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.
A 156 km round trip from Armentières - roughly 2 h 41 in the saddle. The stops in between: Belfort met Lakenhal, Stadhuis, Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor and back through Stadhuis. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules.
The ride follows Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières → Belfort met Lakenhal for 25 km.
Armentières is a textile town on the river Lys, right on the Belgian border, a quarter of an hour west of Lille. Its name is familiar to many English speakers from the bawdy marching song of the First World War, Mademoiselle from Armentières, which British soldiers sang on their way to the front lines nearby. The town paid a terrible price for being so close to that front: it was shelled, occupied and largely destroyed by 1918. The town hall and its belfry were rebuilt in the 1920s and 1930s in a confident Flemish style, and the tower now belongs to the UNESCO group of belfries of Belgium and France.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières is where the day begins. Next is Belfort met Lakenhal.
Every evening at eight o'clock, traffic stops under the Menin Gate in Ieper and buglers of the local fire brigade play the Last Post for the soldiers of the British Empire who died in the Ypres Salient and have no known grave. The ceremony has been held almost every evening since 1928, interrupted only during the German occupation in the Second World War. Walk from the gate to the Grote Markt and you come to the Cloth Hall and its belfry, a huge Gothic building that dominated medieval Flanders, when Ypres was one of the great cloth towns of Europe.
Read the complete Belfort met Lakenhal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Belfort met Lakenhal comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stadhuis.
Bruges is half an hour north, and the two make a good pairing, but Roeselare deserves to be taken on its own terms: a working town of some fifty-six thousand people, built on textiles, food processing and trade, with a town hall on its market square that anchors the centre. Like most Flemish towns, Roeselare grew around a market and a civic building that announced the burghers' independence from lords and bishops, and the tradition of the town hall as the symbol of local self-government is still very much alive here.
Read the complete Stadhuis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 52 km into the recorded legs you reach Stadhuis. Next is Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor.
Every evening at eight o'clock, traffic stops under the Menin Gate in Ypres, and buglers from the local fire brigade sound the Last Post in memory of the soldiers of the British Empire who died in the Ypres Salient during the First World War. The ceremony has been held almost every evening since 1928, interrupted only during the German occupation in the Second World War, and it draws crowds of all ages, many of them descendants of the fallen. The gate itself is inscribed with the names of more than fifty thousand soldiers whose bodies were never found. It is one of the sites included in the World Heritage inscription of the Funerary and Memory Sites of the First World War, inscribed in 2023.
Read the complete Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor, about halfway. Next is back through Stadhuis.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stadhuis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Stadhuis sits at 104 km, about halfway. Next is back through Belfort met Lakenhal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Belfort met Lakenhal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Belfort met Lakenhal comes up about 133 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières closes the day.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières → Belfort met Lakenhal is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfort met Lakenhal → Stadhuis is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stadhuis → Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor → back through Stadhuis is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Stadhuis → back through Belfort met Lakenhal is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Belfort met Lakenhal → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.