The Oud-Heverlee permanent mountain bike loops in forest Meerdaelwoud are, with its many wide paths, perfect for family rides.

Only a few sections are technically challenging. Perfect opportunity for you to walk and to rest your butt from the saddle, should you only be there for the less-technical alternative of a ride. The red loop has one stony, rocky, rooty downhill à la Overijse style. The blue loop is the toughest but still only two sections to make your eyes sparkle; a steep, long uphill where you have to work on balance/traction at the end, and a longlong, not very steep uphill with lots and lots of sand making you struggle to keep up on your bike. Before that you can also enjoy a short compulsory muddy section, sharing it with horse riders, so stopping in the middle of it might have to be an option (please do not scare horses) (the sandy uphill afterwards is grrr for your bike!). Green loop is the easiest loop, but still surprises you with the most technical downhill of all loops; short, but with steps and lots of roots making it rather difficult to pick your line. Straight after that a sharp 45 degree turn back and a steepy uphill.

The Bloso signs (same as for Overijse) are excellent, with the exception to one or two extremely sun-faded ones.

All loops have their own starting points. The red loop (15k) starts in Bierbeek, the green (18k) in Heverlee and the blue (17k) in Oud-Heverlee. All loops can be combined into a long loop, then giving you a total distance of 48k (and 420hm). If you are a long-distance biker, follow the yellow signs off the blue loop's southwest corner and hook up with the Overijse trails.

When we meet for riding in this area, we usually meet in Oud-Heverlee. The green loop is easily accessible from here, too, and gives more choice if we are a larger group of people wanting to do different distances, but still wanting to convene before and after at the same place. The blue loop goes straight past the (rather pricy) restaurant Spaans Dak (in the Zoet Waters recreation area), and there is some parking space in connection with it that we have come to employ as "our" meeting point.

The Oud-Heverlee permanent mountain bike loops are in no way representative of the trails in Meerdaelwoud. In bright contrast to Forêt de Soignes there are supposed to be lots and lots of hilly, challenging sections, open for bikers that have time and patience to learn them by themselves. The forestry department seems to have chosen to not include these into the mtb loop, probably to avoid the worst erosion that bikers are supposed to represent.