When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking. Arthur Conan Doyle
I had to drag myself out of bed this morning at 7am even though I was fast asleep by 8:30pm last night despite a band of rain, thunder and lightning that passed through.
Fatigue has caught up with me so I spend the next 2 hours fussing over route, a trip to a boulangerie, stripping back the contents of my pannier, hydrating and generally deciding if today was the day to hit the hills. Eventually, with no excuses left I take to the road which starts with 6km of continuous uphill riding.
With the first climb done I get to a decent viewpoint then it's time for a pause in a village.
The second climb starts with a typical Belgian short punchy 15%, the type of gradient where you need to balance traction of front and rear wheels. My front wheel does pop up off the tarmac and it's not a good feeling as you are, albeit briefly, riding a unicycle.
If I havn't been providing weather reports it's because the weather has been perfect and is set fair.
Cows in the shade. In the UK we have mixed feelings about cows; curious or killers? Yes they are often curious but they can be defensive and excitable in the right (or should that be wrong) conditions. Cows kill four people every year in the UK though only 1 of those is a member of the public with the other three being workplace related. Given there maybe 30 deaths per year in agriculture cows therefore count for 10%. I have simplified the statistics here but only slightly.
There follows three more modest climbs then a 10km finish along the Meuse. The planned ascent today was 860m and the actual recorded was 1,000m. Komoot always has this type of difference between theory and practice.
So "without thought on anything but the ride" I had shrugged off my fatigue and enjoyed a splendid day out on a bike.