What do you do when your best friend from highschool invites you to a 3-day cycling adventure together with a fine selection of other friends he made during his first 45 years on this planet? In my case, I said: “sure, sounds like fun”. It was only minutes later that it dawned on me that this guy is an incredibly fit sports instructor. Mere seconds later, I also came to the realisation that I’m an incredibly fat guy who hardly remembers how a bicycle works. Oh well, I had plenty of time to get back in shape … NOT.

But in the weeks leading up to our trip I managed to do a bit of mountainbiking and, much to my surprise, rediscovered why I used to love riding bikes so much when I was way younger. I even invested in my very first gravel bike (which is basically what happens when a race bike has unsafe sex with a mountainbike). But I also knew that my safest bet to survive this trip was to do it on my good old electric mountainbike. I would have to cope with a minimal level of assist from the electric motor in order to cover the distances but that would be still way better than no assist at all.

On a Saturday morning, I drove to the Ardennes and met the group. Apart from the insanely fit sports instructor, I had never met most of the guys and the two guys I knew, I hadn’t seen for at least 25 years. But we all immediately clicked and were ready to go.

A couple of days before the trip, we got sent the routes we were going to do. The first day looked pretty doable: only 42 kilometers and about 600 vertical meters. I really wanted to ride my new (non-electric) bike, so I decided to put my e-mtb in the van that would follow us, and do the first day on my “analog” gravel bike. As the van drove off, I was made aware of the fact that I was given an old route, that had been replaced by a 65km route. Oh well, it still didn’t look that bad on paper, but I’ll get to the differences between paper and reality later.

Within 30 minutes, on the first off-road decent, I was the first to get a puncture. Before I knew, an new inner tube was installed, I dind’t even touch my bike during the swift repair. Luckily I didn’t get another puncture during the whole trip and we ended up with just 3 flat tires for the whole group, a miracle considering the terrain.

Speaking about terrain, we started off on some civilized gravel and tarmac but a big portion of the route was better suited for downhill mountainbikes … or alpinists. I still don’t understand how that new gravelbike of mine held up

You can spend many hours plotting a route on the computer but in reality things can turn out quite a bit differently. In the end we did almost twice the amount of vertical meters and we had to work around some road blocks.

By the time we reached the hostel, my legs, and particularly my knees screamed for rest. But I made it and the special Belgian beers, the banter and a tiny bunk bed were a great reward.

The second day was marked as the big ride: 75km and a lot of steep climbs. For once I listened to my poor old knees and gave the gravelbike some rest in the van and got the electric mountainbike out. The weather wasn’t great but it definitely added some drama to the great scenery.

Over the last few weeks, I started to see a lot of potential in the combination of cycling and photography. I often forget to take the camera out when I’m fighting to get enough oxygen in. I also carry more than enough weight in my body, so I try to keep things small and simple on the bike. Most of the pictures in this post were made with my good old battered Fujifilm X70. I still hope they will come out with a successor of this little marvel. Particularly because my X70 didn’t recover from the small crash I had on the third day. It has taken a lot of beatings before but it was in my jersey pocket when I hit the ground and landed on the lens.

I will admit that I was a bit nervous about this trip. I figured there would be some fit cyclists in the group and I figured I would probably be lucky if I could follow well enough to make pictures of the backs of the least fit guys. My assumptions were 100% correct but the big differences in fitness never got in the way of having a great adventure together.

The finale of the second day was a long climb to our second hostel. By the time I reached the top, the fit ones already ordered some drinks for all of us to enjoy together with the view. There are definitely benefits to ride with fitter guys.

We even had team outfits, thanks to Bodhi Cycling. I’ll spare you the sight of me in tight fitting lycra though.

Despite the benefit of some electric assist during the previous day, my body was still hurting on the morning of our last day. So the gravel bike stayed in the van. But while on the mountainbike I started to feel better and better. After 20 kilometers when we met the van for a first break, I switched to the gravel bike for the rest of the day. It was a victory for me to do over half of the trip on the “analog” bike.

I really, really enjoyed this trip and this way of cycling. It sure was a sporty activity but in the end it was about friendship, adventure, the outdoors and simply enjoying life. I’m sure this won’t be the end of “Les Camarades”.

I’ve been riding my bike regularly since the trip. My girlfriend and I did a couple of improvised short bikepacking trips and my car hasn’t seen much action. I’m still nowhere near a proper cyclist, and I may very well never be. But that’s not the point, I’m moving and I’m having fun at it.