Hello all. Day 20 and we rode into Lille. The ride from Brussels to Lille was suppose to be mostly flat riding with some nice downhill sections that we could just coast down. Well I am not sure what Google was thinking but this was not the case, or at least it did not feel like the case. But I am getting ahead of myself. We left Brussels around 10:30 in the morning. We had wanted to leave earlier, but the combination of some light rain and then just general laziness meant we did not. We headed out of Brussels following a canal to the south. It was relatively ok riding aside from the cobble stones, mud, water, rocks, sand, fishermen, fishing tournament, and gravel. Bike paths in Belgium really need some attention and some love and care. We arrived in the town of Halle just in time to see an orchestra begin to play in a small square in the street. This was really very neat to stumble upon this. Quite a lot of people were crammed into the cafes around the square to listen to the music, despite the cloudy overcast skies.
(You can barely see the orchestra in the background)
After listening for a little bit we moved on to find something to eat, since we had not eaten anything yet for the day. Unfortunately the only place open was McDonalds... So we ate there (beggars can't be choosers). It was fine, I had a couple of wraps so it was not completely just fried food. From there we started to head West. We stuck on the same road essentially all day just heading west, but there was a nice bike lane and there were a couple neat towns so I did not mind too much.
A few miles down the road the storms began to build and move in, which meant we started to bike into a fairly strong headwind. The headwind was brutal. It was sustained around 10-15 mph and gusting up to 20-25mph which just made biking so much harder. The flat parts felt like hill climbs, the downhills felt almost flat, and the uphill felt like much harder hill climbs. We were battling this wind the whole way. I would never have thought that wind could affect someone so much when they are on a bike... But it does, it really does.
We kept biking along stopping about 20 miles from the French border to throw on our rain gear because it was about to start raining. We had a few little showers blow through and then right next to the French border the floodgates opened and it poured. All in all my rain gear held up great (I might have looked funny, but I was completely dry). After this big storm it was just easily riding into Lille. We arrived in Lille a bit later than we had planned but it wasn't too bad.
We met up with our hosts and after dropping off the bikes and changing we headed out to dinner. We went to a nice Chinese restaurant and had a pleasant time talking with our hosts and their friend. All in all it was a good day and evening, and if it hadn't been so windy it would have been a nice day of biking. Tomorrow we head to Saint-Omer and the day after over the channel. Well that is all I have for now so I say best wishes and until next time.
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