Namur

Completing an extended ride in a foreign country always throws up lots of challenges – some expected and some unexpected. Of course there is the challenge of not speaking the language, riding on the wrong side of the road, trying to control an unfamiliar bike, tormenting your nether regions with a different saddle, the constant packing and unpacking at a multitude of different hotels, and so on. It is certainly not for those who just want a relaxing doddle. They are the ones who take the “all of Europe” bus tours, where they can sleep in the bus for about 18 hours of every day.
Fortunately, the Ghostriders are made of stronger stuff and always prefer the harder option.

Our ride today was planned to be around 78 km, as we rode from Lieges to Namur, both in Belgium. At the hotel I divided the riders into two groups. One group was led by myself and the other by David. Everything went well, until we actually left the hotel carpark. That was when the first disaster struck. The road was quite narrow, and some riders decided it would be safer riding on the footpath instead. It turned out to be a bad decision.
While Maggie was trying to ride onto the footpath, she misjudged the curb, lost control of her bike and fell heavily on her head and shoulder. We had only travelled about 20 metres of the ride, so this was not the ideal start. The fall was a heavy one, leaving her quite stunned. After a few minutes of recovery, we resumed the ride, in search of a better place to examine her wounds more thoroughly.

Lieges is a heavily industrialised centre, with endless factories, recycling centres, garbage dumps and even a nuclear reactor or two. It is neither an attractive or pleasant place to ride a bike, however we did manage to find a quieter spot by the Meuse River, where Maggie could sit for a while. After some painkillers, she was on her way again, shaken and badly stirred.
We then twisted and turned through a confusing labyrinth of intersections, underpasses, interminable roadworks, rough cobbles, etc. The city seemed to go on forever. Since the navigation was tricky, we appointed Ken as the tail end Charlie to make sure that no one got left behind. This seemed to be a wise idea, until Michael looked back and noticed that somehow Ken had gone missing. It appeared that we needed a second tail end rider to look after the main tail ender. Or perhaps we should all ride at the back?

On this trip we have decided to use WhatsApp as the preferred way of communicating between riders. It actually has worked quite well. Not only can we share messages, but we can also call each other. I decided to call Ken and check where he was. I eventually managed to reach him and ask him where he was. “I am waiting at the big power plant”, he replied. Well we could see the big power plant, but it was in front of us. It appeared that Ken had somehow managed to find himself at the front of the entire group. That is a strange place for the tail end rider to find themselves.

“Stay where you are, we will ride to you”, I instructed. We resumed the ride. We reached the power plant. We looked for Ken. He was nowhere to be seen. Just as we were thinking that he must have continued riding, Allan spotted him. He was on the opposite side of the huge river ! We waved back and forth, and pondered on how to solve this interesting dilemma. A study of the map showed that we would eventually reach a big bridge where Ken could cross back over to the correct side of the river. So that is what we did.

For the next ten kilometres or so, the main peloton rode on one side of the river, while Ken rode solo on the other. To add to the hilarity, we occasionally waved at each other. Eventually we did reach the bridge and the peloton was reunited again.

The industrial wasteland continued endlessly. We all hoped that it would eventually come to an end. We passed a huge nuclear power plant. Interesting, but not exactly scenic. Maggie was suffering with the after effects of the fall. If all of that was not enough, a persistent headwind fought us every kilometre of the way.

At about 40 km from Lieges, we reached the sizeable city of Huy, and looked for a place for lunch. We rode through a big carnival, but every stall was closed. When we finally saw a café, no one needed any persuasion to get off and stop for lunch. We were somewhat surprised to see the first group had also chosen that spot for their lunch spot. But we were in for another shock.

The café was obviously managed by one of the grumpiest women in Belgium. Everything we did or said resulted in a torrent of abuse from the sour faced vixen. She would have made a perfect prison warden. We could have packed up and ridden on, but we thought this might have been the only opportunity for a feed. So we took the abuse. The food was OK, so it wasn’t a total disaster.

It was only after we had finished our lunch and paid our money to the battleaxe, that we discovered we had made a big mistake. Just around the corner was a spectacular city square, complete with numerous outdoor eateries. Any of them would have made a glorious place to stop. Life is like that sometimes.

The final 30 km after lunch became a real test of rear end suffering. The second day of a ride is when you really feel every uncomfortable perturbation on your rear anatomy. In the fullness of time, everyone learns to come to terms with their new saddles, but day two is when the suffering reaches its zenith. I tried sitting forwards, I tried sitting back, I lifted my backside from the seat. It hurt all the time. It was a long 30 km, but we had finally left the ugly factories behind. We were now able to enjoy much more pleasant riding alongside the river, regularly punctuated by small locks and villages.

We did not reach the hotel in Namur until around 5 pm. It had been a long and tiring day, and we were all relieved to stagger off the bikes and seek the solace of our hotel. Our home for the night was the fascinating Hotel Les Tanneurs, a delightful 4 star hotel with the most confusing tangle of rooms, levels and staircases I have ever seen. Navigating within its walls proved to be more challenging than trying to discover King Tutankhamen’s famous Tomb.

Tomorrow, we continue our ride to the smaller town of Givet.Read more