Getting out of Brussels

It took me some time to find good ways to get out of town on the bike without being stuck in car traffic on the main axis. Especially when riding after work in rush hour. I collected some routes I personally prefer. They are on less busy, yet good to ride streets and you can leave the city in almost all directions. I have so far not found a good route out of town (north)west (Molenbeek, Koekelberg). Unless you want to go on Chausée de Gand or Ninove between tramway tracks and macho drivers you better avoid that area.

Of course one possibility is to take the bike on the metro and go to Erasmus, Heysel or Stockel. Definitely worth if you want to avoid traffic but you are not faster than biking.

My favourite routes are either alongside the canal (south towards Halle or north towards Vilvoorde) or along the highspeed rail line towards Leuven. I linked some of my GPS tracks below, starting from rather easy to find places in the city.

So the canal towards Halle is easily reachable more or less via Parc Duden. Bd. Van Haelen and Paepsem normally are not busy. Once at the canal you can either stay there (although the pavement gets really rough some kilometers past Halle) and go to Ronqiueres (or even further) or the Pajottenland is easily accessable on the right side (or hilly Beersel/Alsemberg) on the left.

To go to the Pajottenland directly just follow Bd. Van Haelen and Paepsem to the canal, cross it and head towards parc des Etangs/ Parc de Pede and a nice quite little road that leads you to nice little village Sint Anna Pede (the church apparently appears on some Bruegel painting).

Another way to the Pajottenland is via the Canal and Ikea. Cross the Canal at the lock to the right side and immediatly after the motorwaybridge turn right. Looks like it leads to nowhere but eventually you will head towards St. Pieters Leeuw, a nice little village at the beginning of the Pajot.

Altough I don't like the south of Brussels too much due to the dense population, traffic and bad roads (and the almost impossible to cross Forêt des Soignes - unless you take that awful "cyclepath" that runs right next to the Luxembourg motorway E411 or the even worth one at Chaussée de la Hulpe). However, there are some ways to easily get to Alsemberg, or even cross the Foret des Soignes on paved roads towards La Hulpe, or Hoeilaart. From either of these three routes you have access to the quite hilly parts of Brabant wallon. And there is even a way to avoid cycling along the E411 to get to Jezus-Eik and then further on to Overijse or Wavre.

Apart from the awful Avenue de Tervuren there are some easy ways to go to the east (Leuven, Mechelen area). Either past the airport and along the highspeed railway line (which I can really recommend) or via Wezembeek and Moorsel. Both are along Av. de Broqueville from Montgomery but there is normally a reasonable amount of traffic.

So finally towards the flat north of Brussels. Again you have the choice of riding nicely along the canal towards Vilvoorde (and further on to the Schelde river) or other ways like the quiet Haren route or more towards Grimbergen, either via Meise or Wemmel. Altough it can be annyoing along Bd. Schmidt it still is ok to get out towards the flat north.

Where to go

Road biking? Definitely not within Brussels. Car drivers in the city still think they own the streets. A mixture of all the world's driving styles together with poor city planning has turned Brussels into a biking nightmare. Things only gradually change. Besides there are only a few roads suitable for road biking within the city.

So you'll have to leave Brussels. But where are the best areas? I suggest: go west. The Pajottenland in the west of Brussels is probably the best spot for road biking. Great roads, gentle hills and best of all: little traffic due to the low population density. The best area to go is around Gooik.

Also worth going is the north, ranging from Asse to Mechelen. Disadvantage: no hills, so it could become rather boring. However, the great advantage is to have lots of waterways and rivers to ride along on nicely paved cyclpath (Schelde, Brussels canal, Leuven-Mechelen canal and the Zenne to some extend).

The east towards Leuven is mixed. Main disadvantage is the poor roads (concrete slabs! why on earth would you make such roads, Belgians!) and to some extend the higher traffic volumes. However, there are some nice spots.

The south is probably the worst spot to cycle due to the heavily populated suburbs, the bad roads and the Forêt de Soignes/Zoniënwoud which is hard to cross on proper roads.

More details in the "routes" section in the menu above and "how to get out of town".