Repair

The noise of a pack of Geese strolling by my tent woke me up early. I had some time to kill until the Dinant bike store would open so I rolled through the town aimlessly for a while. At exactly nine o'clock I visited the store and asked for a derailleur cable. Replacing the broken one took maybe ten minutes. I had offered to have the shopkeeper perform the replacement out of courtesy -- after all, he could charge me for it -- but he explained to me how much work he already had today only to sit down by the entrance smoking while I fixed my bike. Nevertheless I was grateful that he let me use a pliers.

Ardennes

It got hilly again. Most of the day consisted of climbing one hill after another with some steep descents thrown in for good measure. Due to the merciless heat the climbs were rather fatiguing so what was one of the shorter days overall was also disproportionally tiring. First time too that I completely used up all the water I was carrying in the water bladder. Quite a difference to Britain where two full bottles usually sufficed for the entire day.

Not all of the uphill effort was reclaimed by descents. Bastogne is located at about 500 m altitude which is just a bit lower than the highest point I reached today. Other than that the town leaves a distinct military impression: WWII army gear everywhere, a war museum, even the campsite is hosting some kind of military remembrance event. Which was rather annoying due to the organizers blasting pop hits of the past half century till late afternoon.

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