When I rode out today I wasn't thinking of riding far. I could feel my legs were well recuperated but I imagined an hour or 2 would be more than enough. I rode towards Sint Agatha Rode and Ottenburg and then decided to descent into Basse-Wavre to climb out of it again towards the road to Perwez. It was a while since I followed this one past Chaumont Gistoux so I decided to try that. The bikepath, which in the past was deplorable, seemed to have been remade from Chaumont onwards. Great for biking now, without any potholes and other cracks in the road. I veered to the left towards Opprebais and decided to have a look at the Opprebais water reserve. Many decades ago this was the place where I did my first deepsea diving lessons. Well, needless to say, things have changed quite a bit since then. The site which was once abandoned is now completely filled with houses and it took me some time to find the entrance where we used to ride though to get to the clubhouses. There is only one clubhouse left, the one from DDT Tienen. The carriere is completely surrounded by a fence and there is a walkers/bike path going around it. Here and there you can catch a glimpse of the bluegreen water reserve captured in between the rocky walls. There is still diving going on here, but on a far lesser scale than 20 years ago. Access is limited and this has provided peace in the area as well as in the water itself. In my days it was not uncommon to have hundreds of divers visiting the site during the day and until late in the evening. Needless to say, the noise and light pollution did not go unnoticed and the Opprebais councel decided a while back to close the site as a diving spot and develop more houses next to it. The site has been opened again, but with strict limitations. When I rode around the pond it struck me that I remembered it to be bigger.

After that I followed the blue M markings for a while, taking me towards Dongelberg - another sweet water reservoir and dive-site - and Lathuy. I noticed that my bottom bracket had moved towards the left. Probably because I let some oil onto the axis a while back. When I shifted on the big ring in front, the front derailler cage rubbed against the middle chainring. First I taught one of the crankarms was getting loose but after a while my right crankarm began touching the right side of the frame. A sure sign that the axis itself was shifting. Ah that Tune Bigfoot crank , it is a very light crank but it has its peculiarities. One of them is the continuously loosening of the crankarms on the axis and another is the shifting of the titanium axis itself, moving through the bearings. When I got home I gave it a couple of jams with a heavy hammer and surely enough it moved back where it should be. I must change the bearings soon because the crankarms turn very badly. I finished my ride looping over Sart-Melin and back towards Hamme Mille. The weather was calm and with 23 degrees C not too hot. The sun came through during the afternoon making it alltogether a very enjoyable ride.

Ride Stats : 66K and 550/598 heightmeters (Polar/Garmin) in 3h2mins

5934/57045