MTB on the GR5 – Part 2
Mountain bike tour on the GR5 from Genk, BE to Ettelbruck, LU.
Day 3 – Rose in a cloud
The next day started off in a typical bleak, gray, Central-European fashion in Stavelot. I noticed one of the cuts in my right hand had become infected. Probably all the romping around in the swamp I did the previous day. The hotel owner knew about as much English as I knew French. I did, strangely enough, know the word for needle – aiguille, which is what the super pointy mountains above Chamonix are called (see climbing blog posts). The owner of the place we were staying at ran out and found me a needle I could use to scrape out the infection.
This done, and the chains lubed, Rose and I were ready to ride!
We climbed up out of Stavelot into a cloud forest.
The green, gray made riding the single track a blast! Since it hadn’t rained much, the clouds only made things moist rather than overwhelmingly soggy. What a great morning!
We dropped out of the cloud and back into farmland, making quick miles on the double track dividing the grazing areas.
The solid gray mass above us finally broke as we approached the Belgian – Luxembourg – German border and the tractor roads dumped us out onto paved, single-laned, country roads.
Cows (and/or horses) outnumber people in this part of the country. It was getting on mid-afternoon and we had not found a town that had a reasonable place for lunch. We descended from the agricultural planes into the Our River valley.
And grabbed a beer at a campground that straddled the 3 countries’ borders.
We crossed into Luxembourg and completely forgot our hunger as we feasted upon some truly fantastic up and down single track.
The 5 miles or so along this single track ended too soon as it was time to head up the hill to Cornelyshaff and DINNER!
This is what satisfaction looks like after riding 41 miles with 4,800 feet of gain and skipping lunch. Okay it was cold in the restaurant. I don’t think we cared too much.
Check out the next part in this series: Part 3 – MTB the GR5