Tomorrow my mom arrives in Milan by bike, after a month long trek from Belgium. As usual the last few years, we’re making a city trip out of it! Since Milan is only about a 1000 km from Antwerp by car if you take the straightest route, I’ll be taking the car there and we’ll drive back together. It’s more than I care to do in one stretch as a solo driver, so I’m driving in two stretches: today I’ll drive about halfway and sleep around Strasbourg. I do a quick search for a budget hotel right by the highway, make a reservation online, call them to confirm I’ll be arriving late. Then a quick hour packing and I’m ready to go.
Coincidentally, I’ll need the bike rack on the way there as well, as my Riese & Müller speed bike has developed an issue that the local dealers are unable to fix and they advise me to bring it to a specialist store. The closest one is where I bought it in 2019 before we moved, so I put the bike on the back of the car and drop it off, before really setting out south around four in the afternoon.
I filled up the tank before leaving, so I don’t have to worry about a thing except driving where the GPS sends me. I actually know this route pretty well, because I’ve made a few work trips over the years to a site not far from where I’ll be staying tonight. The infamous Leonardkruispunt has improved over the years, some of the stretches after Wavres have been repaved, but aside from that it’s all familiar. The weather is nice, I have my own international dance hit list on and I have snacks and water with me.
I stop for a break and a piece of pizza around 6, need to slow down through Luxumbourgh Duchy (its a small country, but it has a complicated highway network, endure the slow stretch before Metz, before I can get to a cruising speed of 130 kmph. The rest of the ride is uneventful, I stop twice more to stretch my legs and select another spotify list (a Faithless radio this time) and arrive at the hotel near Steinbourgh around 9 pm. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s clean and close to a highway exit, that’s all I wanted. The weather has turned from rather hot to rather humid, so I leave the window open. It achieves the goal of providing some air, but also lets in the sound of late arrivals. They’re pretty noise and there’s a lot of them, so it’s not exactly a full night’s sleep.
Febe writes 