Can you get from London to Flanders, ride a loop of the region’s most famous climbs, and get back to London in a day? Let’s find out
Words Pete Muir Photography Patrik Lundin
5 :07am. Even when it is cold and dark, there is something magical about riding the streets of London while most of the city sleeps. Every light is green. The only other traffic is the occasional delivery van and a handful of cabs cruising like sharks in search of scraps. I skirt round the back of King’s Cross and down a deserted side street to find the underground parking at St Pancras station.
In a perfect world I would be taking my bike with me on the Eurostar so I could simply ride off at the other end in Belgium. Sadly, despite the growth in demand for sustainable travel, Eurostar only offers limited options for carrying bikes on journeys to the Continent, so I’m obliged to leave my bike in the car park beneath the station. At least there is a proper lockup and it’s free of charge.
As I wrestle with my padlock, I can’t help musing on the lost opportunity to promote the concept of train-bike holidays in favour of fly-drive (I even wrote to Eurostar about it, but reply came there none). Imagine pedalling to your local station, popping your bike in the guard’s van, catching a series of trains to a European destination and then pedalling the final stretch to your holiday villa. It sounds great to me, but current infrastructure and transport company intransigence renders it almost impossible. Which is a shame – it would certainly help on our current mission: to ride an 80km loop of Flanders and get back home in the same day.
Welcome on board the Eurosnore
6:16am. The Eurostar train is quiet at this time. Blearyeyed passengers slide into their seats and quickly fashion coats into makeshift pillows in an attempt to reclaim a couple of hours of lost sleep before the arrival in Brussels.
My ride companion for the day, Will, has arrived fully prepared in bibtights, a commitment to time-saving efficiency that I find impressive. After a flask of tea and pot of muesli, I too join the assembled snoozers as we slip smoothly through the darkness, awakening later to the sight of mist over brown fields somewhere in northern Europe.
9:12am. Arrive in Brussels (Euro time) and stumble to the nearest coffee bar while searching for details of our connecting train. It’s only when we are standing on a suspiciously empty platform with no train in sight that we realise the announcements in Flemish have been warni
