#pancycle

Today I shot out the door on my bike with a little food, money, water and a little green post-it note with a series of numbers on it.  my intention was to ride for a good number of hours outside of Brussels to the northeast.

With the help of a local bike route map I planned my exit from the city, heading out towards the airport with no particular expectations other than that the route would be relatively flat.

The post-it with the series of numbers came into play about 8 miles out.  These numbers were obtained by going to www.fietsnet.be and simply clicking on a start number then connecting the dots to form a loop that seemed a reasonable distance.  I had been told by a few people that this site is easy to use but because it is in dutch only and I didn't really understand how it worked I was not so sure of what I would get out of it...

Wow!  Just Wow.  Not only is the site itself perfectly usable without needing to understand a word of dutch, the system of cycling routes that the site points to is simply amazing.  Here are my numbers:

53,52,34,35,39,5,98,97,20,77,44,19,49,18,13,14,71,72,91,53

Once I got to that 8-ish mile point I began to look for this "53" sign and in short order I found it.  A white sign with a green border and the number 53 with an arrow pointing to the right.  I went right.  Every once in a while I would come to an intersection and see a sign with 53 on it and an arrow showing me the way to stay on 53.  I followed the arrow.  After a time I came to a sign with the number 52 and an arrow pointing the way.  I again followed the arrow.  All the while I was riding through little Belgian villages and countryside near the airport turning left, right and left again in a manner that I could not possibly duplicate if I were out there without these little signs with the green numbers.

That is what you get when you come to a place where numerous cycle, or fietsroutes, come together.

This is what you get when you come to an intersection where there is only the cycle route that you are on - a prompt keeping you on the route:

Rule number one is that if Fietsnet says go straight down a narrow muddy path through a lovely, green stand of trees then that is what one does.  Never, ever second guess the Fietsnet!

Following the signs can at times can be tricky as they are small and can get hidden by overgrown bushes etc. but I quickly learned to expect a sign every time there was an intersection of any consequence where I had an option of which way to go.  If I didn't see the sign at first I simply went back to before the intersection and I inevitably found the sign and the arrow.

The amazing part of all this is that ones only job aside from looking for the signs at intersections is to ride the bike.  One is not required to think.  Fietsnet has already done all the thinking.  I would have never taken most of these roads/trails if I had tried to plan this ride using a map.  Not only that, if I had done the planning I would have had to find all the street signs and turns and I would have had a four page list of turns that would have been impossible to follow.

These are some of the other places Fietsnet took me:

and then there was this which snuck up on me and almost yanked me off the bike:

I stopped,  I went in and came out with this which I promptly ate:

52 miles after setting out I arrived home.  In all fairness I saw some not so beautiful stuff as well:

some art:

and I did get massively lost (5 miles out of my way lost) on my re-entry into Brussels as that's where the little green numbers stopped but thanks to the iPhone and Google maps I made it home.

The Belgian weather was also a wonderful companion.  Wind, rain, sun clouds, cold, hot, calm, stormy all in a matter of 4 hours.  I got everything I could have hoped for there...

This was really one of the most amazing rides I have ever taken.  I was alone but riding without hesitation in a place I had never been.

It has been a rather complex reentry into this city I fell in love with in 2003 but save the thievery I have nothing about which to complain.  I have worked a bit in the steel pan community here.  I have enjoyed seeing old friends and new ones.  Mostly I have been rather un-touristic which is fine in a city filled with tourists.  

I have made some rather hilarious language errors my favorite of which was yesterday while I was tuning at a school:  The main entry was locked permitting neither entry or exit and when I approached the door another man who was standing there asked me (I realize now) if I knew how to get out.  For all I know he was speaking Catalan because I thought he was asking me what I was doing there and so I proceeded to tell him in stunted awkward spanish all about what I was doing, where I was going and when I planned to return...

He listened and nodded.

Now I am using the wifi in some modern looking rather empty restaurant in Bari Gotico waiting for 4 PM to arrive at which point the bike store opens - yes - opens.  4 PM.  Its Spain you see.

Vichy Catalan - the Catalonian equivalent of Topo Chico is much saltier than I remember it...

In 29 minutes I will go pick up my new Brompton and take my first ride around town.  Folding bike.  Now there will be no keeping me from riding...

I saw a sign at another very hipster looking bar that said, in English: "if the wifi doesn't work you can talk to each other..."

that is a hint of the Barcelona I love.  A little humor but more a suggestion that people connect with one another.  This culture always struck me as emphasizing that... connecting.