La Conquête des Ardennes

The Warm-Up is the aperitif. Straight into the mood with the Thier de Huy and its 17% maximum gradient, a good way to check that the 34-34 is well oiled.

The route then dives gradually east, picking off the hostilities one by one. An ideal warm-up before the main course waiting for you in the Old Lady’s Hell.

When we dreamt up the gargantuan route of the Conquest, one goal was clearly to toughen up the Liège-Bastogne-Liège ride. On paper, the Old Lady of the Classics has everything going for her, but too many transition stretches between the climbs end up overshadowing them. Bits of valley, false flats without much emotion. So here is the Hell, from Spa onwards, throwing its terrible, varied slopes at you again and again, without wasting time in a soothing valley that might soften calves already turning stiff.

For some, Zone 2 will be playful, like the Col du Rosier; for others it will be hard to digest, like the Thier de Coo. For an attempt within 24 hours, it is without a doubt in the Old Lady’s Hell that you will find out whether the plan can still bear fruit, or whether the Old Lady has already cut you down, crushing any hope of becoming a Chasseur Ardennais.

Either way, the Great Eddy, immortalised in stone at the top of the Côte de Stockeu, will be there to urge you to resist and to see it through. Because if you are there, by day or by night, you are a Conqueror in the making… At the end of Zone 2, you will have more than 200 leg-breaking kilometres and 4,000 m of climbing behind you, on worn legs, to take on the Great Crossing.

With a ratio of 16 m of climbing per kilometre, the Great Crossing serves as the recovery zone of this Conquest of the Ardennes. This is probably where you will have to find your second wind, after hitting the rev limiter in the Old Lady’s Hell.

Appetite comes with eating, and yours, after 200 km of hills, is now at its peak. Just as well, because the hook south towards La Roche-en-Ardenne and its feudal castle will be anything but restful. Gentler slopes at times, granted, but slopes all the same: keep some room in your stomach. All the more since you will discover another register here, with stretches more exposed to the wind than before. Climbing is good. Climbing whipped by a headwind is better!

The Conquest also has its gentle side. A chance to open your eyes wide: you will wander through the Deux Ourthes Nature Park and its majestic forests, set foot in the Famenne and finish on the edge of the Condroz along the Lesse. From the southernmost point of the route, let yourself glide quietly, whistling in the saddle, towards the Meuse valley before the final part of this Conquest.

If the cramps haven’t made themselves felt yet in this third part of the Conquest, they won’t be long now. It’s a fact, and numbers never lie: at this stage, if you started in Huy, you will have more than 320 km and 6,000 m of rugged climbing in your legs.

KM 320. More than 30 climbs of every kind in the thighs. It burns. The Great Crossing went off without a hitch, but the hips are starting to rock. The pedal stroke that was so round 10 hours earlier is turning angular. And yet there is still work to finish, a battle to win. The Battle of the Walls. Cut like a saw blade.

The banks of the Meuse are a playground made for punchers: shorter but steeper climbs, with a few more traditional ones in stock too. Without going into detail, the Montagne de la Croix, Gayolle, 7 Meuses, Triple Mur de Monty, Mur de Huy… will rise like ramparts in front of you. The phrase “hitting a wall” will take on its full meaning after a good fifteen hours of rolling from one hill to the next.

We kept the best for last. The apotheosis. Finishing in style, using and abusing the easiest gear. This is here, this is now. The 34-34 has never been so useful. Reaching the roof of the Citadel, you will catch sight of the last bastion towards Huy. Only 50 km to go: on a normal day, a formality. But beware, these 50 km are treacherous. The shark’s teeth haven’t finished eating you alive.