It froze -5 last night so things looked pretty good offroad. I decided to do an exploratory ride, making my way towards Tervuren and back. The trails were fine when I left around 11am. Temperature was still below zero and I made good progress through the fields between Korbeek Dyle and Duisburg. There was still some old snow in the hollow road, secluded from the sun and frozen solid it has withstood for 2 weeks now. In Tervuren I rode past the site where the Cyclocross will take place tomorrow. There was still a lot of work to be done, and the course itself was closed . So I looped around the park, checking out the Colonial Museum and making my way back into the park from the other side. Then I took to the offroad tracks again, following the lines on my GPS towards Duisburg and on towards the Ganspoel and Huldenberg.

The steep climb behind the soccer field was quite a challenge with some patches of ice making tyre placement very important. I rode onwards towards the Smeysberg and over it . Dropping down into Sint Agatha Rode. Here I decided to cross the moors towards Pecrot. Sadly this proved to be a wrong choice. The top soil was no longer freezing and riding through and over all the puddles made me pick up a lot of mud. Damn, this would mean cleaning the bike afterwards. But for now it meant I couldn't shift on the small ring in front, due to the derailleur being clogged by mud. I had to stop twice to manually put the chain on the ring. The steepness of the climbs into Beaumont and later in the Meerdael Forest didn't allow me to stay on the middle ring. I did a last loop in Meerdael before returning home. Quite pleased with my ride even though it took me 15 minutes to clean the bike to a more or less presentable state.

Ride Stats : 52K and 560/650 heightmeters (Polar/Garmin) in 2h59mins

88/950