Day 36: Cheat Day

Today was the first day we deviated from our normal plan and used the train. Turns out the Ardennes have more ups and downs then we expected, and the train was only 2 euros. It doesn't get much cheaper then that.

We left the campsite in Luxembourg a little before 9 in a drizzling rain and dropped into the valley that divides the city, and headed north. With a little help from our phones we found the bike route we wanted and were cruising down the river valley. Pretty shortly, however, we started to run into hills. While nothing was a bad as Switzerland, the rolling hills still were annoying as we biked up one, and down into the next valley.

A little ways into our ride we ran across a couple that was stuck on the side of the bike path. They had a flat tire, and were out of glue. We let them use some of ours and chatted as they fixed their bike. Turns out they were a couple from The Netherlands biking to Luxembourg City. They had just come from the route we would be biking in the coming hours, and gave us some clutch information (especially to just take the train.) We told them we had been biking through Switzerland, and they seemed thoroughly unimpressed, until they realized that was actually biked multiple passes. Then they questioned the fact that three recent college graduates would, by choice, bike over passes in Switzerland.

After the tube was patched, we were back on our way north. It was still drizzling on and off, but the rain was nice as we powered up into the Ardennes. We had two monster climbs, and ended up at s no name train station around 12:00pm. At this point, there was supposedly a bike route from this station to St. Vith, but the tickets only cost to Euros, and from the end of the train we could take a rail trail to St. Vith. We opted for that, and sat to wait for the train.

After the train ride, on which we were probably the only people, we were in high spirits and Matt pronounced the end of climbing on the trip. "It says here a max of a 2% grade." Well, that wasn't true. As we rounded the next corner, there was a sign for a 10% grade ahead. Luckily it was short and sweet, and there were only three of them total along the route.

At some point along the way we hit the 2000km mark on our trip. We think by the time were down we will hit 1500 miles.

We didn't roll into the campsite until 4:30 or so. The campsite is way out of town (by 10 km or so) but it's a bumping place. There's a kids camp going on right now, and we got a full dance routine during dinner. Matt as a video of a bunch of Belgian and Dutch kids doing a line dance to a German version of Cotton Eyed Joe. It was quite amusing.

By now the rain has subsided, but not the kids. Hopefully they'll go away with the sun. Tomorrow is another 100km+ day to Maastricht!