Wallonia 2019 | Belgian Waffle Hype Train - Stop 1

I joined an Orwell Wheelers sortie to Belgium at the end of April. My first goal was to complete Liège-Bastogne-Liège. All Aboard the Hype Train and read about my build up to and adventures on the first stop; Liège.

Podcast Recording

This is a long report, five thousand words. I recorded it in Podcast format.

Just search “Breeze Shooting x Luke GJ” in your podcast client, or click this link: BS⤬LGJ #003.

Media Links

Photos: Belgium 2019  //  Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2019 145km.

Strava: Liège-Bastogne-Liège Middle Distance 147km 2,586m.

Four Months, Two Waffles

January is usually a write off for me. I’m winding out of holiday mode whilst battling an existential crisis due to the New Year. I improved my fitness that I gained in Gran Canaria by racing the 3R Series on Zwift. The C Category was drama-filled both on and off the bike. I had some obvious flaws on Zwift Racing. Mainly, I couldn’t spin a gear at a comfortable cadence. I was either at 70 rpm or 95 rpm. This would leave my legs drained for the finale of the race. And I was fat, and getting fatter.

Cronuts were not helping the w/kg.

I had already signed up to Liège-Bastogne-Liège and L’Etape du Tour for this year. I didn’t want to get this wrong. To arrest this slide, I sent some emails. The first was to Aidan Hammond, for a coaching plan. The second was to Caroline Lynch, for a nutrition consultation.

With Aidan, we started a steady, consistent, periodised build from my six hours a week CycloCross focus. I had an issue that I didn’t realise. My training was inconsistent. Either I would do a Saturday - Sunday week, or a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday Week. We got into a Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday routine. I felt a bit like a caged animal at the start of the plan. It took me a very long time to understand just how easy that the Saturday spin should be. I was in flying form, from the 3R series, and wanted to do more intensity and duration. The steady build and consistency avoided my urges. My urges would’ve likely seen me over-train too quick and get sick for a couple of weeks.

For the training plan workouts, I used ERG Mode (Workout Mode on Zwift) on my Smart Turbo Trainer. As two of the four weekly workouts were Cadence and Power based, I only had to focus on the Cadence, because the Turbo was handling the Power with it’s Resistance. The first month of the plan was just workouts. I did two four hour Zone Two Turbo spins, the last Ninety Minutes of which were just death. After the second four hour spin, I noticed Aidan’s Training Peaks comment on my previous one: “No more than two hours on the turbo”. I had bike brain and suspicions that Aidan didn’t want me to get the Tron Bike on Zwift.

I joined Team Ireland on Zwift, just as the premier racing season was kicking off, the KISS Community League. I asked Aidan if I could race one flat one. He included five rounds into my plan, three of which were hilly. I showed improvements in results each week. The most important part was the areas of my Power Curve that were seeing Personal Bests. My Twenty Minute number of 235W didn't change, but my five, ten and fifty minute power records improved dramatically. For Zwift Racing you need a strong five minute power number to be on the right side of the early splits.

Thursdays were fun, and I had a friend; Balazs Galambos also joined Team Ireland. Balazs was kicking ass in the A category, and without any more C category riders, I upgraded to the A category to add my points to his. We finished as the 26th ranked team in the combined A and A+ category, despite racing five rounds out of eight. The feat was more amazing, as I was only scoring half of what Balazs was. Balazs took some very impressive scalps in the KISS Community League, at one stage or another, he beat everyone on the Wahoo-CyclingHub team; Ed Laverack (UK Hill Climb Champ), Cameron Jeffers (UK ESports Champ), Steve Lampier (Tour Series Prime Competition Winner) and Chris Pritchard (2x Commonwealth Games Team Scotland Sprinter). The best parts of the League was looking through Spotify for “Belgian Techno” and “Dutch EDM” playlists for race music and the banter in the Start Pens.

Nerves jangling before representing my country.

To address my increasing fatness, my nutritionist looked at my food diary. Out of nine days of meals, she gave me two positive ticks, everything else was greeted with a “woah, noooo”. Caroline Lynch, based in Galway, is a Vegan. I wanted to get a Nutritionist with a plant power focus because they would have life experience of the lifestyle, and Animals don’t deserve the BS that we put them through. We had a consultation and determined that I was drastically under-eating. This was slowing my metabolism and making me more fat. We cut out my super quick Huel breakfast shake, the nutrient devoid canteen food in work, and most depressingly of all I had to lose the wrap on my homemade spicy Sweet Potato Burritos. A week later, I had a Holland and Barrett Loyalty Card.

The lifestyle change took some getting used to. I was struggling to eat the volume of food to get the calories. I was having a fun journey with food again. I made awesome tasting Spicy Chickpea Burgers, wack tasting Black Bean Burgers, and my favourite Tofu Scramble. A lot of the diet change was to keep my Insulin low, as that allows fat into the cells. I did sneak a few Starbucks coffees. In preparation for Belgium, I got two Stroopwafels. I wanted the warm gooey caramelly feeling. Alas they didn't melt properly, and I was left with an empty feeling inside. Lesson learned, don't get too emotionally attached to Waffles.

Through massive improvement in diet I lost two kilos of body fat. With the consistent training, much of which featured strength endurance efforts I put on two kilos of muscle. I had some extra bulging in my pants, as my hamstrings were growing.

A training spin out to meet my brothers at a run.

Four months took their time in passing, but my Training Peaks Events calendar started to show single digit days that my events were away. I did the windy Westport Gran Fondo and the sunny Good Friday Monster. I had some strong performances in the Club League, which had me in buoyant mood.

Before going to Belgium, I noticed some problems:

• My bike was shifting slowly, indicating stretching cables. I reckoned that no bike shop would’ve been able to sort the bike out in three days, so persisted with it.
• My neck and calf were very sore from all my training. Luckily Sinead Kennedy was able to fit me in for a Sports Massage, which sorted the pain. She also gave some really helpful stretches and advise for my issues, which I was able to follow from her YouTube tutorials.

Liège Bastogne Liège

Friday 26th April

I put off packing as much as possible, I had all my clothes washed and folded, just not in the suitcase. I finished packing on Thursday close to midnight. I had about two hours of sleep before my alarm went off. I set off for the airport. At the roundabout at Junction Nine there was a guy sitting on the railing in the middle of the roundabout. He must have had a rough night to be there at four in the morning. Standard M50 fare ensure, with people sitting in the middle lane.

As I got my Hash Brown heavy brekkie in Terminal Two, a bird swooped down from the rafters and stole some of my bread. The brave Budgie ate his prize in front of me. I tossed him some more, as fortune favours the brave.

Shane Phelan met me at the gate for the plane. The flight was pretty fast and smooth. Upon arrival, waiting for our bikes, we met with Darragh and two other lads from St. Tiernan’s CC. They were renting cars to travel to Liège. Shane and I were queueing with the rest of the plebs to get the train. It would be my first time on a train in almost two decades.

I was in for a very rough afternoon. We had to change trains, and platform twice to get to our station in Liège. The elevators on the platform weren’t working, so I had to race up and down the steps twice per staircase. The first flight of stairs was to drop my 4kg backpack and 12kg suitcase. The second was to get my 20kg bike bag. Shane was staying for the weekend, so was packing light. I was staying for the week, hence the extra cargo and two parter report. Once we arrived in our station in Liège, we had to walk to our hotel. This was an ordeal. The first bit of the walk was a cobbled climb. The footpaths were in terrible shape. After the guts of ninety minutes of dragging 36kg we got to our hotel. Check-in wasn’t until two o’clock. Shane and I built our bikes, while we waited for our third Campanile companion to arrive.

Eugène “Skil” Dillion rolled into the parking lot rather casually as I was taking my bike for a test spin. He had had a torrid night of travel. Eugène opted for the late Thursday evening flight to Brussels. The plane was left sitting on the tarmac for two hours. He got the last train from Brussels to Ghent to drop off his bike bag at the B&B he would stay at later in the week. At Ghent - St. Pieters station, he didn’t know that the Taxi Rank had moved. So presuming that there weren’t any taxis so late, he paralleled my trek to the hotel pushing cargo. A Police Officer seen him and gave him a number for a taxi. The next morning, he got the train back to Liège and cycled with only a backpack to our Campanile hotel.

We checked-in to our rooms and went about a scavenger hunt for provisions. There was a Lidl a few minutes walk away. I was the only one who brought a Shopping Bag, a Tour de Burren one no less. Shane and Eugène were buying all sorts of sandwich-making paraphernalia. I was perplexed. “Should I be making sambos too?” My bike bag was packed with lots of sports bars. So I left Lidl with Waffles, Water and Apple Juice. These were magic waffles, White Chocolate exterior, Caramel coating a wondrous waffle. They were like crack. I had eaten three of them on the five minute walk back to the hotel.

Live, Laugh, Love Waffles

The next task was to spin down to Registration. We plotted a route that would take us through the city. Our other two AirBnB Amigos were staying more central.

Helen Horan was also having a torrid time. She was on the same plane as Eugène, and her bike had a snapped rear mech cable. She was on her second stint of standing sentinel as a second bike shop worked on the internal routing of the cabling. She got sorted.

Dave Maher was our final Belgian Bandito. His only complaint was the tarmaced airplane the previous night. He helped Helen to the bike shops, and Whatsapped our Group pictures of beers he was sampling.

The Campanile Contingent, Shane, Eugène and I, got lunch and went to the Registration. The weather was extremely weird. It was really hot when the sun wasn’t blocked by clouds. It was super chilly when Apollo was in a shroud of cloud.

There was a cool setup regarding bike parking, it was secure, like a cloakroom in a nightclub. We joined the long queue. Shane joined an additional queue for an event t-shirt. Eugène and I scouted the rest of the hall’s stalls. It became obvious where Eugène got his large casquette and jersey collection. There were tonnes of options at the stalls. Dave took us on a spin along the river. It was good to get used to cycling on the other side of the road. Luckily Sinead’s sports massage enabled me to get extra neck rotation. Although both of my deltoids were starting to get DOMS. The ninety minutes of lugging cargo to the hotel were spectres unwelcome.

All the casquettes you can cas-gette.

Dave departed, and the journey to the hotel began. We had two climbs to get back to our Lodgings. The first one brought us back to the Train Station from whence we began our trek. This time round, my bike hauled me up the cobbled climb.

Dinner was the next quarry. We were content with going to the Campanile restaurant. Helen suggested a restaurant close to them. We walked there, it was a torrid affair. Shane had his heart set on a Pizza or Pasta. We got a big bowl of Pasta. Spicy curries were too risky a prospect for the length of cycles that we were facing.

Not as good a River, as the Good Charlotte and Avenged Sevenfold collaboration.

We reviewed our options. The weather was looking grim for the ride. Wind and freezing rain awaited us for most of the early part of the day. Shane and Dave were set on the longer 266km route with 4,500 meters of elevation. Eugène and Helen were opting for the middle distance 150km with 2,500 meters of climbing. I wanted to be brave, but I had the prospect of the rest of the week to consider. So I decided on the middle distance. We discussed how to modify the middle distance to take in more of the climbs of the long route by rejoining it before Stavelot.

I made the modified route on Strava and prepared my Overnight Oats with Apple Juice.

Saturday 27th April

At half past four in the morning, my alarm rang. I think I had accrued about four hours of sleep. A solid six hours in the previous two days, had me very worried. My reading of Matthew Walker’s “Why we Sleep” book had me worried on a scientific level. A lack of sleep greatly accelerates your time to exhaustion. We had agreed to leave at six o’clock, to attend the official start at six-thirty. I used to hour and a half to fill up on food. The restaurant specially opened at half-past four to facilitate the many sportive riders. Stupidly I forgot to bring my box of Overnight Oats. I didn’t know how weird the restaurant staff would be about me leaving and coming back when they asked for my room number a second time.

I ate a few bowls of Weetabix Minis with UHT Cow’s Milk. I had not drank Cow’s milk in a very, very long time. Possibly four years, since deciding to commit more towards Veganism, albeit constantly straddling the line between Vegetarian and Vegan. Everyone get Lactose Intolerant at some stage of their lives, mainly because you’re not a Baby Cow. Abstaining from Dairy accelerates this process. I was too underslept to realise the mistake that I made.

A bleary-eyed, Eugène joined me at the breakfast table. Shane appeared later. I had to make an abrupt exit as my performance anxiety had caused a quickening of my bowels.

For the first time in my cycling life, I was the first one ready for meeting comrades. My choice of kit for the day was full Winter rigout; Merino turtleneck, short sleeve jersey, Hydra Jacket and leg warmers. Eugène forgot that he was still wearing his breakfast runners and Shane’s Garmin went on strike. Shane was also experiencing issues with his gears. When it was in the big ring, the chain would make a metallic screech and pull the rear mech all the way forward.

Selfie sans-Shane.

Upon arrival at the start, Shane gave his bike to the Mavic mechanics. The rest of us took some selfies. Sorted, Shane returned relieved. We started the ride at quarter to seven. The ride out of town was hectic. There was lots of dodgy riding on display. The groups settled down on the nine kilometer drag up to the Ardennes plateau.

The photographer knew who to focus on, the one with the high cheekbones and hero jaw.

I got detached from the group somewhere on the twelve kilometer climb to Werbomont. I caught back up after a chase, when their group halted at a level crossing. Now in a massive peloton we were rolling nicely. I said to the crew “I’m back guys”, Shane gleefully responded “I know that voice”, I darkly riposted “I’m like a Comic Book Villain, I don’t stay dead for long”. Death and resurrection number one were completed in short order.

I was about to die a slower second death. Helen noticed that I was burping a lot. My stomach was bloating from the Moo-Moo Milk. Burping was the only thing I could do to alleviate it. We reached the turn-off for the middle distances at Werbomont, fifty kilometers into the ride. At this point we were on course for a 25kmh average speed. Dave and Shane pushed onwards to Bastogne, another fifty kilometers down the road, and another fifty north-northeast to Stavelot.

Thinking of my first death, on Shane's wheel.

Eugène, Helen and I had a five kilometer descent into Neufmoulin, the first food stop. The food stop was shite. There was some dodgy nutrition sponsor of the event. With my stomach already in grief, I didn’t want to risk anymore issues. I only ate some Oranges and Mars bars and refilled my bottles with some blue substance.

The next climb, was the first Hellingen on the route; Ancienne Barrière. This was 5km at 4.2%. This would be nothing for me on a normal day. Now I had a tubby tummy. Pregnant with a gas giant, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Venus were about to get a sibling. It was hard to intake oxygen, as my stomach was at full stretch. With shallow breathing, raising oxygen debt and lowering wattage output, I was not able to keep up with Eugène and Helen. The promised rain had arrived. I passed them on the climb, as they stopped to put on Rain capes.

I struggled with eating and facing a certain bonk, I tried drinking the blue sports drink. It caught in my throat and I couldn’t breathe for a second or two. It caused me to puke up some stomach bile. My tummy felt a bit better. This blue substance was my Sportive Saviour. What worship did my new God want of me? Repeatedly Drinking, Suffocating on and Puking his nectar. All things considered, he was no more a sadist than any other Celestial Being.

As I crested the climb, my stomach size was going into retreat. Things were looking up for me, after three hours of anguish. My second Comic Book Villain resurrection of the day was complete. Things were going a little too well at this point.

My third death immediately started in on me. The cold, the bitter cold. Freezing wind and rain. After the Ancienne Barrière climb, there was an eight kilometer descent to Trois-Ponts (three bridges). This was chilly. My face went numb, in spite of the buff.

“Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while.
Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don't have the strength to fight it.”
- George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

I had enough mental fortitude to jump in with a group. A guy on a red Colnago was doing the pulling on the shallow gradients of the descent. I met Eugène and Helen on this descent. We stuck together on the five kilometer drag to the second Hellingen. We were rejoining the longer route at Stavelot. We were on a slight descent, only to see a sign for an abrupt left turn.

So began the Col de La Haute-Levée. It is 3.6km at 5.2%. The first kilometer of this climb is a 10% grade. I was struggling on this climb as the cold water emanating from my front wheel had numbed my feet and calves. Luckily we had decided to ignore the modified route to take in more climb.

I met Eugène and Helen after the climb, on the descent at Francorchamps. They wanted to get coffee. We looked, but everywhere was closed. We could hear the screaming engines of the cars at the Racing Track. An F1 Race in intermittent rain at Spa-Francorchamps is the modern day equivalent of a Hang, Drawn and Quartered public execution.

I was looking extra miserable in the other pictures, so I decided to take one nice smiling picture.

There was another terrible food stop on the descent. I had no desire to go there. The marshall who was pointing to it had no concept of group braking in the wet. He was five meters up the road from the entrance.

The third Hellingen was the Col du Rosier. It is 4.4km at 6%. It was on this climb where Eugène and Helen stopped waiting for me. This was fine, I’m a big boy, and they were getting frozen solid.

The cold finally sept into me on the twelve kilometer descent to the foot of the fourth Hellingen, Col du Maquisard. This is a short 2.5km with a 5% grade. After a fifteen minute descent to Spa, this was extra hard to get moving again. This was a beautiful climb, it was a road between some farms. It was nice to have something to look at. A car pulled up beside a line of us riders and shouted encouragement.

The next climb was the scary one, the fifth Hellingen, Côte de La Redoute. It’s distance of 2km belies it’s 9% average gradient. Emphasis on the “average gradient”. It levels out in the middle for a short while. Apart from that, it’s a slog. My legs were complete frozen by this stage. I was just using my brain to journey into my past, to the 60rpm sessions that Aidan Hammond has prescribed. I did those workouts, in what seemed an alternate universe, overheating on Zwift with Pop-Punk playlists.

Embrace the suck. Honour the Struggle.

The road was painted in support for Bob Jungles, Phillipe Gilbert and a name, as of yet unknown to me, Frank Vandenbroucke, immortalised in “VDB 4 Ever” and spray painted face. The camper vans were all set up on this hill to watch the Pros race the next day. There were some tunes playing and a BBQ. The second ramp of the climb was narrowed by the organiser rolling out the barrier covers with Sponsor logos on them.

At the top I was still very cold. The rain had stopped. I used this time to rest, feed and wring out my waterlogged gloves. There was a girl from Accenture freezing. She was dressed in summer kit. No one could help her, we were all in survival mode. I departed the shivering girl, full sure that I would see her death on a news report. That would make two holidays in a row with dead women on the news.

The frozen girl is in the red.

I descended to the food stop at Sprimont. I ate two Stroopwafels here. After struggling to eat for the opening three hours, I was playing catchup on Glycogen. More of the Accenture team were here. They were hard to identify, as they were donning Tinfoil Blankets. There was one Accenture guy. The only one who was remotely dressed for the conditions. He was on the phone. Likely arranging lifts for his stricken colleagues. I seen a rider from Bray Wheelers, but he didn’t acknowledge his compatriot at the food stop.

Straight out of the food stop we were climbing. I passed a few open chippers. The smell of Salt and Vinegar carries in the rain. I should’ve stopped there for some Potato Power. The Bray Wheelers rider finally said hi to me as he passed me on the climb.

The final nail in the coffin of my third death was the hail storm that pelted me on the five kilometer descent to Les Forges. There was one horrendous bend on the descent. It was made trickier by the slurry that was on the road. I grew up on a farm, I have a keen sense for the presence of slurry. Add to the slurry, the panic I felt when I pulled my back brake and the lever hit the bar. There was not enough brake pad left to contact the rim. It was really a case of Jesus Take the Wheel, as you can’t use the front brake in the corner, let alone a wet one.

At the bottom of Les Forges, I used everything I had to brake, in a straight line. I finally came to a stop bypassing the marshall. I wound in the barrel adjuster on both my brakes. To ensure braking performance and equal bite point on both levers.

I started again the sixth Hellingen, Côte des Forges was my next quarry. It is a short 1.3km climb with a 7% grade. There was a stream of rainwater flowing down this road. I started to warm up a bit, as I had the additional pressure of a Car Transporter Lorry breathing down my neck. I was beginning to notice the riders that I had met on the previous climbs. They were climbing faster than me, but all these contiental gazelles were Bambis on the descents. I was putting more time into them on the descents than they were recouping on the hills. Just call me “Lead Sled Luke”.

My third death was complete, and I didn’t need to check the Garmin to know what time it was. It was Phoenix O’Clock. Three hours of stomach problems, and three hours frozen solid. I was ready for Rebirth. The rain stopped and the sun came out. The Ice Age was over, no more Luke-sicle. Would this be my final Comic Book Villain return? Or would my next death see my Cthulhu-like dreaming waiting for death to die.

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.”
- H.P Lovecraft, Call of Cthulhu

Reborn with Nibali-esque descent prowess, I ripped it down the eight kilometer descent. I passed many cyclists. There was one rider descending like a granny with disc brakes. He was taking up the whole road as he used the racing line of outside-apex-outside. I was using my Garmin’s Map screen on the descent. It showed an S-bend coming up. I attacked this slow-coach safely. I had to be at the apex of the second corner with at least a bike length and a half to not disrupt him. I utilised a Sprinter Gap coming out of the first corner to build up the speed required. At close to seven hours into a bike ride, he was very lucky I didn’t get frustrated and divebomb him into a corner. At the foot of the descent, I had to slam on the brakes. It was a T-Junction into Méry and we had the Stop sign. I got in with the group that assembled.

We rode to the foot of the fearsome seventh and final Hellingen, Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons. Or as I was calling it “Stephen Roche the Falcon” climb, named after his second place in 1987. The Roche-aux-Faucons was 1.3km in length but was a harsh slog, at 11%. I even missed the turn before the climb, this would happen to an Astana rider in the Pro Race the next day, he would narrowly avoid a spectator. On the Roche, I was getting passed by many riders. The thawing of my whole body was almost complete. I noticed that my groin was in agony from the low cadence I was pushing all day. I would not be letting this stop me. I dug deep and swerved around riders who had put the foot down. I had a fear of putting the foot down. The story of Oisin in Tír na nÓg gives me the fear of ending up like a Mortal Kombat Fatality.

Yer man on the left with the foot down.

There is another ramp after the Roche-aux-Faucons, I struggled on that ramp. There were some cows to cheer us on. I jumped in with a group on the descent. The final descent. It was lucky that I got in with them as there was some flat roads to contend with. We rode super fast, and I was closing the gaps that dropped wheels left. I was truly back to myself.

We got back to Liège, the traffic was mental. It was held up as the presentation for the Pro-Race was beginning. My group was battling for position on the road with the Bigla team cars. Cecile Uttrup Legwig was driving the first car. Thomas Campana was driving the second one. He was probably lamenting how fat the girls were and how much petrol their excessive weight was causing to be burnt. Unfortunately for Women’s Cycling, and Women’s Sports in general, they are getting the coaches that the Men’s sport has passed by. Thomas Campana is one such dinosaur.

I regret not taking my phone out of it’s layers of storage and asking for a Selfie with Cecile and telling her that I was like a “dead fish” three times that day. Hopefully we’ll meet at the next Classics Sportive that I do.

I hung around the finish looking for Eugène and Helen. I bypassed the Podium, as I thought they were trying to sell me something. I forgot to hand back my number, to get the €5 deposit returned. The smell of Hotdogs on the BBQ was making me physically ill. I reckon I was the only one there that knew that Hotdogs were the emulsified lips and anuses of various animals.

Helen must've out-sprinted Eugène somewhere in the carpark.

I got a phone call from Helen that they had gone for tea. I had too much Bike Brain to even understand English. I had also had enough of anything that sounded like a derivative “Hellingen”, this included “Helen”.

My solo route back to the hotel was slow going. I was shot to shit. The mapping on the Garmin was hard to follow. I didn’t want to overload the unit by choosing “Route to Start”. But it froze anyway. I whipped out Google Maps on the phone and followed the route back home.

Eugène had finished his tea, cycled to base and showered by the time I got back to the hotel. I told him that we could have the nebulous “banter” in 30 mins. I sat down in the shower to wash the day away. All the while pining for a Rain style shower head, like I had in Gran Canaria.

Eugène came over and we pieced together the time after they left me. Just before the final food stop, they stopped for coffee. I passed them out and they passed me as I rubbed shoulders with the Tinfoil Tommies. They were hit with the Hail Storm on the Côte des Forges.

The recovery process began. I finally had my Overnight Oats. I put two Scoops of Vegan Protein Powder, a mix of Pea and Hemp into the shaker, it was Thicc Boi. I also consumed two day’s dosage of CBD Oil to start the inflammation reduction. The compression socks and shorts were deployed.

We had a kip on the beds. In true bird to a nest form, we awoke as Shane pulled into the parking lot.

The 266 boys, testing the medals for chocolate.

We got glammed up and headed into town for Dinner. Helen had some dealings with a restauranter, where Helen, for once, was the dodgy party in the exchange. When the Campanile Crew got out of the taxi, Helen explained that we had to pass this restaurant window “not as a group”. We ended up in some restaurant. It was a complete disaster, we were waiting over an hour for our food. The food, when it arrived was really nice. Dave checked TripAdvisor, it said that the service was extremely slow.

Dave and Shane filled us in on their adventures. They got into a group on the ride to Bastogne. The return leg was a different story. They would ride mostly as a duo. The groups that they had ridden home with in previous years had opted for the middle distance.

We checked out the architecture of the Liège-Guillemins Train Station, it’s a beauty. It is a shining star in what is a shithole town. I bid goodbye to Dave and Helen. They were getting a late afternoon flight back to Dublin on Sunday. Shane was getting the early one. Eugène and I were going to Ghent for more Adventures and Waffle Sampling.

Hoping to catch the midnight train, going anywhere.

Stay Tuned for the upcoming conclusion to the adventure “Flanders 2019 | Belgian Waffle Hype Train - Stop 2”. Where I will detail our ride in Flanders Fields and the Philippe Gilbert Classic.