August 2021: Sunday Rallies

So far I have been "waiting" for tours to be organised by the Mercedes 107 Clubs in Belgium or The Netherlands, but those events are rather limited (of course we know why: Corona results in so many setbacks to organise rides) or were far from my home town.

Normally I enjoy myself together with my wife on some day trips we make, setting up a route and feel the wind through the hair. But for August a have taken a different approach: I started looking for oldtimer events and found the following site: oldtimerweb.be

Many days in August, especially on Sunday, trips have been organised by local oldtimer clubs, independent from the type or brand of the car. So, I have selected rallies with the starting point in the neighbourhood of my home town and was able to derive a nice list.

Tiense Veiligheidsclub

A very nice trip of approx. 140 kilometers bringing us all through both Dutch and Belgian Limburg. Nice to see people sharing the same passion (although for a different car type, but Ok, they are forgiven for it).

Unfortunately, my tracking device did not record the track I have driven due to a stupid human user error (I deleted the trip instead of uploading it...)

Vlaamse Vehikel Klub - Beringen

A nice tour through the Haspengouw area seeing all apples and pears in the fields, almost ready for harvesting.

I have tracked the route using MyRouteApp Navigation, so if you are interested, you can follow the same route.

So, although the route is created in MyRouteApp by me, the original route with point-arrow guidance has been created by Guido Vanoppen, So kudos to the original author!

Kluchtige Vrienden

We had perfect weather on Sunday 15 August, so sun-screen was required! A nice organisation starting with breakfast, a nice trip and afterwards coffee with cake and a barbecue!

Unfortunately, I was not able to track the route as I had done the week before. I learned that tracking the route with MyRouteApp does not work properly together with Rally Tripmeter: it seems that the GPS information does not reach MyRouteApp Navigation as long as Rally Tripmeter is active. And we use the Rally Tripmeter to navigate through the point-arrow roadbooks...

De Ton Classic

The whole week before this trip on Sunday 22 August, the weather forecasts did not predict very good circumstances for this rally in two parts: a trip of approx. 70 km in the morning and 55 km in the afternoon.

But luckily, it hardly rained during the day, so we were able to appreciate the drive without the roof ;-) The unfortunate down-side of the rain during the previous day, caused many muddy pools to be on the track, so the car ended up rather dirty...

Where normally my wife joins me as the navigator, this time it was a good friend who accompanied me. He knew almost the whole route by heart as he lives in the neighbourhood of the track. Hihi.

During the day, I had been requested to provide the car for a wedding in Alken. It was something I needed to think about and also check insurance terms, but I happily agreed to help out to make the couple's day as special as possible.

Looking back...

Now, the four rallies I had planned to ride have been finished and I can look back on a very nice experience: seeing other people sharing the same passion and seeing nice roads in the wide area where I live. The weather has not been good all the time, but the fun was not affected by it!

I will defintely join more of these rallies in the future!