The Safe Decision Is Not Always The Right Decision

Route: Jalhay to St. Vith via Spa, Stavelot, Trois Ponts, Veilsalm, Poteau
Distance: About 65 km

Last night another crazy guy on a bike rolled into the lonely trailer court of a campground I had been staying in. We said hi to each other, and I shook his hand. His name was Mark, and he was from Amsterdam. He came just as I was trying like hell to get my rear wheel bearings to reincarnate. Because of this, I started out by asking if he knew any bike shops around, he didn’t, but thought maybe Spa. Verviers was closer, but that was the past. Plus, I really didn’t like that town for some reason. It was a little trashy, maybe I just felt a little odd being back in a city after so many weeks on the road.
Anyway, after this retarded introduction, we of course talked bikes. He had ridden his mountain bike down to the Ardennes for a week with friends. He recognized my Tubas Rack, and when I went over to check his bike out, I saw that he had the same one in the back, and he was mounting a front rack as well, with a front shock. I didn’t think this was done, but he did it. Tubus has a great system for it, but he said, he can’t go to the Lowrider mount which he would prefer, especially on the hills here in the Ardennes.
Again, gear is all about the individual. In retrospect, I may have considered going with a front rack and bag setup as well. It’s likely that I wouldn’t have fried my rear bearings in 800km where that the case. But, as I rode out of Jalhay this morning, my bearings protesting every crank while I prayed for the rear wheel not to sieze, I was happy not to have the weight of front panniers when climbing the steep hills. At a slow speed, it would be a bear to keep the bar straight.
I knew that I had a very limited time on this bum wheel. The thing sounded like a steam locomotive. Chug Chug Chug. It echoed off the stately Belgian country houses and in the rock courtyards of the ancient manors. People looked up from there formal morning coffee at the Brasseries and watched the idiot with the broken bike go shoveling by. How improper.
I soon faced a choice, a fork in the road, literally and figuratively. To the right lay the road back to Verviers. I didn’t want to go that way, but it was 7 km and my chances of making that were good as long as I babied the bike. To the left lay the road to Spa, 12 km of unknown hills and forest highway leading to the resort town famous for being the Headquarters of 12th Army Group during the war. To the right lay the past, to left the future.
I had to decide. I thought I should be safe here. Don’t get stuck in the middle of the country with a frozen wheel. If that wheel froze, the bike wouldn’t role. If the bike didn’t role, I would have no way of carrying my 45 pounds of gear and the bike with me. As Harold Ramis once said to Bill Murry in Ghostbusters “that would be bad.”
So, I started down the road to Verviers for a second, but I just couldn’t do it. I cursed under my breath “Damn the consequences”, and flipped a u-turn. The correct decision is not always the safe one. This is likely something Grandpa would have said to me had he been around.
Heading to Spa, I felt good about the decision when I realized it was mostly downhill. This was an added bonus because it didn’t require me to put extra torque onto the already damaged rear wheel. Of course, heading downhill made the clunking a lot worse and I was worried that it would seize a couple of times. There was nothing to do but go slow, keep my hands on the brakes and hope for the best.
Coming into Spa, I began to realize that the countryside had changed. I was out of the rolling farm fields and starting to see big stands of evergreens lining the ridges. The roll into the town itself was all downhill through a forest not unlike those found at home in Oregon on the coast range. The smell of clean firs in the morning was contesting with the sight of tall treetops emerging from the mist across the valley below for my admiration. Now if I could only find a bike shop.
Of course, finding a bike shop and finding one that’s open are two different things here. Europeans love their weekends. They love them so much that they often begin on Friday at noon, and end on Tuesday. Counter-intuitively, this goes double for bike shops I’ve noticed. The first thing the guy told me at the Maison de Touriste was that it was unlikely that any shop would be open today because it was Monday. The second thing he told me was that even if they would open today, it’s too early in the morning at 9am. I was prepared for this. Hell at Sid’s we don’t open till 10. Of course, we are open 7 days a week, but, whatever.
As I clunked my way down the cobblestones of Spa, an ancient city known for its hot-springs and mineral baths all the way back to the Roman Empire, I passed the World War Two Memorial right in the heart of town. It was inspiring to see something so big and public in this land that Americans had died by the thousands to save from the Nazi’s. It also represented the only American memorial that I would see today.
But, I wasn’t about my grandfathers business just now. I was trying to fix this wheel so I could continue. I was mentally prepared to have to wait a full day to get a shop to open long enough to tell me that they could get new bearings by next Tuesday.
I was more than pleasantly surprised to find Sidi Bikes and Sport open and fully staffed by a kindly bike racer in his 40’s named Luc who only spoke French. He was very nice though, especially once I gave him one of my business cards from New York and explained the bearing situation. He smiled, and disappeared down a metal spiral staircase into the bowels of the shop only to return with a new wheel. 72 Euros. Damn.
I, of course, was hoping to get out the shop for around 20 Euro. Needless to say, I’ve seen this scene repeated at our shop in New York a thousand times. Guy comes into the store with a problem that only a new wheel can fix, but he doesn’t want to pay what it costs to get a new wheel. Dilemma. Most people in my situation would probably just pay the 72 Euro and wait to get the wheel installed. Not me.
Since I’m a mechanic, which is always a good skillset to pick up if anyone out there is thinking about getting into long distance road touring, I asked if I could use his shop downstairs. He laughed when I told him in really bad French that I “knew what I was doing.” Long story short, he could see by the way that I overhauled the rear bearings that I did know now to do it. I just didn’t know when to call it quits.
I should have known when I opened the hub seal and found that I was missing 2 bearings. They had to go somewhere. The races seemed ok, and I cleaned everything up, installed two new bearings and put it all back together no problem. But, since the overall round of the bearing race must have been distorted enough by the “great bearing escape” somewhere backing Holland, it quickly became apparent that there was no way I could get the wheel to turn correctly. Not good enough to trust it for another 800+ km anyway.
I sighed, and reluctantly installed the new Deore wheel on my bike. He nodded in approval when I came back upstairs and opened my wallet. I think he felt bad because he only charged me 70 Euro. This wouldn’t be that big of a deal except I’m still waiting for the credit card to arrive at my friend’s house in Holland. From there, he will post it to St. Vith. Waiting and waiting for that card.
Oh well. Sometimes these things happen, and if nothing else, I know a cool bike shop in Spa now. I rolled out of town feeling a lot better as the bike performed smoothly and made no noise again. It felt great to know I was on a fresh wheel, and I reminded myself to check the bearings every night. If I had only done that before!
Spa also marked the point at which I joined grandpa’s route exactly. From here I would follow the exact road that he had taken when his unit was called down to St. Vith from Holland to plug the gap left by the German attack. It was an emergency situation, and the roads were all jammed with traffic of all types. Today, the riding was slow going but amazingly beautiful as I low geared up the steep incline out of town and into the forest.
And I continued up that hill for an hour. I’m not kidding. They don’t play around with road grades here. It went straight up a hill for 6 km. I probably gained 1200 feet of elevation. It was a haul. Going up is always ok though because you know you get a great downhill on the other side. That, plus the view was incredible. A morning mist was just burning off and the ridgelines of green trees could be seen receding in the distance. The church towers of many little villages all poked out each little valley like that whack-a-mole game and the hills curved into one another as far as the eye could see.
I really can’t complain about this portion of the ride. For one thing, I knew that I was on grandpa’s exact trail. I was seeing the same things that he saw. I was passing a lot of the same buildings. For another, every so often, I’d be cruising around thinking I was home in Oregon because of the forest, then I would look up and see a castle in the distance. These were mostly from the 15th or 16th centuries when such structures lost their use as fortresses, and became more like fancy country houses for the rich. They were ornamented with spires, points and gargoyles. I felt like I was in a Brothers Grimm story. I think I was actually smiling as well.
The route went by too fast even though I was barely moving because of the hills. I passed through Stavelot, Trois-Ponts, and Viesalm before I knew it. Each one of these little towns is situated on a river, a crisp little stream, which cuts a little canyon on its way to the Meuse. The whole canyon is covered in firs which ride its walls up to the sky on each side, and the towns have probably been resorts since the time of the Ceasars.
Each one of these grandpa passed by on his way to battle. A battle he knew was serious and one that he had a good chance of not walking away from. How tough it must have been to pass these little resorts and see the beer ads and the fishing signs. How similar to the Northwest it all is. He must have felt a strange sense of home as well.
Every now and then when I got going on a real stretch of straight away or an uphill I thought I could see him. I saw him riding in a halftrack, shivering in the cold, leaning against a frosty window in the passenger’s seat. He was waiting. Waiting to move probably because the whole convoy was sitting for hours on end in one place, then moving a mile, then sitting some more. But, I really felt close to him in a way that I can’t describe. I almost felt like our consciousness touched across time on this stretch of road. That he, sitting in his halftrack in 1944, looked up for a second without realizing why and paused in query before returning his head to his arms to sleep.
The highway portion finally terminated in Veilsalm where the 7th turned up this little country road going straight over a hill toward St. Vith. I followed this road for an hour up into the evergreens. I could see the shell marks and the trench lines still visible under the now mature second growth timber on either side of the little windy road. I was now in the front line area. These woods had been fought over for a month and a half in 1944 -1945. It’s impossible to erase the scars of that from the earth. Certainly, there was a loneliness about the forest here.
This is when I realized that I didn’t come looking for museum, tour groups, veterans or storytellers. I didn’t come for the living. I came for the dead. They had to be all around me now, thousands of them lurking in the trees waiting for eternity, watching me pass. Here is where you’ll find them. Not in a well manicured cemetery.
When I emerged from the trees into the valley below, I was in Petit-Their, a little hamlet mentioned so many times in the after action reports. Here the unit was pushed back after a few days. There was a CP here, and grandpa was in the hill I had just come down out of on a defense line during the hurried withdrawal of the 7th from St. Vith after holding for 5 days.
Soon, I stopped at a crossroads to change the song on my ipod when I happened to look left. I saw the Poteau War Museam. I had wanted to come here for years after hearing about it. This little crossroads is another area where I knew grandpa had been. He was in the hills above here holding the defense line against the attack.
Sadly, the museum was closed. Not just closed because it was 6pm, but closed because it was September 21rst. The last date that it’s open is Sept 15th. Bummer. I had come so far only to see this sign mounted on a railing separating me from private property. I could glimpse the halftrack and field gun sitting in the field behind the house. I rang the bell. No answer. I thought about leaving a note about my mission, then thought I would just come back tomorrow and try again.
Suddenly, a minivan pulled up, the sliding door swung open, and elderly German guy got out and starting asking me questions. I replied that I spoke English. He smiled a little, said ok, and proceeded to break into the museum. He must have been a veteran. Judging by his age and his enthusiasm I’d say he was young, but old enough for Hitler at that time. He beckoned me to follow him in trespassing as he disappeared around the corner of the house. I walked in a few steps, but felt really wrong about it.
Then, the whole carload of German wives and friends, cigarettes burning, followed him into the field and began talking. I wanted to go in so much, just to see the machines, but something just didn’t feel right about it. Maybe it was because it was posted everywhere that it was private property. Maybe it was because I felt that this little German invasion was somehow part of the reason why this museum ended up here in the first place. I got on my bike and rode on.
The last few kilometers into St. Vith were like coming back into the modern world. My first view was of a windmill power station standing tall and white contrasted with the green trees. The 21rst century juxtaposed on the 14th. Everything changes. Soon there were truck stops, a shell station, strip malls and a freeway overpass to be negotiated. Once past these little obstacles, I realized that I was about to enter the town where it all happened.
Here is the place where Grandpa and his men fought and lost, then fought and won back. It looks surprisingly large for what I expected. I flowed through a full downtown tourist area, with tons of shopping, bars and restaurants. I realized that all of the signage was in German. St. Vith had actually been in Germany for centuries before the armistice in 1919 gave it to Belgium. I strangely felt like it belonged to the Germans.
In every sense of the word, I am happy to be here. I found a great little campsite next to a stream near just south of town. The very nice caretaker speaks only German, but had her daughter translate for me. She got that I needed a spot with power, and rather than charging me a full rate for a camper spot like everyone else, she went out of her way to get a power cable for me to use at a regular tent campsite! This is awesome!
I plan on spending a few days here riding through the towns where Grandpa fought, trying to hike a little and maybe find the old foxholes. Oh, and of course, wait for my damn credit card to show up at the central post. In that sense, I’m stuck here until then, but what a great place to be stuck! Surrounded by tree covered hills in a clean campsite with clean showers and free power and water for 10 Euro a night! What more could you want?