Last year I found out that a colleague of mine has a house near La Roche-en-Ardenne in the Ardennes region in Belgium. It was big enough to house at least 11 people so I thought it would be a nice idea to go to the Ardennes region for a weekend with friends and there children. In total we would be with 13 people of which 7 children Unfortunately we were not able to book it that year. But we settled for the weekend of the 16th and 17th of April this year. I checked of course if it was possible to increase my BIG claims and believe it or not, there are three BIGs very near to La Roche-en-Ardenne. Well, very near, if I would cycle a route that would cover all three BIGs and I would start and end in La Roche-en-Ardenne then it would be 65km of cycling. To me that sounds acceptable. But as Marloes would of course like to increase her BIG claims too I expected that it would cost at least 3-4 hours to complete the trip :-(( That's not so good when you are just out for 1 weekend and the plan is to spend it together with friends.
So after a joined "dinner" at a cafeteria we left Oisterwijk with 3 cars and headed down south. The trip went smoothly and we had a stop when we had past Liège at the tank stop of Sprimont. We had some coffee and the kids played around with a ball to release some energy after they had sat in the car for 2 hours or so. From Sprimont we drove to Baraque de Fraiture. This is actually a BIG when you cycle to that point from La Roche-en- Ardenne. But now we took the descent down from Baraque de Fraiture to Samrée and then on to La Roche-en Ardenne. We saw the ruin of the castle in La Roche-en-Ardenne when we came down. From La Roche-en-Ardenne we drove on to Rendeux. In Rendeux we had to take a left turn to Chéoux. But after we took this turn we got doubts. It looked like we entered private property so we parked the cars and discussed the situation. We decided to drive on and just a bit further there was a sign indicating Chéoux. We arrived at the cottage around a quarter to ten. There was some discussion as all the girls (3) wanted to sleep in one room and the all boys (4) too and there was no easy way to achieve this. Finally we arranged that all children would sleep in one bedroom. A bit tight but the children didn't mind that at all. They went to bed at around eleven and were allowed to take some time for chatting but things settled quit fast and we have not really heard them anymore after 23:30.
Here's a picture of my colleague's house.
We got up at around half past eight. So the kids have really behaved very neat. Unfortunately the weather was not so good when we woke up, foggy and clouded, so we could not enjoy the view. We drove to Rendeux to get freshly baked bread, rolls, long bread and pastry (croissants, pain avec chocolat, cake with strawberries ;-))) And we did some breakfast shopping too and brought back a delightful sausage and pate from the Ardennes region. Hey, it's a holiday you know even though it's just a weekend.
After breakfast, this is around half past twelve you know, we decided to go for a walk. We took along some umbrella's as it rained every now and then. We have walked for approximately 2 1/2 hour. At some places it was really a challenge to keep your feet dry as it was very muddy and there were a lot of small pools to avoid. No problem for the children, they thought this was the exiting part ! At some stage we could see shreds of clouds passing just in front of us. The wind was cold and rainy at places. But all and all we enjoyed the walk. It's good not to sit inside the whole day. When we came back at the house we enjoyed tea and coffee and a small lunch. In the mean time it was raining quite hard. So we were lucky that during the hike the rain was not to bad. There was still some shopping to be done for dinner so some people volunteered for that. And as it was dry again I suggested to try and climb the BIGs that were on our wish list. The suggestion was approved so Marloes and me put on our cycling clothes and I put the bikes on the spaceship (nickname for our bike carrier).
Then we drove by car back to La Roche-en-Ardenne. I was looking for a place to park the car when I noticed a road going up called: Rue St. Quoilin. Hey, that's the start towards the Côte de Haussire when you want approach it from the South-West side. And as this is the toughest side, that's the side we want to take of course !! So I parked the car as soon as possible in the Avenue de Villez. It was just a small piece back to the Rue St. Quoilin.
Then
the climb starts immediately and the gradient is 13%! Nice start, huh. But after
200m there is some relief, the road descents a little even. Then the road starts
to climb again towards the 'Parc à Gibier' but not so steep as before. Just
after the 'Parc à Gibier' there is another descent through the woods, quite nice
actually. But this descent is quite steep and long too. ??? I started to doubt
if we took the right turns to approach the Côte de Haussire from the correct side
(South-West). I could not recall from the Cotacol book that there was such a
descent. After the descent the road starts to climb again. Gradually at first
but the last part is steep again, 10% on average. So the last 1.5km is tough.
Marloes managed to keep up quite well but the last part I was able to accelerate a bit. It's only when I reached the top that I was able to look at the nice surroundings. The last part takes quite some effort and there is no time to have a look around. I was just looking at road that was ahead of me. At the top there is a sign that indicates that the Côte de Haussire is the most difficult Côte in Belgium according to the method of Cotacol to estimate the difficulty of a climb. The Cotacol method has been devised by Daniel Gobert, the president of the BIG. Here are pictures that I took with my mobile phone at the top of the Côte de Haussire:
The descent was cold as the air was humid and the speed increases the wind/chill factor. We descended via the southern side of the Côte de Haussire (Val de Pierreux). When we arrived at the Route d'Houffalize I tried to call my wife to see if we could cycle up to Baraque de Fraiture and then on to the Pied Monti. Unfortunately there was no answer. So I decided to skip de climb to Baraque de Fraiture so we would be back in time. We too a left turn and followed the Route d'Houffalize to Maboge where the Pied Monti is situated.. This road follows the Ourthe river and hence there is not much climbing. It's about 5.5 km to Maboge.
In Maboge we had
to search a little for the bridge that takes you across the Ourthe river. Then
just after the bridge has been taken the road bends to the left and almost
immediately to the right again and then the climb starts. The Pied Monti is also
called the ' Mur de la Vélomédiane'. The French word 'Mur' is in plain
English: Wall. And that's how it looks when you arrive at the foot of the climb.
As you can see from the height profile it starts very steep with an average of
17% and a maximum gradient of 21%. The start is similar
to the Keuteberg, the turns and the very steep start. The road descents even
after one kilometer. But then, just when you think the worst is over, again a part of 10% is
encountered.
I think
the Pied Monti is worse then the Côte de Haussire. It's the steep start that takes a lot of energy and it's hard to
recover as you're still climbing.
Here are some pictures that I took at the start of the climb, just where the road bends to the right again. It may not look that steep but the gradient here is 17% !
We made it to the top of course. To keep the time that we were away cycling to a
minimum we decided to cycle back to La Roche-en-Ardenne via Maboge rather
than via Hubermont. So we turned back and descended the Pied Monti. Here I noticed the sign indicating the
20% (see picture to the right). Yep, it's steep and we needed to use our brakes
almost continuously. When we were back in Maboge we took the same route back to La Roche-en-Ardenne. We did have a few small drops
of rain but all and all the weather was quite OK. I mounted the spaceship on the
tow bar and then put our bikes on it. We arrived back at the house around half
past five. We had been away for merely two hours. It was when we got back that we found
out that we could have taken along the Baraque de Fraiture climb. But that's
hindsight. Two out of three ain't bad as they say. And we were happy that we
could add two BIGs to our score.
The evening was filled with dining and playing. We all had to cook our own dish and each of us had his/her very own pan. We had some Belgium beers to go with that as Toine had bought some in the afternoon when he went shopping with the ladies. The dinner was good, of course as you have to cook your own dish and there was plenty of choice. Later on we played a few games. One of the games you had to pass on a match box, closed or open, and Daan, the one who had asked as to play this game with him, would indicate if you would pass it on correctly. It took some of us a long time to figure out the rule that would determine if you'd pass it on correctly or not. And some of us, this includes me I have to say shamefully, did not found out at all what the rule was. Even when he changed the position of his legs quite openly I didn't notice. Well, you can play the game yourself maybe with others at some stage. Just sit with a bunch of people in a circle and hand over the matchbox from one to the other. When someone has his/her legs closed then the matchbox must be passed on when it's closed and you can guess the rest I guess.... Daan had also another game that we played in the afternoon. This is a word game and it is called the land of no idea. You have to ask questions to find out what sort of country it is. This one I did figure out after some strange answers when Daan indicated that cars couldn't run on diesel and gasoline but petrol was OK ??? Well, the word idea corresponded to ID. So it's the land where words that contain and I or a D do not exist. So people who live there can choose but they cannot make a choice, ha-ha ! You can really say funny things to baffle people when playing this game. And that's not the only games we played. late at night when it was pitch dark we played the "Night watch". Everybody got a number and then had to hide in the house. One person would start and say: "The night watch says 5 and then would tick 5 times with a spoon on a lit of a pan. Then the person who had number 5 would make a specific noise and the night watch would determine where to go to based on the sound and the direction it came from. It was really dark so the night watch needed to repeat the sentence a number of times until number 5 was found. Then number 5 would look for number x until everyone was found. It was good fun I can assure you to play these games. After everyone was found the children went to bed. And we settled at the couch with another Belgium beer and chat.
The last day it was really foggy. We could hardly see the other side of the road. So after breakfast we decided to go to Hotton to visit the caves. The guy who lead us around was a real Flemmish guy and it was fun to hear him talk about the cave. He did a good job and we enjoyed the cave visit. When we got back we first had coffee and then the house needed to be cleaned. So while the ladies were cleaning, the guys were packing the cars. That's it, time to drive back home I'm afraid. It was just a weekend, too short really. And we will go back at some stage. But for the time being we will cherish the memories of the good time we had together.