We had five days on the saddle planned – and this was the last one. We had a plane to catch, so we had no time to lose. From breakfast we started early beacuse we knew that we had almost 90 km to the airport. We decided to take the part of the day as quite a long effort – we wanted to get as close to Brussels as possible before we stopped for lunch.
It was rough just to get back in the seat – and even tougher to add the extra eight kilos of the bikepack back on. I had planned for an easy ride, but I did a mistake in the planning – so we quite early on the ride got the countdown to the climb on our Garmin. When we saw the name of the climb we soon knew that this day was going to be harder than expected.
The climb was Muur van Geraardsbergen – with 7.8% over 1.1km – and cobbles. However, after the Muur we got the view. A spectacular view both of the small church and the landscape around the area. Seeing it from the highest point was amazing.
The rest of the day was quite flatish and we soon got into the suburban aras of Brussels. And with the city – the traffic got tighter. We had to focus and be on the alert all the time. When in the city center we went by the most well known tourist attractions – we went by the central square and the royal palace. However, riding in the city with many people and cobbles was a challenge and we soon stopped for lunch and were on our way towards the airport.
We decied to go early to make sure we had lots of time to dismont out bikes, get them into the bike box – and check them in. Taking the bikes a part was harder than expected. After 600km all the screws had tighten and we had to put up a fight to get it all apart.
If you want the GPX for this last part of the ride – then you can find it here
