Best of Gravel Vlaams-Brabant

Abbey start, Hageland first

Averbode is an unusual place to begin an ultra: an abbey at the edge of the Hageland, with Zichem station only a few kilometres away if you arrive by train. The Best of Gravel Vlaams-Brabant leaves along tracks shared with Dwars door het Hageland, past the Maagdentoren on the Demer and up the cobbled citadel climb into Diest — five hundred metres that peak near nine percent, familiar to anyone who has watched the race finish there.

Fruit country follows. Plateaus open. The Vlooyberg tower offers a vertical pause, and in Meensel-Kiezegem the oversized Eddy Merckx mural makes it impossible to pretend this province is a footnote in Belgian cycling.

Two hundred fifty-one kilometres of gravel is a format choice as much as a route: one brutal day, or a quieter multi-day with beds that accept bikes.

Forests, Hallerbos, Pajottenland

The middle of the ride belongs to the Brabant woods — Meerdaal, the Sonian Forest, Hallerbos — cathedral light under trees and gravel that rewards patience. Tervuren Park and the Africa Museum mark the approach to the Sonian; Halle offers Falco for coffee if you leave the line briefly; castles at Gaasbeek and Groenendaal sit beside lambic country for anyone who still has the appetite.

Westward, the Pajottenland hills take over. Remco Evenepoel’s mural in Schepdaal, views toward the Brussels skyline, then a long arc back east along the Senne and Dijle toward Rock Werchter territory and the Sven Nys Cycling Center on the Balenberg in Tremelo.

How to ride it

Golazo’s Bolero Gravel Series mapped the line; Visit Vlaams-Brabant publishes stage splits and lodging ideas for two- or three-day versions. As a single day it is an ultra with almost eighteen hundred metres of climbing and only a token kilometre of cobbles — the hardness is distance and surface, not pavé lore. As a weekend it becomes something rarer in Flanders: a gravel traverse with room to stop properly. Either way, the finish back at Averbode feels like closing a door on a province most road itineraries only skim.