Rolling for the children - Mollenrit

200 km for the Living.

The Mollenrit 2026.

There are rides you do for the pure joy of it. And then there are rides that carry something heavier — a purpose, a cause, a reason that sits behind the throttle and reminds you, every now and then, why you got out of bed and pointed the front wheel toward the horizon.

The Mollenrit is one of those rides. Two hundred kilometres through the very best of the Kempen and the Dutch border country — all ridden for the Kinderbrandwondencentrum. For children who have been through something no child should ever have to go through. That thought sat with me for the entire ride. Quietly. Persistently. Like a passenger you don’t see but always feel.

Most riders did it in a group — that long, winding column of bikes that is one of the great sights of a charity ride. I did it alone. Somewhere along the way I realised I was probably doing the route backwards. I didn’t mind at all. The road was the same road. The cause was the same cause. Riding it solo, in my own direction, at my own pace — that felt exactly right.

The Harley-Davidson Road Glide Limited was ready. The Leica SL3 Reporter — with the 24mm M and the 50mm f/2 — went into the topcase. When you ride alone you choose your own moments. You stop when something earns it.

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The Roads

The route sent me south first through the beautiful inside roads of the Kempen — small, honest roads where the trees press close and twenty minutes can pass without a single roundabout. No motorway. No rush. Just the steady heartbeat of the Milwaukee-Eight and the asphalt unrolling like a long, slow sentence. Toward Diest the road curled through villages that feel untouched, past fields and hedgerows in early summer light. I was just riding. Sometimes that is enough.

Olmen came, and with it something personal. I spent hours here as a younger man, on the dirt, on two wheels, learning the hard way what motorcycles can do to you. I broke my leg completely here — not a crack, not a fracture, the whole thing. The new Kawasaki Adventure Park sits now right where it all used to happen. I stopped there. Dark clouds had been building all morning, heavy and dramatic, rolling in over the beautiful curly roads that wind away from the park in every direction. The kind of sky that threatens everything and delivers nothing. No rain came. But the light between the dark overhead and the brightness still hitting the road was exactly worth stopping for. I pulled out the iPhone 17 and made the frame. The clouds, the curves, the road disappearing into the distance. Olmen, doing what Olmen always does to me.

Keiheuvel followed, and I stopped here too — I had to. If you’ve grown up in this part of Belgium, that name means something. Deep sand. Legendary motocross. I parked the Road Glide and walked to the wire fence with the 24mm. The riders beyond were doing what riders do at Keiheuvel — loving every single second of it. The wide frame got it all in: the fence in the foreground, the joy behind it. What happened next I didn’t expect. The Mollenrit groups started coming through — wave after wave of bikes rolling past on the road behind me, all going the other way because I was doing the route backwards. Every group slowed a little. Hands came off handlebars. Nods. Waves. A salute to the lone photographer standing at the fence with his Leica. There is a language between riders that doesn’t need words, and that morning at Keiheuvel it was spoken beautifully. I waved back every time.

Over the Dutch border into Luycksgestel, where the Bakker Museum — a bakery museum, with its mill standing beside it — stopped me before I even knew why. There is something about a mill in the Dutch landscape — the way it stands against the flat sky, unhurried, permanent, indifferent to everything that has changed around it — that simply demands a photograph. The 24mm again. Wide enough to get the sky in. Wide enough to show how that mill owns its space. A quiet village. A quiet stop. Exactly right.

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Postel

I have written about this place before. More than once. I will write about it again.

Postel is where my grandfather lived. It is where I carry him still. There is a particular kind of peace that only certain places can give you — not the peace of silence exactly, but something deeper. The peace of belonging. Of knowing that the ground beneath your feet has a direct line to something in your own blood.

The inside roads from Lommel brought me there through nature reserves, the road narrowing between walls of pine and oak, light dropping in long shafts across the asphalt. When the abbey appeared I stopped without thinking. I stood there with the 50mm for a few minutes and let the place do what it always does. It brought peace. It always does. On a ride for children who need so much of it, that felt exactly right.

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The Last Road Home

The route wound back east through the countryside around Oud-Turnhout — inside roads threading between nature reserves, the landscape opening and closing as the road curved. I pulled over one last time where the light fell right. These are the stops you can’t plan. You feel them coming and pull the brakes before your head catches up with your instincts. The 50mm. Close. The lens that finds the quiet detail in a landscape rather than the grand statement of it.

Then home to Mol. Engine settling into idle. The noise dropping away. That particular stillness that only a long solo ride brings. Not emptiness. Gratitude.

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The Mollenrit rides for the Kinderbrandwondencentrum — the centre for children with burn wounds. I won’t try to put into words what those children and their families carry. I don’t have the right words for that, and I’m not sure anyone does. What I know is that riding two hundred kilometres alone, knowing why you’re riding, every kilometre feels deliberate. The road doesn’t ask for company. Neither does a good cause. You just go.

Did I ride it backwards? Probably. Did I enjoy it just as much? Absolutely. I wouldn’t change a single kilometre.

“The road was absolutely stunning, the cause was worth every metre. I rode alone — for children who cannot yet ride for themselves. And that is reason enough to go again next year.“

Thank you.