Training day in the Ardennes

Bonjour!

Je parle un peu le francias, mais pas tres bien. Actually pretty poorly. Belgium is a unique country and has three official languages; Dutch, French, and German. Today I was able to practice some French (well not much) but enough to order "les boulets comme a liege" and then "je voudrais un cafe svp." I fumbled a bit asking for some water though. All I could think of was "mag ik een glas l'eau" which is Dutch and French all mixed together. At any rate we had a great day! The sun was out and the weather was beautiful! Not really. It was pouring rain the entire drive down to the Ardennes which is south of Brussels (and Ninove). Our drive time was about an hour and a half and we had gone from a Dutch speaking area to a French speaking area and the transformation was pretty obvious. It wasn't flat. Other than a few signs you really couldn't tell much until you arrived at a few of the towns. The area did have a different feel to it though and rumor has it that the people who live in Wallonia are quite lazy, I mean "laid back." Even the cows we saw were all laying down.

Eventually it was time to unload the bikes and get ready to head out. Thankfully the rain had stopped and it was now just a cloudy and warm day. Not to worry though the rain would return in full force later. We headed out and followed the "Route Romantique." The total loop is 120km but with all the heavy rain after three hours we decided to just head back to Huy (Hoei in Vlaams) for something to eat.

The main attraction in the Ardennes is the country side, which consists of climbs from 3 to 7km and various gradients. The steepest being the Mur de Huy. Before we arrived at the Mur de Huy we did a few other climbs including this one. I decided to try out my filming skilling with my phone while we were climbing! Check it out, I'm thinking of becoming a producer :)




The Mur de Huy a famous climb in the Fleche Wallonne. The Fleche Wallone is a single day cylcing race held in the region of Belgium known as Wallonia.











links of rechts? (left or right?) The signs for the Route Romantique were just like the signs for finding love in real life. Sometimes it was clearly obvious which direction to go, a few times we went the wrong direction and when we looked back could see the signs pointing out the corret path and the rest of the time you just follow your gut and your heart and hope that it takes you someplace happy.








c'est jolie!














And me at the bottom of the Mur de Huy. After a few hours of riding in the ride the clouds had finally had enough of dumping water on us.












After the ride we eat lunch at a local cafe and then drove back to Ninove. I had actually forgotten that there was a Pro race in Ninove today! I've included a video of the sprint finish for your viewing pleasure. The local pro races, like those in Ninove, are open to riders who posses an Elite License and are both under contract and without contract. The two differences between Elite with contract and Elite without contract is one is "paid" and the other is not. I'm hoping to enter into at least Pro race at this level. There is a classification which is UCI 2.1, the Elite races we do are UCI 1.12. So the UCI 2.1 races are even faster! Sweet!