the Roc d’Azur last year, is the Grand Raid Godefroy. Even if I am off the bike, I might go and have a look at the exposition and the downhill competitions in particular. Maybe a photo or two …
Hoping I am fit enough to drive a car … and wishing for less rain.
Tags:bouillon·Finnmarksturen·Grand Raid Godefroy·houffalize·Houffamarathon·Ludvika
Sweet Bolland (province of Liège), also this year you evade me! *sigh
An alternative ride, closer to Brussels, would have been Jambes (province of Namur). *sigh
Instead, I’ll focus on enjoying the sun on my terrace! What a punishment! And perhaps, in the late afternoon … a short local ride to test my sprained ankle …
Tags:Bolland·Jambes·Liège·Namur·singletrack
Don’t forget … one of the top organized (recreative) rides in this country:
Raid des Sorcières.
Spoilt for choice this weekend! Several suggestions for organized rides have come to my attention:
Personally, I will make a note of these for next year … My plans for this weekend have been fixed for the longest time. This fabulous, hot weather could not have been better timed! It will hopefully last until Sunday evening.
As already mentioned on the 16th March, the annual organized ride in Lasne is a topper when the weather’s been dry.
The organizers have now sent out their official invitation: Page 1, page 2.
When Belgium is at its driest, which is not often I might add, there is only one place I go: Lasne.
Every year there is an organized ride here: Les Boucles de Lasne. It is a fantastic opportunity to see these trails. I participated the first time in 2003, and then again in 2007.
Saying this, though … if it hasn’t been mega-dry for the past two weeks at least … expect a mud-bath!
Hmm … look which ride comes off this same day: The Ardennes Trophy. Rumour says this is the hardest ride in Belgium. I remember once being fit enough, aiming to participate … and then I fell sick with high temperature the night before. I was grateful simply for making it back home driving my car from Houffalize, passing the Theux exit on me way home. The morning after the police knocked on my door: seriously law-abiding Minna had managed to park illegally in her fever-induced haze …
RESPECT to the RdS people! Too many organizers just seem to want to pull in as much money as possible. The organizers of Raid des Sorcières, however, now convey that the number of riders will be limited … “les inscriptions sont limitées”. Excellent! This means that the event has potential to survive many more years, and not experience a supernova effect as rumour spreads and it attracts more and more riders.
Registration can be done over the Internet only, so plan ahead. (Through that very link you also have height meter information, by the way.)
Dear RdS people … see ya there!