CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
434 km from Gent to Gent, about 7 h 29 of riding. The stops in between: Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle A, Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle B, Sonian Forest - Forest Reserve “Joseph Zwa and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Ghent likes to think of itself as the city that Bruges forgot to be. It is a large, lively, slightly rebellious town at the meeting of the Leie and the Scheldt, and for centuries it was one of the biggest cities north of the Alps, a textile power whose weavers and guilds fought dukes and counts. The memory of that stubbornness lingers. Locals are known as the noose-bearers, after a day in 1540 when citizens were made to parade in nooses to atone for rebelling against Emperor Charles V, who was born in the town.
Read the complete Ghent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ghent is where the day begins. Next is Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle A.
Brussels has a cathedral of trees. The Sonian Forest, or Zoniënwoud, covers about four and a half thousand hectares on the south-eastern edge of the city, and most of it is beech, tall grey-barked trunks that rise like columns, with a canopy so dense that the forest floor under it is open and dim. Some trees are two centuries old, and the pattern of straight, evenly spaced trunks comes from the way the forest was managed in the eighteenth century under Austrian rule, when foresters planted the stands in a deliberate style. Parts of the forest were listed by UNESCO in 2021 as part of the ancient beech forests of Europe.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle A write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle A comes up about 78 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle B.
Imagine a cathedral built entirely of beech trunks, grey and smooth, rising forty metres or more to a roof of leaves, and you have the Sonian Forest at its finest. This great wood on the south-eastern edge of Brussels, the Forêt de Soignes or Zoniënwoud, covers thousands of hectares, and its most remarkable stands, including the Grippensdelle reserve near Hoeilaart, are part of the transnational World Heritage Site of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of Europe, inscribed in 2017.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 79 km into the recorded legs you reach Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle B. Next is Sonian Forest - Forest Reserve “Joseph Zwa.
Brussels has a forest on its doorstep, and a very good one. The Sonian Forest, Forêt de Soignes or Zoniënwoud depending on who is speaking, spreads over the south-eastern edge of the city in a dark green arc of about four and a half thousand hectares, and its core is beech, tall, grey and straight as columns. The forest is shared among three regions of Belgium, and the Joseph Zwaenepoel reserve is a protected section in the Flemish part, where the managers let nature take its course and fallen trees are left to rot. It is part of the UNESCO listing for ancient and primeval beech forests, extended in 2017 to include the Sonian Forest.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Forest Reserve “Joseph Zwa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sonian Forest - Forest Reserve “Joseph Zwa, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines.
Comines is one of those towns the border runs straight through. The river Lys, the Leie to the Flemish, divides French Comines from Belgian Comines-Warneton, and you can cross from one country to the other on a bridge without noticing much more than a change in the shape of the street signs. On the French side the town hall and its belfry stand over the main square, a tall brick tower in the Flemish style with a pointed roof and a carillon, part of the group of belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines sits at 217 km, about halfway. Next is back through Sonian Forest - Forest Reserve “Joseph Zwa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Forest Reserve “Joseph Zwa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sonian Forest - Forest Reserve “Joseph Zwa comes up about 351 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle B.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 355 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle B. Next is back through Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle A.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle A write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle A, late in the day. Next is Ghent.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ghent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 434 km.
Ghent → Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle A is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle B → Sonian Forest - Forest Reserve “Joseph Zwa is 4 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sonian Forest - Forest Reserve “Joseph Zwa → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines is 134 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines → back through Sonian Forest - Forest Reserve “Joseph Zwa is 134 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Sonian Forest - Forest Reserve “Joseph Zwa → back through Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle B is 4 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sonian Forest - Grippensdelle A → Ghent is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.