Christmas in Belgium

Team Sixcycle spent the holidays spread from Burma to Hawaii to Belgium. In the latter case Bruce Fecheyr-Lippens returned to his home roads of Belgium, posting this brief ride report upon his return.

Team Sixcycle's Bruce Fecheyr-Lippens on Riding in Belgium during the Holidays

We have a yearly tradition to do a 100 km ride between Christmas and New Year with the Belgian cycling buddies. This year it was on December 29 and we were lucky. After a week of pouring rain it was sunny and warm! Finally!

We left Ghent towards le Mont-de-l’Enclus. It’s one of my favorite climbs in Flanders – starts pretty steady, but with a little kicker in the end in the woods.

It was one of those gorgeous days where we mixed up the 8 of us and chatted along the way. That was the good part!

Going further on the very tiny roads of the Tour of Flanders I really realized I was back in Belgium – the ‘smell’ and ‘taste’ of dirty and wet roads from all the rain over the past days, the multiple accelerations after every short turn and the typical Belgian landscape!

We went ‘hard’ just one time on the Mont-de-L’Enclus. I forgot how great it felt to attack those short and punchy hills, arrive at the top completely breathless to then decent as a rock and push it again on the next climb… that’s riding in the Flanders! You can pick your route so that you have a hill every 3km… it’s so hard but so fun!

I must confess I can’t wait till the next ‘meeting’ with the Flemish roads and the Tour of Flanders for amateurs at the end of March. Be prepared New Yorkers joining to Belgium for a week of pure joy, suffering, Belgian dirt, mythic climbs and good food and beer!

Oh yeah and after that you will ‘fly’ over the ‘dirt sections’ at Battenkill