Lost in Translation: Riding on the sidewalk to Eddy's house

Generally speaking, other people are just fine with me as long as they keep their distance, the exception being if they are on a bike in front of me on a bike and thus serving the useful purpose of sheltering me from the wind. Put simply, people are ok by me - as fairings. Though the Bomber has a much higher tolerance for people who are not on bicycles, she prefers they keep their distance when astride a bicycle. It is a measure of our willingness to leap into the unknown and embrace new experiences that I would be around people after they got off their bikes and the Bomber would be around them while on bikes. It turns out pretty much everyone in our group was delightful, and we thoroughly enjoyed their company.







The fact that we immensely enjoyed the company of others both on and off the bike should not be taken as license for any of you to try to get me (in particular) to do anything else new and different. Seriously, just keep your distance and everything will be cool.

So on our first day in Belgium we set off with more than a dozen of our new friends to shake out the cobwebs that gathered on our trip eastward, with the ostensible destination of the Eddy Merckx bicycle factory, in Meise, nearby to the YSCX Mobile HQ (Velo Classic Tours Edition), in Mechelen.




A word about riding in Belgium: smaller. Road? Think driveway, then think half your driveway. Bike path? Think sidewalk, and not the big downtown version, the two-person sized neightborhood version. And if there is a bike path, you better be on it because there is another word about riding in Belgium: huge. Tractor? Think semi. Trailer full of cow manure? Think motorhome full of fertilizer. April in Belgium? Fertilizing season.




It was in the Belgian style that we rode bar to bar on sidewalks covered in cow shit at 20 miles per hour, dodging the traffic furniture (big flower boxes in the middle of the road) Belgians love to drop in the road every three kilometers or so. Factor in cross winds, drainage ditches dropping immediately from the side of the "bike path" and you quickly come to understand why Belgians are such badass bike handlers. The lame ones are dead.




So why, you are likely wondering, am I regaling you with tales of manure-laden sidealks, narrow city streets and huge farm machinery rather than interesting photos of the inner workings of the factory that makes some of the most storied bikes by the greatest cyclist to have ever turned a pedal in anger? Yes, well, it turns out the Eddy may still live here but he sure don't work here any more.




That is one disappointed Bomber. Still, valuable lessons were learned about the Belgian aversion to straight, uncluttered roads, and their indifference to cyclists peeing in the ditch by the side of the road, both of which would serve us well in the significantly more interesting days to come.

Frank Lazlo