Well, yes, almost. I decided to do a ride anyway. After yesterdays' century I wasn't too keen on riding a bike today but figured that active recovery is always better than doing nothing at all. So I rode a little loop over Heverlee and then back to Oud-Heverlee, Sint Joris Weert, Nethen and Hamme Mill to close my loop along the Naamse Steenweg. My legs felt not too bad but I noticed I was tired overall from a rather heavy week.

Ride Stats : 27.5K and 230/250 heightmeters (Polar/Garmin) in 1h19mins

1779/17970

14-03-2010, 13:13 geschreven door Big Bad Wolf

The day was announced to be dry but cloudy. When I left in the AM it was around 6 degrees C and there was a bit of wind blowing from northwesterly directions. I wanted to do a long ride today so I set out towards Meldert and Hoegaarden to connect to the Ravel going to Namur. I followed the Ravel past Jodoigne and where it split up a little bit before Eghezee, I followed the track towards Perwez. I hadn't been here before so when I arrived in Perwez I wasn't sure which road to take to connect to Wavre. So I stopped and fiddled a bit with my Garmin to try and figure out where the road to Wavre was. I must have hit the stop button accidentally at this time. I ended up asking for directions to be sure and then followed the N243 towards Chaumont Gistoux and Wavre. In Thorembais-St-Trond I stopped to make a picture of a bovine triplet, standing in the middle of a turnaround.

The road towards Chaumont was a very solitary one, high up in the fields and at the mercy of the wind which was now blowing full in my face. I also noticed a couple of stray drops of rain. But when I arrived in Chaumont I had some more coverage from trees and houses but also some more hills to tackle. I rode on towards Basse Wavre and then to Gastuche. From here I made a little loop towards Dion and then crossed the N252 again to make my way towards Archennes and Florival. After Pecrot I rode towards Sint Agatha Rode and then Sint Joris Weert. On my way from Weert to the Zoete Waters I met Roger. He was also doing a ride and we stopped for a while to chat about the Summer and how we both wanted the Spring to arrive after a long and cold winter. He told me I should go for the full 100K and I decided to try. At the Zoete Waters I continued straight on towards Oud-Heverlee and then turned right into  Heverlee and climbed to the Pakenhof. Down towards the Geldenaaksebaan and then to the right towards Haasrode and Blanden. I did another loop over the Wijngaardberg and this yielded me the extra couple of K's to make it an even 100 today.
Unfortunately when I arrived home I noticed my Garmin had switched itself off. When I uploaded my track later I understood what had happened. In Perwez I had more or less 1h50 of riding time and there I must have hit the stop button. The Garmin doesn't record the speed anymore but it keeps recording the positional data for another 2 hours before switching itself off. This coincided exactly with the 3h50 mins of track I had for today. 85K and 645 heightmeters and an average speed of nearly 47kph!  Which is normal since the Garmin thinks I did all this in 1h50. Its a pity the last 15K are missing. But I still have the heightmeters from my Polar of course.

Ride Stats : 100K and 725 heightmeters (Polar) in 4h31mins

1752/17720

13-03-2010, 16:07 geschreven door Big Bad Wolf

Today the sun was hiding behind a cloud layer . This made that the temperature didn't rise above 5 degrees C. The wind was still there but less noticeable than yesterday. I decided on a recovery ride with the Hilset. I had switched tyres between the Litespeed and the Hilset yesterday so now the Hilset was on 2.0 Nokian NBX Lites instead of the 2.2 versions. On the road the tyre size doesn't matter too much to me so the 2.0 performed fine. They made me ride just that little bit faster. My average heartrate of 109bpm coupled to an average speed of 23.5kph proved that I was riding very relaxed. 

Ride Stats :  26K and 150/185 heightmeters (Polar/Garmin) in 1h6mins

1651/16995

11-03-2010, 18:31 geschreven door Big Bad Wolf

Today saw another bright and sunny day with temperatures just a couple of degrees higher but also with a stronger wind from the north turning towards the northwest. I decided to do a climbing session in Meerdael Forest. I had mounted my XTR wheelset with Nokian NBX Lite tyres in 2.0 width. These are rather narrow and I have to put in at least 2.5 bars in them to prevent snakebites. Also, the narrower footprint makes for less effective braking and certainly not as much comfort as its wider brethren. The forest tracks were mostly dry though and with temperatures of 7 degrees it was pleasant enough to drive through the forest. Before I took off I noticed a strange rattling noise coming from my XTR M952 rear derailler. It took me a while to figure out why my chain seemed to jump on the lower jockey wheel. One of the teeth of that little wheel had been sheared off, cleanly. Thinking back to my last ride I remember catching a big branch into my rear wheel whilst riding the Pecrot railroad singletrack. A branch that also hit my rear derailler. It must have hit it pretty good to take that teeth off !

Anyway, riding the bike it didn't matter that much , but I need to get me a new pair of jockeys one of these days. In Meerdael I followed more or less my secret training loop, leaving out the steepest of descents because I didn't trust the skinny tyres to be able to stop me on time. But as I rode more distance I became more confident in them. Nevertheless upon arriving home I swapped them with the 2.2 versions that are on my Hilset. The Hilset is only used on the road and the skinnier tyres are no problem there. The Nokian NBX Lite is quite a nice tyre. It doesn't have a lot of knobs in the center, making it a good roller, but it has some longer knobs on the side, making it grip pretty good in offcamber situations and in the corners.

The climbs and descents followed in a relentless succession and even though I was riding at a pretty relaxed pace I began to feel the heightmeters accumulating in my legs. I was not surprised to see I almost got 600 heightmeters by the end of my 30K ride. The weather forecast calls for a change of weather tomorrow, with the wind turning even more to the west and thus making the air a bit moistier. In Belgium that usually means its going to rain - or snow as might be the case if the temperatures stay this low. Anyway, we might have seen the last night of freezing for this week which must be a good thing too.

Ride Stats : 31K and 560/585 heightmeters (Polar/Garmin) in 2h11mins

1625/16810

10-03-2010, 20:31 geschreven door Big Bad Wolf

Beautiful sunny day but a dry and arid wind blowing from the northeast made it feel a lot colder than it actually was. I decided to ride the Haasrode tour, one of my regular rides, following some old arrowing leading me towards Haasrode, Bierbeek, Willebringen, Hoksem and Oorbeek. The Goudberg geosite  marks the furthest northeasterly point of this route, so from there onwards I had the wind more or less blowing in my back. But by then I was already starting to feel like an icicle.

I would see a real icicle in a field not far from L'Ecluse whilst making my way towards La Bruyere. From there I left the Haasrode tour and rode back home over Beauvechain, Tourinnes and Hamme Mille. The air only contained 40% of humidity which made for a bright red sunset. The sun's color was due to the smog over Brussels I believe. Still it was a nice sight and I'm sorry I didn't stop to make a picture. But by then I began to feel the cold in my fingertops and the setting sun made me speed home even quicker. The last half hour it was 'lights on' making this a nightride after all. The average temperature was with 2 degrees C one degree less cold than yesterday, but the wind made it feel a lot colder.

Ride Stats : 50K and 360/440 heightmeters (Polar/Garmin) in 2h18mins

1595/16225

Cold and even some light snow during the day. This winter is surely one of the worst - or best if you like snow and ice - since ages. I can not remember seeing that my snow in one season or so many days with freezing temperatures. Luckily we can dress for the occasion and I did ride out after watching the finish of the competitors in Paris-Nice. I only wanted to do an easy recovery ride so I chose to do a loop involving little climbing, instead focussing on easy roads. My loop took me through Heverlee, Egenhoven and then towards the crest above Leefdaal. There I turned left towards Neerijse and then continued towards Sint Agatha Rode before turning towards Sint Joris Weert and the Zoete Waters to close the loop. The average temperature was 1 degree C and there was an unpleasant breeze blowing from the northeast.
Today I saw an article where they stated that this july Minister Schouppe wants to introduce the European Car Registration Plate in Belgium. The colors of the Belgian car plates are now red lettering on a white background. Minister Schouppe wants to change this to black lettering on a white background. So far so good but the next step is more difficult to come to terms with. The European plates all have 7 digits . In our system the oldest numberplates have 5 digits and the newest ones 6.
So all Belgian cars must be fitted with NEW numberplates that are comform to the European system . Quite a big change. The worst change is for the owners of personalized number plates. In Belgium you can get a personalized plate for 620 or 874€, depending if you want 6 or 5 digits . Obviously the combination must be available and has to include at least 3 numbers and 2 or 3 letters. Some combinations - like the abbreviations of political parties and the like - are of course forbidden.
Now Mr Schouppe, in all his wisdom, also wants these personalized plates to have 7 digits, so he came up with the bright idea to add the digit 9 (or 99) in front of the combination. So someone who now has the number plate JAN-001 will get 9-JAN-001.
I can understand the frustration of all those who see their investment brutalized and changed into something hardly personalized at all . I doubt that Minister Schouppe will offer those people the possibility to get their money back. There are already Facebook groups who protest against this action and demand that the personalized number plates are left alone - they can become back on white that is not the problem . Time will surely tell how this will evolve.

Ride Stats : 34K and 250/280 heightmeters (Polar/Garmin) in 1h33mins

1545/15785
  

08-03-2010, 20:09 geschreven door Big Bad Wolf