Time 6:23
Climb 618m
Weather Windy all the way
Had a pleasant surprise on leaving the hotel. Firstly I found my missing Alien next to my bike. Then just as I was leaving a girl came up to me with my compass saying "I guess this must be yours?". So all present and correct again.
I set off from Eupen heading due north, happy that this was going to be the day when I was due to make a turn south and west, so hopefully towards warmer and drier climes.
All the water I had been drenched with must have got to my brain as I took a number of unplanned detours but I found my way back onto my route without too much difficulty. My navigation was helped by the strong wind that was getting stronger all the time and rather worringly coming from the direction I would be heading in the afternoon. For the time being though I knew if I was being blown over sideways into the hedgerows I was heading in the right direction.
Eventually I came to a long straight road that ran along a hill running north-south. It reminded me of the Hogs Back coming out of Guildford and similar to that road had some great views, which I tired to appreciate when I wasn't in danger of being blown off the hill and into the valley. It was along this road that I had my first encounter with another guy on a racing bike. I didn't know he was there until he whizzed by me, but once he was ahead I gave chase. He was doing a fair lick but eventually I caught up, which then gave the dilemma of whether to overtake him or stay behind, using him as a windbreak. I was still dithering when he solved my dilemma by turning off my road.
Very shortly after this I crossed the border into Holland. I followed a lovely "green" route along a river to the outskirts of Valkenburg, then cycled along the flat straight road into the town itself. It was around lunchtime so I stopped at a pub. Rather bizarrely the only food on offer was cake, so I had a couple of helping of this with beer accompanyment.
http://www.valkenburg.nl/
The official route into Valkenburg:
Some Valkenburg TDF history:
Having reached Valkenburg I was now faced with the first of my "gap Etape"s. These are the gaps that need to be covered when the tour finishes at one town and starts at another. I faced a number of these, the longest being the one from L'Orient in Brittany down to Bordeaux at 565km. The one from the end of stage 2 at Valkenburg to Huy, back in Belgium, for the start of stage 3 was only a paltry 70km.
I did my best to make this a bit longer by heading the wrong way out of Valkenburg. Once I realised my mistake I decided to make the most of it by taking a look at Maastricht, a town (in)famous in the UK for having an EU treaty named after it but about which I knew nothing. It proved a pleasant surprise. First thing of note were the plentiful cycle lanes. The outside of the town was full of nondescript new buildings but at its heart was a lovely old town centre, reserved for pedestrians and bikes only. The only drawback was that it was cobbled which, despite my bike being a Roubaix, meant a rather shaky ride. However I was glad I passed by.
Maastricht:
Maastricht info:
http://www.vvvmaastricht.nl/index2.php3
Heading out of Maastricht I crossed back into Belgium and once again had to contend with its road system. I had planned on using a "yellow" road but on seeing it was the same as the dreaded N676 decided against and risked a red alternative. This was better in that it had a cycle lane but was made difficult by running through wide open, flat farmland where the wind that was now quite vicious whipped dust and dirt straight into my face. Just to wind me up the cycle lane also had some huge holes dug into it. These seemed to be some sort of roadwork but there was no sign of any roadworkmen and whenever I came across one I had to dismount and push my bike round it.
All in all this made for hard going, the harder because I knew this wasn't really a part of the tour proper.
My first view of Huy (except that when I was there the skies were grey...)
Eventually I reached the outskirts of Huy. I had not booked a hotel in advance because I thought that if Huy was a ville d'etape it was bound to have plenty of hotels. However as I rolled down the banks of the River Meuse on which the town sits my heart started to sink a little, especially as the skies opened to give me my first soaking of the day just 5km from the end of my days riding. I took shelter under a bridge, restarting once the rain had changed to drizzle. I passed one hotel but that seemed to be in the middle of an industrial area so gave it a miss and headed for town centre.
There I could see no sign of hotels. Bemused I asked a local if there were any hotels nearby and found there was just one (Hotel du Fort), which eventually I tracked down. I got a friendly welcome and after depositing my bike in the garage and drying myself off headed into Huy for a meal.
While waliking into town I saw a sign saying that Huy would be welcoming the Tour de France but was also on the route of the Giro (Tour of Italy). Strangely this turned out to be true. And I thought I had got lost from time to time!
Huy seemed to be as lacking in restaurants as hotels. I ended up in an Irish pub, of which there seems to be at least one in every town in the world. (Strange because when I lived in France back in the early 1990s this was very much not the case, in fact one of the highlights of a trip back to the UK was a pint of Guiness.)
Maybe the hotels/restaurants had all been scared off by the nuclear power plant, that was, literally, a couple of miles down the river from Huy town centre.
Belgiums nuclear power stations. The Tirhange station is on the river Meuse right next to Huy:
Huy Links:
http://www.huy.be/
http://www.eupedia.com/belgium/huy.shtml
No comments:
Post a Comment