Ride Day 3: Into the Heart of Flanders

 We got a fairly early start from Lier this morning, into a thick fog that had gathered overnight along the river. Our route started with about 25 km of riding a path along the river. It was beautiful and the fog cleared fairly quickly, revealing an overcast but not threatening sky. We saw all kinds of birds in the little lagoons that sided the river, including this huge swan:

 

 

We rode up behind a group of maybe 30 high school age kids who were on a school trip on their bikes (there were 3 or 4 teachers). We were moving quite a bit faster than they were, so we rang our bell and passed. This being Belgium, at least 5 of the boys figured that they better jump on our wheel and follow. It was quickly apparent that they could out ride us if they were going backward! But we heard their teachers calling them back, so we waved and said goodbye.

Mid-morning we were in Boom and found a nice coffee shop / bar and had some coffee.

Their tagline is "Tastes like heaven, brewed in Boom." (They were referring to their beer.)

Soon enough we rode into the famous city of Ghent. Famous for lots of things, notably, cycling. There are Flandrian flags everywhere:

Our ride wasn't that long today, but we added about 25 km due to some road closures. I plot routes on some pretty fancy online tools that do an awesome job. But they cannot predict road closures for road work projects, and things like that. Shortly after Boom the road was closed for a work project. We tried to sneak past, but the work guys laughed at us and said to go around. The "around" was about 25 km. Glad the weather was decent.

A quick thought on riding on Belgian roads. Every road has a bike path or a bike lane. The paths and lanes are not as sophisticated as we found in next-door Netherlands, but the drivers are so aware of bikes and they always defer and give bikes the right of way. Sometimes the generosity of the drivers in downright embarrassing to us because we simply don't expect the courtesies. Bikes are just part of the road furniture here.

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