RSS Plotting a 1000km Lap Around Belgium and Luxembourg: BOB 2026
Some Audax Ireland folks mentioned this one was running, and once I looked it up it was an easy yes: on the 10th of August I’ll be on the start line in Antwerp for BOB, the Borders of Belgium and Luxembourg, a 1000km BRM organised in partnership with Randonneurs Belgique.
What Is BOB
BOB is a 1,029km Brevet Randonneurs Mondiaux event: non-competitive, self-navigated, ride-within-the-time-limit audax. The route traces a clockwise loop that hugs the borders of Belgium and Luxembourg, starting and finishing in Antwerp, with 15 mandatory controls along the way through towns like Leopoldsburg, Aubel, Malmedy, Luxembourg City, and Oostende. The suggested pace is roughly 340km a day, and riders have 75 hours to get back to Antwerp. Entry is €11, with an optional 1000k BRM medal, and the pack starts rolling from 7:30am, though there are various other paid start time options too.
No dynamo required, no support car, just a GPX file, a saddle bag, and whatever the Ardennes decides to throw at you in August.
The organisers did a recce ride of the route and posted photos on Flickr, worth a browse if you are curious about the sights and terrain we will encounter en route.
Why This One
My brother lives near Eindhoven, just a short hop from the Antwerp start line, so BOB gave me a good excuse to combine a family visit with a proper ride. The rough plan:
- 8 Aug — fly in, head over to see my brother near Eindhoven
- 9 Aug — check-in in Antwerp, sort the bike, sleep
- 10 Aug — start BOB, day 1 on the road
- ~11–12 Aug — days 2 and 3, back to Antwerp inside the 75-hour window
- through 16 Aug — more time with family before flying out
Nice bit of luck that the event lines up with the trip rather than the other way around.
The Route, Day by Day
I split the official course into three chunks on RideWithGPS to plan around hostels and controls, roughly matching the event’s suggested ~340km/day pace.
Day 1 — Antwerp to the Luxembourg border
RideWithGPS map and elevation profile for day 1, Antwerp to near Diekirch
353.4km, +3,132m. Flat and fast out of Antwerp through the Kempen, then a long diagonal south-east across Limburg and Liège towards the Ardennes, finishing near Diekirch on the Luxembourg border. The elevation profile is a good preview of what’s coming: dead flat for the first 160km, then it wakes up hard in the second half as the Ardennes climbs start stacking up.
Day 2 — Into Luxembourg, along the French border, up to Charleroi
RideWithGPS map and elevation profile for day 2, Echternach to near Charleroi
362.9km, +3,202m. This is the hilly one. Starting near Echternach, the route dips into Luxembourg proper, swings past Arlon, and then runs the length of the French border through the Ardennes and the Parc naturel des Hauts-Pays before finishing near Charleroi. The elevation chart is relentless, rolling hard for the first 200km before finally easing off in the last third.
Day 3 — Charleroi to the coast and home to Antwerp
RideWithGPS map and elevation profile for day 3, Mons through Bruges back to Antwerp
306.6km, +726m. The reward lap: Mons up to Tournai, across to the coast through Bruges, and then a flat run back along the Flemish plains into Antwerp. After two days of Ardennes climbing, +726m over 300km will feel like a rest day, wind permitting — this is Flanders in August, so headwinds are not exactly off the table.
Total across the three: 1,022.9km and ~7,060m of climbing, which lines up closely with the official 1,029km course.
Flying With the Bike
The Mason Aspect Integrale is going in a Scicon AeroComfort 3.0 for the flight. The main appeal of that case is that you don’t have to remove or tilt the handlebars to get the bike in, which normally saves a lot of faff — but it also means the bars are one of the more exposed points in the case, so I’m not fully trusting the padding on its own.
Aer Lingus wanted €50 each way for the bike, so €100 round trip on top of the ticket, with a 23kg weight limit on the case.
The Scicon AeroComfort 3.0 bike travel case, closed and ready to go
Here it is in action back in 2018, on a previous bike, still with the handlebars in place:
Loading a bike into the Scicon AeroComfort case without removing the handlebars
I picked up some PVC pipes and connectors and glued together a simple cage to go around the bars for extra protection this time, following this hack on YouTube:
Rest of the packing routine:
- Pedals off.
- Rear mech off and strapped inside the rear triangle rather than left hanging — a rear derailleur is exactly the kind of thing airport baggage handling loves to snap.
- Disc rotors off too, if I’m feeling paranoid enough by packing day.
- Di2 cable disconnected at the rear derailleur only. That’s the one I always pull, since I think of it as the brain of the system, and it means I’m not touching the front derailleur or shifter wiring at all.
Logistics
- Sleep strategy is decided: two stops rather than one, so a proper sleep after day 1 and again after day 2. I’ve also gone for the event’s support pack option, which should take some of the logistics worry out of it.
- Paid the €135 for the 7:00am start.
- Lights are sorted: sticking with my trusty setup, 2x Lezyne Macro Drive 1400+ up front (12h30m runtime each on low) and a Busch + Müller Ixxi on the back, which I think is rated for something like 15 hours on the solid red LED. Between the two front lights and the two nights on the road, that should cover it.
- Get the bike serviced before I fly, since post-ride mechanicals abroad are always more of a headache than at home.
I’ll post a full ride report after, hopefully with a medal to show for it.