Big Bad Log

Normally I would have been on Accro Bike trails today but yesterday I had a bit of a sore feeling in my lower back so I thought it best not to risk anything. This morning I felt nothing of the expected soreness so against 11am I decided to ride out anyway. Nothing too easy but also nothing too difficult. So the Overijse Bloso's come to mind. Obviously I wouldn't ride them in the normal direction but decided to ride them in the counterdirection of the arrows. There was a big manifestation in Meerdael involving horses and carriages so the Weertse Dreef was closed for all traffic except cyclists, walkers and horses. Great, that is the way it should remain. This road is used by a lot of people to sneak from Wavre to the Haasrode industry area, and it is not made for that. I would be pleased if they closed it up for all motorised traffic once and for all.

In and around Ottenburg there were a lot of walkers about which made me choose some other trails from time to time. I felt OK but keeping in mind what I felt yesterday I did not seek the extreme challenges today. Nevertheless I ended up all of the steep climbs , both off and on the Overijse trail , and having no trouble at all .
Well , that is not exactly correct because my rear derailleur gave me some trouble. When passing a couple of walkers I had to seek the border of the trail and there I picked up an old and rusty bicycle spoke. This lodged itself solid between the cage of my rear derailleur and my wheel. Causing the chain to jump and as I would notice later, also caused a dent in the wheel and when shifting to the biggest ring on the cassette my chain would jump over the ring and lodge itself between the cassette and the spokes. NOT a good thing. I tried fiddling a bit with the derailleur arm - which must have had a thud - but in the end decided not to use the upper gear, instead changing to the small ring in front more often. Since the rear derailleur also was uneasy on the smaller cassette cogs I added a bit of tension to the cable and that seemed to help. Also shifting up to the biggest cog went without a problem after that. The only thing I needed to do was to loosen my v-brake a bit because of the dent in the rear wheel. I need to get that wheel checked this week.
Other than that the ride was fine. Around noon the sun broke through and the temperatures became a pleasant 17 degrees C. The trails were surprisingly dry around Overijse and only when I returned towards Meerdael Forest did I see some more mud puddles. Obviously still remnants of last fridays' thunderstorm.

Ride Stats : 57K and 780/745 heightmeters in 3h07mins

2738/23280