September 21st
We actually got off to a reasonably early start, up at sunrise and nursed the trike to a bike shop in Rendeaux for 09:10.
However, the wheel with the broken spokes turned out to have a very specific, custom sized spoke. We have spare spokes with us, but only for the other 2 wheels, not this one. The bike shop also didn’t have the right size.
They also didn’t seem the most keen to go out of their way to help. But in the end they did force the cassette off after we had said it’s okay no need to bother. They put some spokes in that are not quite the right length and then couldn’t get our original cassette back on and charged us for a new one.
With that not sorted and our wallet lighter we headed to La Roche and another bike shop.
La Roche turned out to be a super cute little town. On the lovely high street we found a bike shop that seemed more on point. Unfortunately they seemed quite busy. The lady said she wasn’t sure if she had the right size spokes, but if we waited 30 mins then she would see what she could do.
We deliberated, umm’d and ahh’d. Called a bike shop in Bastogne 50 hilly Km away to see if they had a specific whole new wheel. They did not. We ended up making the call to wait and see what could be done.
The wait ended up being a little longer than planned. Other people were coming and going with bikes needed seeing to and we were sat outside for quite a while. Luckily it was sunny and there was a supermarket next door. First we had a special fancy pasty each for my birthday. Then we had fruit. Then another pasty. I had a little nap outside the shop in the sun. Still we were waiting so I ventured down the high street for ice cream. The hours ticked by so we then ate our usual lunch of bread & cheese while still waiting. We’ve been stuck in much worse places though.
4.5 hours later the wheel was back on. The other bike shop had put the spokes on wrong and then there were more issues. It was also the last ever day that shop was going to be open. Hence all the other coming and going and sales. The lady wasn’t going to charge us but we had to give her some cash for all the time she put it. She had really made the effort with it.
We eventually cycled uphill out of La Roche for what was left of our afternoon. It turned out to be all uphill. But with our bodies full of sugar and whatever else we’d eaten, we flew up them. After an hour or so we crossed paths with the same cyclist for the second time since leave La Roche. He was called Ad and cycled next to us and got chatting. He very kindly offered us a place to stay and shower if we needed it. Usually we would have bitten his hand off for this however Lieselot and her family were also renting a place nearby for the weekend and had offered the same. Our initial plan was to leave the trike in a field and get picked up. But now we could leave the trike at Ad’s!
Somehow on the short ride to Ad’s place we took a wrong turn while I was navigating. The re-direct then wanted to take us off road which we couldn’t do. So the eventual redirect sent us up a long and steep hill. The boys were blowing hard and Louis wasn’t happy with me. We eventually got to Ad’s and met and chatted to his family and we all had a good laugh at the Trike. They turned out to be from close to Ghent too and he and his wife have previously cycled around the world! Hence the kind offers to strange tricyclists that they see in the rolling hills. We also then noticed that the wheel we’d spent 5.5hrs trying to fix today was still hideously buckled.
Lieselot came to pick us up for the evening. We said bye to the trike and our new pals until tomorrow morning and went off. I had a surprise choreographed dance welcome for my birthday. Before, aperitif, well needed showers, dinner and games. Hilariously enough dinner was pasta. Which makes it 7 nights in a row of pasta dinner, even with 2 meals at peoples houses. But it was tasty and there’s no complaints here. We had a really fun quiz from Lieselot and had a fantastic night.
Not very man KM ticked off today with all our bike shop waiting but still a great day. And still a surprising amount of climbing done. It’s never always going to be smooth sailing so you’ve got to expect days like this. We were still happy and smiling so that’s all that matters.
Daily stats
40 km. 587 m elevation gain. 2 hr 38 mins moving time.
Cumulative Trip Stats
547 km 4,826 m elevation gain. 32 hr 35 min moving time.
