Tonight saw some long expected rainfall in our region so this morning the trails were bound to be less dusty than yesterday. I decided on another mountainbike ride in my 'home' forest, exploring some more singletracks and riding some hills at a leisurely pace.
More or less like the snail I captured with my Sony DSC-300 whilst biking . The wet spell caused a lot of snails to appear -apparently out of nowhere.

I started out again in the eastern side of the forest, exploring some lesser-ridden trails and some possible additions to my Secret Meerdael Loop. Some of them were very difficult to ride due to vegetation and fallen trees. But I did not have to turn around so all the tracks are basically OK to ride, with some technical prowess needed from time to time. When I crossed the Naamsesteenweg I came to the hiller section of Meerdael Forest and tried a descent I hadn't done for quite a while. To my surprise it was completely clear of debris. I then incorporated a succession of climbs and descents working my way towards the outskirts of Nethen. Here I took the little walking trail next to the Savenel wall. This was difficult to ride due to the crops that made the track very narrow. But I made it and then took the steep downhill into Nethen

Some more interesting trails brought me towards The Kluis where I noticed one of the sculptures of Ad Wouters. There is a trail that connects all of these oeuvres d'art , the trail is called Het Pad van Ad.

From there it didn't take me much longer to complete my riding, taking the hairy descent into Sint Joris Weert and the uphill towards the Speelberg on my way to the August Denteneer pad. Just a couple of nice trails left and right and then I was back in Blanden where I finished the loop at the Naamsesteenweg. My legs felt OK and the weather remained dry with the exception of a couple of raindrops when I was near the Herculessalon. But it quickly stopped and the trails were not even wet.



Ride Stats : 39.5K and 595/680 heightmeters (Polar/Garmin) in 2h42mins

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