The Big Day

A couple of days back, we were cycling on an easy day, about 50k or so, and stopped in Hoegaarden to visit the Brewery.

Two hours later, after a couple of beers, we got a bit bored sitting there at about 3pm. It was a nice day, so we figured we'd have a look at the route ahead. One thing lead to another and 65k later we were approaching Liege, in the East of Belgium. We were a little puffed, to be honest, but we had a nice, long downhill into Liege.

At the bottom, we got a bit lost, so asked a bus conductor where Soumagne was. He thought about it for a bit, then went "ah! Soumagne! Au velo?" with a disbelieving look. I said yes, he laughed out loud, long and hard.

Turns out Souamagne is up a sodding great 10km 6% climb. We had no choice and just had to grind it down. We'd already carried our fully loaded bikes (including a shed-load of beers, a rotisserie chicken, a baguette, and a litre of juice, ON TOP of the full tour load-out) 115km and the hookers in the brothel windows on the N3 between Saint-Truedan and Liege were a distant memory. Still, we made it and had made up a day on the schedule.

Good phys.

The next day we took a rest day and went looking for a supermarket by foot. This turned into a 7 mile round trip, not great for the legs on a rest day!

Currently in Koblenz, nice place and still looking for somewhere to camp. German roads are awesome and I fully recommend cycle trips here.