Last week a new Eddy Merckx route was presented; a 30 km and a 70 km route around Meensel-Kiezegem, place of birth of Merckx. It’s a very nice region to bike and I need the altimeters; so, early Saturday morning I made the 45 minute car ride to the car pool parking in Tielt-Winge (exit 23 on the E314) and started from there.
And indeed, a very nice route over mostly very quiet roads and never flat, but also no very steep ascents; ideal as preparation for the real work in the Ardennes 😉
Because I started in Tielt, Meensel-Kiezegem was about half-way the route: an information board about the route can be found in Meensel, the statue of Merckx in Kiezegem.
The route is well indicated by brand new boards and a GPX file is available. Still I managed to get a bit lost in Kiezegem; I’m not sure if this was due to separate boards for the 30 and 70 km routes.
On these boards: Comité 525: these are the people who honored Merckx last year with his statue in Kiezegem. 525 is the number of victories of Merckx during his professional career …
Weather was OK in the first part: cloudy and fairly fresh. The last 1.5 hours started with drizzle and I ended in fairly heavy rain. Also the previous days were already marked by heavy rain and thunderstorms: some proofs of these also in the picture gallery.
Strava ride details
| Elapsed Time | Moving Time | Distance | Average Speed | Max Speed | Elevation Gain |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00 | 00:00:00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| hours | hours | km | km/h | km/h | meters |
Picture gallery (Click on photo for large format)
