First test for a solo cycling trip in Europe! 3 days on my bike! #solo #cycling
I just got back from a three day cycling trip, because I want to practice a little bit before going on my longer trip to the Pyrenees to the start of the Camino Frances but how did I, do I still want to take my bike? you'll definitely have to watch this video Hi there, good morning, I'm Kaat from Steps by Kaatje and welcome back to my Channel today I'm starting out for a three day biking trip, because if I want to bike my first part to Santiago de Compostela I sure have to practice! So I loaded my bile completely just about how I want to go to Compostela and I'm gonna go for three days and see how it works! so come on join me and by the way it's freezing cold it's just around zero Celsius 32 Fahrenheit come on what's the plan? well I have three days. Today it's Thursday, I have day off and I'm gonna ride my bike into Brussels which is 90 kilometers from where I live. Tonight I'm gonna sleep at my mom's place and then tomorrow, well I don't have a day off so I have to go to work but I work in Brussels so that works out just fine.
Tomorrow I'm gonna try not to leave too late from work and I'm gonna ride another 30 kilometers back this direction and I'm gonna sleep out on a Bivakzone. So Friday night I'll be out camping using all my gear and then on Saturday I'm coming home. I have to do another 60 kilometers so I hope to be home in the afternoon.
All right good plan isn't it? come on I did about 13 kilometers now the sun is shining it's still pretty cold but it's time to take off one layer it's really too hot and by the way did you see my nice fluo vest especially made for this bike trip cool stuff all right ready to go come on going for a little snack on the way and my bike bottle if you're wondering how I planned my route for today well I'm using the Node Network because all over Flanders you have those cycle trails and they're marked by those points and then you can go from one point to another really neat really nice! so I put this in this plastic bag in case it rains I can follow and I can just follow all the numbers you can see up here of course I also have it on my phone so if I'm not sure I just open up the phone and I can see where I have to go so I don't think I'll be getting lost I'm here at this beautiful Bivakzone in Drieslinter but I'm basically just going to use the restroom so Poefi are we enjoying the ride? oh yeah it's great fun but I'm glad I don't have to pedal okay yeah I understand that It's One o'clock And I think I deserve lunch! made myself an egg sandwich, mmm, and I have a Coke to drink. I did about 42 kilometers so almost halfway but now since Tienen it's going more up and down so I don't know how it's gonna go this afternoon but oh well we'll just have to continue but first have lunch cheers It's 3 in the afternoon and I did about 55 kilometers which is not too bad but I still have 35 kilometers to do so I've been looking at my options and I think from Leuven to Brussels I will be taking the Fietsostrade which is a faster track for cyclists so all right but for now let's quickly have a little break and then we'll continue on this goes up way too much even in my lowest gear I can't make it back on track I found the Fietsostrade the fast cycle trail F3 and Brussels is 26.5 kilometers the trail is really well marked with paintings on the ground and it basically follows the railroad the whole time so that way it's rather flat which is nice, but if you go into the villages you usually go into a Fietsstraat or a cycle street where special rules apply, you can't go faster than 30 kilometers an hour and you cannot pass bikers or cyclers good for us isn't it Keep on cycling everybody! we're in the middle of the Grand Place in Brussels. we made it! I think I did about 90 kilometers, it was a long way, but I did it before dark and so I'm gonna leave you guys here for tonight and so now I'm gonna go up to my mom which is another three to four kilometers and then I'll call it a night for sure! I don't know if I'm gonna be able to move because my legs my butt my my back, they're all hurting pretty bad but I still think that I did really good and I'll see you in the morning how does that sound, yeah, good night okay good night good morning! I slept pretty good and now I'm on my way to work. I have arrived at work and
as you can see we have this big parking for bikes! it's Friday so not so many people around but I was here on Tuesday and then it was completely full, and what's more there're some lockers and there you can put in your stuff so that's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna put part of my stuff in here and tonight if I can just take it out who would want to stay in with this kind of noise finished working, I'm all packed up and ready to go I'm going for 28, 30 kilometers and I hope to be there around 6 o'clock, it's 3:30 now this is the big Cemetery of Brussels and my grandparents are buried here over 50 years ago, so I don't think their grave is still there, but I remember coming here as a kid and visiting them and bringing flowers and all that so I wanted to show this it just keeps on going up yeehaw going down down I thought taking a shortcut was a smart idea let me tell you it definitely is not I made it to the campsite, the Bivakzone I did about 29 kilometers and it was a lot of up and down and up and down so it was really, really hard. I had to push my bike a few times because I just couldn't make it up! but all right, I didn't do too bad here I am, I've found the spot where I'm gonna pitch my tent in the dark and I've seen there is a campfire going, there are some other people staying here so I think that's going to be fun and for now I'm gonna really hurry up and pitch my tent ! so we didn't stay out very long because it's really cold and everybody already returned to their tent so after dinner I came in as well. I've challenged myself to be making this video on my phone because I usually do it on the computer, so I want to know if I can do it on my phone which would be nice when I'm on my way to Compostela, I can make videos regularly! So but for now I'm gonna continue on doing that a little bit and then go to sleep, right Poefi? Yeah, good night, see you guys in the morning! Good morning, I slept pretty good I wasn't cold I had a little bit of cramps in my legs but otherwise I did okay um I did go back to the campfire later last night because there were two guys who came and so we talked a little bit one of them a few years back so that was interesting to know how he did it and even at a quarter to 11 there was a whole bunch of Scouts arriving, they were pitching out their tent but I didn't hear them after that because I went to sleep and so now it's my morning routine I'm still in my sleeping bag, nice and warm and I have a hot breakfast I'm all packed up ready to go. It's a quarter to nine so that's not too bad, I have to do about 60, 65 kilometers today, it's my third day on my bike, don't know how it's gonna go because I did have some cramps last night so it hurts a little bit but we'll see, we'll just start going, all right! I just pushed my bike up this little hill. I wanted to show you this, it's the Tomberg and
it's 102 meters high and almost the highest point here in the Meerdaalwoud, that's where I'm at right now and it's a prehistorical site so they even found stuff from three thousand five thousand years ago so it's really very old it used to be a court, a Forest Court at a certain time, but mostly it's prehistorical. Nice sight, it was worth coming up and going down will be more fun I guess that's the fun part of cycling when you go down you don't have to do anything and you're going fast anyway for me I'm not a real cycler I basically use my bike to hike faster I don't know if you can hear it but it's really quiet here , I hear birds a lot of this kind of roads they are really bumpy! right Poefi? yeah I'm having a little break with some crackers and I'm trying to make myself some hot soup but I'm almost out of gas so I don't know if it's gonna work but we'll see I have crackers I did succeed in having a hot soup and it's even too hot hmm but it tastes pretty good and it warms up my hands we made it back to Limburg! It says here welcome to the cycling Paradise Limburg and you can see it also at the nodes, they are in blue now they used to be white with green rectangles around, so getting there, I hope back home&! it was though those three days the first one, I did 95 kilometers and in fact I thought that was pretty okay but then yesterday I only did like 28, 29 kilometers after work but that was tough because it was really going up and down and up and down and today I had to do another 60 kilometers and I think this was the hardest one because the beginning was also bit up and down and now it's a bit flatter but still... oh boy, I think I'm really tired and I'm wondering, if this is three days what am I gonna do in three weeks I mean cycling the whole day for every single day for at least three weeks that's a long time so I think I'll have to really look into my preparations, maybe throw out some gear or switch the route a little bit make it a little bit less up and down, I'll see, but for now well I sure enjoyed doing this and I hope you guys enjoyed going with me if you don't want to miss any of my preparation videos for my Camino or my bike trip to the Camino you'll definitely have to subscribe and ring the bell so that way when I put up a new video you will get a notice and of course you can always give me a like, I like that very much but for now I'm saying you goodbye and I hope to see you on the next one! Bye
2023-03-30 01:38
