Another night close to freezing left the forest cold in the morning. Even when I rode out around 11am it was still only 5 degrees C. I was able to make a nice picture of the sunlight filtering though the autumn leaves. Soon I was out of the forest. The plan was to ride through the fields to the south-east and conenct with l'Ecluse and if possible Sart-Melin. Only obstacle was the Beauvechain airfield I had to leave on my right. The fields felt a lot warmer than the forest, because here the sun shone freely and there was no wind to speak of. Using the sun for direction and the Edge 705 to find the trails I could conenct the dots and arrived at l'Ecluse. Here and there I was able to include some singletrack and before long I was on my way towards Melin. I wanted to get home before 2pm because I wanted to watch the cyclocross World Cup race in Plzen. In Mélin I turned my bike towards the northwest and conencted back through the fields towards La Bruyere, Beauvechain and Tourinnes . I spotted the Saint Corneille chapel from afar, its white wall shining in the sun. Then I entered the Meerdael Forest again and made my way home in time for the World Cup.

Tomorrow I have to go back to work after 4 weeks of holiday. I had a good holiday, the weather was great in the first couple of weeks and then a bit of rain in the last 2 weeks but nothing really bad enough to keep me inside. I was able to ride my bike for more than a 1000K and 11000 heightmeters during that time.

Ride Stats : 40.5K and 365/400 heightmeters (Polar/Garmin) in 2h9mins

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