CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 153 km round trip from Gembloux - roughly 2 h 48 in the saddle. The stops in between: Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi, Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Binche, Bois du Cazier and back through Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Binche.
Gembloux grew up around a Benedictine abbey founded in the tenth century, and for most of its history the monks ran the show. The abbey buildings, rebuilt in a grand classical style in the eighteenth century, now house a university faculty of agricultural sciences, fitting for a town surrounded by some of the richest farmland in Belgium. The belfry, a solid tower that was once part of a church and later became the town's civic symbol, stands in the centre and is part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France. Climbing it gives views over the rooftops and across the open fields of the Hesbaye.
Read the complete Beffroi de Gembloux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Gembloux is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi.
Charleroi has a reputation, unfairly earned or not, as one of the grittiest cities in Belgium, and its belfry is a fine reason to look again. Rising from the town hall on the Place Charles II, the belfry was built in the 1930s in an elegant Art Deco style, replacing an older tower, and it is one of the belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO. Its slender shape, topped with a dome and carillon, is a symbol of the city's pride and resilience, and inside, the town hall has a sumptuous Art Deco interior.
Read the complete Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi comes up 29 km in. Next is Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Binche.
Once a year, on the Tuesday before Lent, the little town of Binche in Belgian Hainaut goes completely mad. The Gilles, men dressed in costumes decorated with heraldic lions, crowns and stars, wearing wooden clogs, padded humps and, in the afternoon, enormous hats of ostrich feathers, dance through the streets to the beat of drums from dawn until late at night, throwing oranges into the crowd. The carnival of Binche is one of the oldest and most famous in Europe and is listed by UNESCO as part of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. If you are hit by an orange, it is considered a sign of luck, and throwing it back is not done.
Read the complete Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Binche write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
58 km in you reach Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Binche. Next is Bois du Cazier.
On the morning of 8 August 1956, a fire broke out in the Bois du Cazier coal mine in Marcinelle, near Charleroi, after a mechanical error in the shaft loaded a lift cage with a wagon and cut an oil pipe and electric cables. Smoke filled the galleries within minutes. Two hundred and sixty-two miners died, and only thirteen were rescued. Most of the dead were immigrants, and one hundred and thirty-six of them were Italian, men who had come to Belgium under a 1946 agreement that exchanged Italian labour for Belgian coal. The disaster remains a deep wound in Belgian and Italian memory, and it changed mining safety rules across Europe.
Read the complete Bois du Cazier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bois du Cazier, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Binche.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Binche write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Binche sits at 115 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi comes up 144 km in. Next is Beffroi de Gembloux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Gembloux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Gembloux closes the day.
Beffroi de Gembloux → Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi → Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Binche is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Binche → Bois du Cazier is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bois du Cazier → back through Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Binche 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 Binche → back through Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi 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 Charleroi → Beffroi de Gembloux is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.