In which Sid and Doris decide to leave the UK, along with practically everyone else.
Sid and Doris have decided to go cycling in Belgium and have bought a package from Headwater: a route, bike hire, hotels booked and any luggage not on the bike moved to the next hotel.
Today, Saturday before the Easter break, is about getting to Brussels, sorting the bikes, seeing a bit of the town and having drinks and dinner.
We live a few minutes from Stansted but have chosen to take the train to Brussels. That is expensive. However, we learn that Stansted is in chaos (more than usual) as they cannot hire enough security people to X ray luggage and marshal queues. So we are lucky not to have chosen flying. An alternative would be to drive. There seem to be major hold-ups as the Chunnel. The ferries are messed up by the sudden disappearance of P&O ferries. And for the trucks there is worse. The post Brexit UK customs IT system has broken down and lorries queue for twenty miles outside Dover, back beyond Ashford. (We refer you to our post on the Turkish-Bulgaria border in 2019, which feels very gloomily prescient.) Merely queueing for an hour at St Pancras International suddenly feels good, relatively.
On arrival in Belgium Sid and Doris enjoy local public transport using the local rail from Brussels Midi to our hotel. Sid is seen here in the role of mule. Really very smart creatures, Doris says, and Sid’s ears twitch.
The bikes are described in the holiday documentation as two high-quality unisex tourers. When we hired bikes in Cuba and Nepal we had a pretty accurate guess as to what we would be getting. In Corvara and California we had real drop bar light bikes. Sid has brought tools to improve whatever Dutch Bikes has left down in the hotel car park. Normally we expect a cheap but fairly credible flat bar hybrid.
These are worse than we had ever imagined. These Dutch bikes are what commuters use for a five or ten kilometre commute. A fifteen-years-old-but-still-loved Specialized Sirrus Pro like Catherine’s home bike weighs about eleven kilos. These must be twice that and have amusing handle bars in the style of ape hanger bars from 1970’s Choppers.
Anyway Sid fits proper cleated pedals, fittings for our ‘phones and once Doris joins the happy scene encourages the bars for a feasible riding position. In their defence, these bikes are very sturdy. Very, very sturdy. Very, very, very sturdy.
Bike work done your duo set out for the Grote Markt which is quickly ticked en route to beer and fud.
For the connoisseurs – gourmets or gourmands – it is possible to buy a 1m tasting set of beers. Some of this stuff is as strong as wine – 9-12% alcohol, and Sid and Doris watch in awe as a couple with a baby in a pushchair prepare to share the 10 glasses. They might not have realised what they were in for.
On to the Family Brews bar. This bar, which looks like a converted grocer’s shop, has gingery beer and guests playing guitars and singing. After a while Doris and Sid give them ‘Streets of London’ because someone else borrowed the pub guitar and started it and then needed help (like reading the lyrics off Sid’s phone, and the notes and the length of the notes).
We tear ourselves away from what looks like a regular nightly session. Dinner in the Aux Armes du Bruxelles was proper white napery, Belgian steak and chips with Bearnaise and peppercorn sauces to fuel this rather modest cycle trip. Still you need to eat up the chips when your bike is made of stone.