The first-morning bike tour from Leuven turned out to be, if not lumpy, then obviously not pleased with the weather. As a route, I chose 50 km. Ring Leuven – Brussels Airport Leuven. I left Leuven at 8:00 am and returned to the hotel by 11:30 am. On the way out of Leuven, I quite unexpectedly entered the territory of the castle, which today is used as the administrative center of the Faculty of Applied Sciences of the Catholic University of Leuven made a route map on a Belgian bike router, which I liked even more than the Dutch one. Here you just click on the control points, and they are automatically added to the list. Much more convenient than the auto-router with the subsequent drag and drop of route sections in the Dutch version.
All this happiness is exported to gpx and uploaded to an iPhone or any other gps friendly device.
If you upload it to an iPhone with Motion X GPS, then you should also pull up a map of the area to it. Practice shows that zoom 14 is the very optimal setting in which all the necessary details of the terrain are visible and the iPhone does not strain when downloading. The size of a map with a radius of 50 km will be about 10 MB. The signs on the bike paths are the same color as in Holland. Villages in Belgium are distinguished by the variety of houses. After the Dutch red brick, it looks very fresh. Very soon, however, we leave the city, where we often have to drive on cobblestones. Paving stones are the main cycling attraction in Belgium.
One of the classic pro cycling tours, the Tour of Flanders is mostly paved, making it one of the most traumatic tours of the cycling season. In Belgium, the sowing campaign is in full swing and the fields are already neatly prepared. A pleasure for lovers of strict geometric textures. I did not go all the way to the Airport, but I saw airspace control towers on the horizon. On the way, I ran into another luxurious mansion. It is written that it is private property, but the fence is purely symbolic.
The terrain here is no longer flat and often you have to climb up the hill. Not as cool as it was in Spain, but nonetheless. After the ascent, however, there is always a descent. I’m not quite used to the road landing on the Jan Janssen yet, so I’m cowardly slowing down a very springy and refreshing beer. It contains only 6.8% alcohol, and the yeasty taste and smell are somewhat similar to fresh baking. Orval produces only one type of beer and all the proceeds go to support the monastery where it is brewed.
