American Reacts to Cycling through the heathland Belgium

[@350zvince]

I'm Dutch but never been there, looks interesting. I like it where they go below the water level.

[@dirkdemeirleir264]

Thank you Charlie for giving some attention to us Belgians! We love cycling too, especially as a sport. The most epic race I have ever seen was the last Paris-Roubaix race (the race we call the hell of the north (of France)) It was postponed from spring to autumn in 2021 due to Covid. A Belgian came in second after leading in front for hours and hours. Those guys are athletes!

[@benefiet]

In the Netherlands, biking is more "a mode of transport", in belgium its more a sport and passion. Every Sunday morning they ride a sport bike with the local peloton and the sunday afternoon they will watch biking competition on TV with their family. Tour of flanders and paris-roubaix is like the super bowl final here...

[@iamalexwolf]

Finally more Belgium!

[@dutchman7623]

They made three interesting cycling projects which make recreational cycling attractive. Cycling through water. Where the 'bridge'goes down into the water and your eyes are at water level, while cycling dry. Cycling through trees. Where you cycle over an elevated path through the tree tops high above the landscape. Cycling through heath. Where the viaduct is horizontal and in between you climb up until you can look around before descending. Three very innovative projects within a recreational cycling route that gives you lots of opportunities to look around and experience the landscape in a 'normal' way. They are extras that make cycling even more fun. In a lot of places Belgium is improving bicycle infrastructure and more and more picking up what their neighbors did well. At first they experimented a lot, but noticed that the good solutions of the Dutch were truly good and started to copy them correctly. Belgium is a cycling country as well, especially in the cities, and among youth. And who doesn't want to keep their kids save? And just like the Dutch they see that if the infra is there and safe, more people will cycle for school, sports and commute.

[@septho1892]

the belguims are the best in cycle races with wout van aert and more

[@marcusfranconium3392]

Belgium our little brother we like to call stupid . just kidding but belgium and the dutch are the same peope but as like most of our provinces totaly different from eachother , we speak the same language but use different words with the same meaning. They are realy lovely people . vlaamse friet ( flemish fries) and beers no one can beat . You could see the Netherlands as the workplace , belgium as the night out .

[@marcusfranconium3392]

@wim caubergs That is why we got luxembourgh to recover .

[@marcusfranconium3392]

@wim caubergs Fresh air quiet , great to revover from a hangover. .

[@flitsertheo]

@@marcusfranconium3392 I doubt the place where you can buy alcohol at cheaper prices (less taxes) is the appropriate place to recover from a hangover.

[@marcusfranconium3392]

@@flitsertheo Well going to luxemburgh is a bit further drive , but they also make some damn good beer , dangerous as well as you can drink it like water and be runk before you know it

[@lienbijs1205]

We have lived for a while close to Brussels, the habbits and lifestyle and the interactions are different. In Brussels it is very normal to go for a beer in a cafe. I mean you'll see women of 70+ going with their shopping bag after shopping to the cafe to drink beer. Belgium is much more culinar. Both at home and at restaurants. Also often the employer offers dinner cheques what means that employees can eat somewhere in a restaurant a warm lunch payed by the boss. The workculture is also more vertical, kind of hïërchie.Culture at school is also different, more strict and more organized like children have to walk in rows to enter the school with their class all together. Belgian kids go to school already at the age of 2,5 .and often long days because before and/ or after school they go to the childcare at school. Belgian mothers often need to work fulltime while it is more common for Dutch moms ( and dads) to work part time to be at home for the kids and cooking meals and having dinner at home all together every day.Dutch tend to wait till everybody is at home to eat together. Dutch do spend much more time together with their children at home. On a much younger age Belgian kids are supposed to have some skills like putting your own jacket and shoes on. They wear shoes with velcro in order to put their own shoes on. The school provides healthy and delicious warm lunches with lots of fresh vegetables. The young children drink at morningbreak together all kind of vegetables soups. They do a lot of schooltrips to learn like going in nature, musea and the zoo and in winter they go with school to Austria on ski holiday. Dutch schools are unorganized comparing to Belgian schools. Also spotless classrooms and no dirty to pee smelling boys toilets like many of the Dutch schools have. Belgian kids will be in trouble if they leave the toilet dirty behind. Dutch classrooms are often dirty with collecting a lot of dust on the surfaces and dirty windows, Belgian schools are always clean.

[@marcvandenbroecke331]

The town is mentioned is Genk and not Gent, the latter a very old town, one of the hidden pearls of tourism in Belgium. The distance between the 2 is about 150 kms

[@theo4281]

180 years ago Belgium was part of the Netherlands. They decided to create their own country. Part of them speak Dutch and part of them speak French.

[@theo4281]

@@ItsCharlieVest Here's a link about our country helping the U.S.A. gaining independency. Not many Americans know about it because the historical papers about it were never translated to English. I don't know if you know, if not maybe you like it. Have a nice day buddy. kzbin.info/www/bejne/apK7mmaihNJ8eas

[@theo4281]

@wim caubergs It's fine by me. Now i only have to drive for an hour or so to be in another country, drinking one of your special beers and eating a nice Belgium waffle while i have the feeling i'm on a holiday on a sunny thursday afternoon 😁

[@commando2113]

@wim caubergs nope the buffer was made after the fall of napolion and that was the united kingdom of the nederland's and belgium is not made by foreign power's they yust said they may exist but they schould be e kingdom with e king for its peopel so because the peopel revolted and france yust sended help.

[@gertvanderstraaten6352]

@wim caubergs Yeah, militarily the Dutch won, it was the larger powers that decided to keep it as a country, hehe. And we Dutchies love it (though we usually forget there's a French-speaking part).

[@garfield1283]

I actualy work (landscaping/gardening) in the vilage near where this is placed (i live 10KM away) i pass it a few times every day and watched it be completed over a few years. (it's an old road that got decomissioned years ago and now extended into the woods towards the existing bikeroad. the road running underneath also used to split around a small "gras island" and is now just a normal 2 lane road) realy worth to check it out. there also a place near it where you can walk through the woods (barefoot) wich is also quite intresting

[@jolienbaeyens7687]

Lived my whole life in Belgium (16 years) and it’s really nice to ride bikes here like in the summer it’s amazing

[@nathanrondelez4951]

We also have a flying staircase in belgium it is called vlooibergtoren.

[@mtdemon9946]

As a belgian dude i can say riding with a bike in a city is like playing a gta 5 heist without guns

[@MyHolidayInAustralia]

Nice to see a video on Belgium (I'm living there myself). Thanks Charlie, hope you do more of them.

[@biebel1963]

Here’s a tip to learn more about the Belgium cycling mania. Try “koers” ( = race in Flemish) .

[@aorta538]

I lived in Belgium for 7 years, they do have bike-paths like the Netherlands. -well most cities, sometimes bike-paths just end when you enter the next city/village... 🙈

[@AmedeeVanGasse]

If you want to know more about cycling in Belgium, then these videos are good starters: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h4qUnqasqbtkfqM - cycling in Antwerp, Belgium's 2nd largest city kzbin.info/www/bejne/qXaycpKKmNZljqM - cycling in Ghent (where I live). kzbin.info/www/bejne/ml68ZamYq9-aqqc - recreational cycling in Flanders kzbin.info/www/bejne/b3ukg6dnnrp-l7M - the most iconic cobblestone climb in Flanders

[@mariadebake5483]

Belgian beers are very good, especially the trappist beers. And BicycleDutch is a good channel

[@phoebs69]

I hear about Limburg. Limburg is a province of the Netherlands. But the cycle path through the heathland is in Belgium.

[@dirkdemeirleir264]

Limburg is also a Belgian province

[@flitsertheo]

@wim caubergs Confusion ... The province of Noord-Brabant is actually located in the south of the Netherlands. Midden-Brabant (don't know if they ever used that name) is the province of Antwerpen and zuid-Brabant is split into Vlaams-Brabant (Flemish speaking) and Brabant Wallon (French speaking).

[@harshtruth632]

Hahaha yep typically Belgium make something with a halfassed plan, and only when its finished realize u fucked up then pretend its normal. Thank god the beer is good enough to make u forget about it.

[@tmaria5833]

You should do a video about Maastricht 🙏

[@tmaria5833]

@@ItsCharlieVest it’s in the Netherlands! Down south by Belgium border!

[@tmaria5833]

@wim caubergs almost all of my family live there! I love going back to visit it’s so beautiful. And so much to see ❤️

[@tmaria5833]

@@ItsCharlieVest Denniscallan has a pretty good video on Maastricht you could watch!

[@tmaria5833]

@@ItsCharlieVest yeah pretty thorough!

[@yvobroekhoven972]

I think this is more about tourist stuff instead of making cycling a decent daily mode of transport. It's nice, interesting, but useless for commuting. Even for recreational purpose it's.... neh... Nice way of trowing away tax money that could be used for decent cycling infra for daily use imho.

[@mariadebake5483]

I agree