D2: “3 more hills and it’s all downhill, trust me bro”

The day started with a new route. The stops in the original route were in small towns that did not have any shops or cafes. We decided it would be good to have at least 1 stop where we could buy some food and get coffee for the big ride today. This made us reroute to Neufchateau for a half way lunch break. This did mean we had to go back 3/4 of the way towards Libramont which we just left yesterday. We thought this was ok as the routing app told us it only added ~7km and 100m of elevation overall… it added quite bit more.

First half was a series of rolling hills among the fields and spirits were high. The second half is when things got harder. As a wise man (a cyclist called Sir Roger that I met in a cafe in NJ) once said, the route was “lumpy”.

Getting out Neufchateau forced us to penetrate the impenetrable Ardennes forest in what was basically an uphill Mountain bike forest trail and not a “chill 3k gravel road”.

We also for some reason told ourself there were only 3 hills left in the second half and then it would be smooth rolling down to Orval. There were many more hills…

The Orval Abbey itself is incredible. We had dinner at the cafe next to the abbey and got to try the special “Orval vert” beer that is only available there and is a “lighter 4.5% beer that the monks can drink at lunch”.

We are going to visit the Abbey fully tomorrow morning before continuing going uphill to Bouillon for what should be a shorter ride.