Borders of Belgium 1000 2016

[Chris S]

I'm currently sitting at the Lommel control, waiting for fboab and friends. A broken spoke, and seized rear hub are amongst today's dramas.

Lovely warm night, but there's talk of rain later.

Some of these folks look VERY tired!

[Deano]

Quick coffee at Oppiter, 30 km from Lommel. Lovely balmy night for a dash along the canal.

[mmmmartin]

Disclaimer: I packed about halfway.
These long nights through deserted country mean carrying lots of water and food, and not seeing a light for a while is disconcerting. The traffic free experience is wonderful, but if you were alone and Something Happened it'd be a good while before a vehicle came along.
Two of us had a Formule Un hotel for the first night, which made the second day less traumatic but most rode from 2pm on Thursday to almost 600k, then faced a day of 300k with 7,000 metres of ascent. There's no easy 1,000k, obvs, and that flat bit along the coast for the first afternoon is more than compensated for by the hills. Belgium is not a flat country, y'know.
Great route, well organised, deffo recommended.  ☝

[Chris S]

Quick coffee at Oppiter, 30 km from Lommel. Lovely balmy night for a dash along the canal.

Don't fall in - it's dark!

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Good luck to boab, mattc, et al still out there.

[Chris S]

Good luck to boab, mattc, et al still out there.

No sign of mattc by the time I left, but the VC167 crew (plus D. A. L. E), Laid Back Rich and the Kingston crew, and the Bristol lot were all tucked up in bed, or drinking beers when I left.

The rain has arrived .

Looks like a bit of a headwind slog to finish tomorrow, but everyone seems in good spirits.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Rain and winds in Belgium? Never seen that before!

;-)

[Rohnny]

10:55   20 finishers till now, but many are very close.

[marcusjb]

Well done all and I hope all the remaining AUKs enjoy the final morning!

From the pics on Facebook etc., this looks like it has to go on the list for next season if it runs. Looks fab.

[mmmmartin]

Posting this for anyone thinking of riding next year.
We used this B&B and it's ideal.
http://www.housingdebrouwerij.nl
12k from the start/finish, nice room and you get another sitting room with big tv, comfy chairs and sofa and a small kitchenette area if you want to prepare food. The town is five minutes drive away and has restaurants and a supermarket. €70 per night. They have a large parking area well away from the road which is a very quiet road anyway. You could probably leave a car there during the ride.
 The lady speaks fluent English. Good breakfast.
Recommended.

[mmmmartin]

Some geezers from Kingston have just arrived. Cheerful.

[Graeme]

Well done everyone!

[D.A.L.E.]

That was brilliant.

[fussballclub]

^ This. Big thank you to Rohnny and his team. Rohnny, as you asked, Hackney Club drinks are last Thursday every month.

[Rohnny]

Thanks for the kind words, guys. We had lots of Fun, even though It was hard work. We met a lot of lovely, interesting and joyful riders before, during and after the event. I hope to see all of you in the future, maybe during LEL or an other event in the UK. If all goes as planned, the Borders of Belgium will be back in 2018. Suggestions to make the event better are very much appreciated. 

[hippy]

Cannot believe no one thought to mention this drunken 1000k drunken loop of drunken Belgium to drunken me?! Anyone want to ride it DIY in the middle of winter...

[HK]

Cannot believe no one thought to mention this drunken 1000k drunken loop of drunken Belgium to drunken me?! Anyone want to ride it DIY in the middle of winter...

Making such suggestions to certain AUKs is living rather dangerously as some just may take you up on the offer. TG has made daft riding suggestions before and some of us might just have taken him up on the offer. No names mentioned of course.

[hippy]

I'm counting on it because I'm terrible at organisation so mention it enough and someone will think it's a good idea and propose a date/time

[Liamo]

Can I add my thanks to Rohnny and his helpers for all the hard work they put in.

A brilliant weekend away. Highlights include the endless series of ridges after Hoyuet (admittedly this highlight is very much in retrospect), the lovely town of Monschau, the varied course, passing all the late night accordion parties on the canal run-in on night two, the beer and the company.

Lowlights were few but the headwind back to the Arrivee was hard. And was I the only one who was looking for a bridge, or maybe even a ferry, in Antwerp, not understanding (until I asked) that the reason I couldn't find these things was because what I wanted was a tunnel...

[Ivo]

Cannot believe no one thought to mention this drunken 1000k drunken loop of drunken Belgium to drunken me?! Anyone want to ride it DIY in the middle of winter...

Making such suggestions to certain AUKs is living rather dangerously as some just may take you up on the offer. TG has made daft riding suggestions before and some of us might just have taken him up on the offer. No names mentioned of course.

now he has made me considering something daft...

[Rohnny]

Can I add my thanks to Rohnny and his helpers for all the hard work they put in.

A brilliant weekend away. Highlights include the endless series of ridges after Hoyuet (admittedly this highlight is very much in retrospect), the lovely town of Monschau, the varied course, passing all the late night accordion parties on the canal run-in on night two, the beer and the company.

Lowlights were few but the headwind back to the Arrivee was hard. And was I the only one who was looking for a bridge, or maybe even a ferry, in Antwerp, not understanding (until I asked) that the reason I couldn't find these things was because what I wanted was a tunnel...

Thanks, Liamo. The tunnel (and lift) was mentioned on the route sheet. Unfortunatly, there is no ferry or bridge to get to the other side of the Schelde. I can see what I can do about the strong headwind for our next event. I'll try to get less wind, but that may come with a  little more drizzling rain and less sunshine. 

[mattc]

Tunnel:
I knew about this from reading the routesheet; I guessed Antwerp would be tricky, so that was one of the bits I "armchair recced" before the ride, and used to sanity-check my GPX file. [see my many anxious posts from a week ago  ] Liam, you weren't the only one caught out - I found two Brits right outside the entrance with the same problem.

I guess this highlights a navigation problem for any long ride: the GPX will never tell the whole story that a routesheet* can,  while it is 10 times easier to follow for 95% of the ride! caveat randonneur

*(and it is hard to review 1000km of routesheet before the ride - indeed some would say that it takes all the fun away)


_{More general comments to follow, after I have interrogated my various gadgets ...}

[Liamo]

Yes, I know the tunnel mistake was rider error; just funny looking back at my confused state at the time: right then, so no bridge; umm, have they removed it, or is it somewhere else etc etc.

The other highlight I've remembered is the sleep stop at Habay. I knew I was getting a proper bed, but was so delighted when Rohnny showed me to a single room. All for me. The packed earplugs weren't needed.

[Phil W]

Tunnel:
I knew about this from reading the routesheet; I guessed Antwerp would be tricky, so that was one of the bits I "armchair recced" before the ride, and used to sanity-check my GPX file. [see my many anxious posts from a week ago  ]

You can add waypoints with alarms in gpx to deal with such things. So waypoint called tunnel with an alarm at the appropriate point would have triggered as you hit the river etc. Your eTrex 30 is one such device that works happily with these alarms even when navigating a track, route, or none at all.

[Laid Back Rich]

Absolutely brilliant event thanks so much to Rohnny and his lovely extended family welcomes at Habay and Lommel where we found great home-cooked dinners and breakfasts, unbelievably luxurious accommodation, and beer

Will post some photos soon.

Thanks!