Cycling Among the Treetops and Through the Water

The Flemish hardly need any inducement to ride their bikes. They are regularly out and about riding recreationally and tending to their business. There are hundreds of miles of signposted bikeways. There may be competition trying to entice recreational riders, as one vast network of popular cycling paths through thick forested terrain fifty miles east of Brussels near the border with Holland has added some outrageous razzmatazz to make them even more attractive to cycle—a winding path on stilts that climbs up among the tree tops of towering pines and another path that dips down to cut through a lake putting cyclists at eyelevel with the water. They have to be seen to be believed.

“The Guardian” has written about them twice in the last two months and thanks to my journalist friend Jeff back in Chicago, who is insatiable in his reading and alerted me to the articles, I was able to partake of these spectacles on a sunny Sunday with swarms of other cyclists. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known of them. I’ve been in Belgium for ten days cycling all over telling people I was visiting cycling sites before setting off with The Tour France, yet no one mentioned these recent cycling treasures. It was a stark contrast to South Africa where people were constantly telling me I ought to ride “The Cape Argus,” an annual ride in Cape Town along its spectacular coastline that attracts thousands of cyclists from all over the country.  

Cycling Among the Treetops just opened and is being promoted with billboards in the surrounding area, while Cycling Through the Water has been possible for three years. I certainly will be asking all I encounter in Belgium during my remaining week here if they have experienced them yet and encourage anyone who hasn’t to make sure they do.  

I rode both with locals who had driven 30 and 50 miles to ride them for the first time. Both segments are several miles from the small towns they are near deep into the forest, so I was fortunate to be led to them by people who had the directions, as they were no specific signs to them, just part of the cycling paths that one comes upon. The couple who led me to the Treetop ride weren’t even sure where it was on the 25-ride they had planned for the day. It came after five miles of pristine riding through the forest, that would have been a noteworthy ride by itself.

When I stopped to ask the couple if they knew the way to the tree ride they were beside their car in the town of Hecktel-Ecksel about to set out. They said they had electric bikes so they wrote down for me the numbers of the paths to follow (258, 257, 272, 275, 266...), as they didn’t expect me to be able to keep up with them. They were only riding at 12 miles per hour, so that was no problem.  

They had converted to electric four years ago when the wife started hauling their grandchildren to school in a trailer attached to her bike. There was no going back. There were quite a few others on electric bikes, including a grand dame of a woman wearing pearls and a fancy dress, merrily enjoying a day in the woods on a bike. I felt lucky to be sharing it with them all. Most were maintaining the same pace, so it was just one long promenade.

I don’t know which would have been more pleasing, coming upon these paths beyond the realm of imagination not expecting them or having the anticipation I felt as I neared them and then having a burst of delight seeing their incongruity. It might have been too bewildering not to know what it was.  

The rise was gentle enough no one needed to dismount and walk, though plenty of people were pausing for a photo, including us. It’s a circular route up two tenths of a mile and then bending back down around itself two tenths of a mile. I had to do it twice and might have done it a few times more if I weren’t eager to get to the path through the pond twelve miles away in another locality.  

There too I was fortunate to encounter a cyclist at a stop light at what I presumed was the turn to the nature preserve of Bokrijk-Gent who knew the directions and was a first-timer. He too was on an electric bike who forced me up to fifteen miles per hour for the three miles to the waterway. He was in a bit of a hurry as he was meeting friends from Brussels that he had come with who had gone ahead to spend some time at a horse preserve. When we met up with them he said I could mount one of the sturdy work horses if I wished.

I gave me head a shake of disbelief at the first sight of the small lake intersected by heads just above the water gliding through it in the distance. 

It’s true, just like the photos in “The Guardian,” some consortium of Belgians made like Moses and parted the waters of this lake for cyclists to have some surreal experience. Rather than feeling as if I were submerging as I dipped between the waters I felt lofted. This was another cycling experience like no other that had to be repeated.

There were even more people here pausing, not wanting to leave, than back in the treetops. Maybe if there’d been simians in the trees, as there were ducks and geese here to behold, people would have lingered longer. The water creatures here kept people around. This too I had to bike through more than once, and like many, I reached out for a scoop of water as I cycled along. 

This is still Flemish Belgium, by far the longest spell I’ve spent in this portion of the country. I continue to be struck by the cordiality and downright neighborliness of just about everyone I encounter.  People are genuinely welcoming and helpful, as not too many outsiders visit the region.  No one flinches at having to speak English as most have a significant degree of fluency.  Until this year I much better knew the French half of Belgium as The Tour has taken me through the hilly Ardennes several times with two Grand Départs in Liege and another in Rotterdam, as it prefers to test the peloton with the more demanding terrain than the largely flat of the rest of the country. I rode 80 miles on Sunday without once needing the small chain ring.  

The Flemish half of the country is decidedly more committed to cycling than the French. It is a dominant feature of life among the Flemish. Motorists matter-of factly defer to cyclists. Even 18-wheelers will stop to let a cyclist cross the road.  Motorists aren’t rushing to cut me off as the speedy French are prone to. do.   In the French half I’ve been subjected to hostility unlike I’ve experienced anywhere else in year’s past, as there there seems a residue of hostility among some towards cycling as if it is an expression of their regard for the Flemish. Cycling with Vincent of Melbourne one year a passenger in a car whipped a tennis ball at me as hard as he could, with it glancing off my back. Another year with Andrew of Sydney a car swerved into us and then shot us with spray of windshield wiper fluid that he had positioned to squirt at cyclists.  

I was somewhat leery about having to return to Belgium for The Tour this year, but it has been almost idyllic.  It’s been a bit warm, but not as extreme as France.  Belgium can be wet and cold, so I am happy it has been sunny and dry.  I will be slipping into French Belgium for three days before returning to Brussels for the presentation of the teams on Thursday with hopes that my good fortune prevails.