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: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 156 km round trip from Béthune - roughly 2 h 30 in the saddle. On the way it passes Monument aux morts 1914-1918, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai, Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain and back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai. The line favours views over speed.
The belfry of Béthune has been standing in the middle of the Grand Place since the fourteenth century, and it has survived more than most of the buildings around it. In 1918 the town centre was almost completely destroyed by German shelling, and the square was rebuilt in the 1920s in a mix of Flemish and Art Deco styles, with tall, ornate façades in brick and stone around the old tower. The belfry, a symbol of the town's ancient freedoms, is part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France, and climbing its stairs gives a fine view over the rooftops and the flat land around.
Read the complete Beffroi de Béthune write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Béthune is where the day begins. Next is Monument aux morts 1914-1918.
Lens is a mining town that was flattened in the First World War and rebuilt in brick, and the monument to the dead of 1914 to 1918 stands as a reminder of what happened here. Lines of trenches ran across this plain for years, and the surrounding ridges, Vimy and Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, were the scene of huge battles. At Vimy, the great white Canadian memorial stands on the ridge, commemorating the attack of April 1917 in which Canadian troops took the hill, and the preserved trenches and tunnels can be visited. At Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, a vast French military cemetery and a lantern tower hold the remains of tens of thousands of soldiers. They are quiet places, and the silence is part of the experience.
Read the complete Monument aux morts 1914-1918 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monument aux morts 1914-1918 comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai.
The belfry of Douai rises above the town hall like a stone exclamation mark, a tall, square tower with a corner turret and a gilded lion at the top. Belfries were the symbols of medieval towns in Flanders and northern France, built to show that a town had won its freedoms, and to hold the bell that called citizens to meet, fight or put out fires. Douai's was begun in the fourteenth century and finished in the fifteenth, and it is one of the group of belfries of Belgium and France that UNESCO lists together.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 52 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain.
Escaudain sits in the old heartland of the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin, the oldest and once the most powerful of the coal companies in northern France, and the landscape around it is pure mining country: rows of brick terraces, spoil heaps, old railway embankments and the occasional headframe standing like a monument. This is the Valenciennes end of the coalfield, close to the Belgian border, and it was here that coal mining in the north began in the eighteenth century. The town and its surroundings form one of the many components of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, which UNESCO inscribed in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai sits at 100 km, about halfway. Next is back through Monument aux morts 1914-1918.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monument aux morts 1914-1918 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monument aux morts 1914-1918 comes up about 129 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de Béthune.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Béthune write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Béthune closes the day.
Beffroi de Béthune → Monument aux morts 1914-1918 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monument aux morts 1914-1918 → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai → back through Monument aux morts 1914-1918 is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monument aux morts 1914-1918 → Beffroi de Béthune is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.