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 146 km round trip from Bailleul - roughly 2 h 31 in the saddle. The stops in between: Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Bailleul sits in French Flanders, so close to the Belgian border that you can hear Flemish place names on every signpost, and its town hall belfry, rising over the main square with a pointed spire and a carillon, looks every bit as Flemish as the towers of Ypres or Bruges. Like much of the town, it is a rebuilding: Bailleul was almost entirely destroyed in the spring of 1918, during the German offensive in Flanders, and was reconstructed in the 1920s in a neo-Flemish style of brick, stepped gables and decorative stonework. The belfry is one of the belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 22 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 39 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières.
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, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos.
Loos is a town on the southwestern edge of Lille, and its town hall belfry is part of the same UNESCO family as the medieval towers of Bruges and Ghent, though it is a much more modern member. In this corner of Europe a belfry was the symbol of a town's independence from lord and church, and when the industrial towns of the Nord built new town halls in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they gave them belfries too, as a statement that they had grown up. Loos's tower, in brick and stone, does exactly that.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos sits at 73 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières comes up about 90 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
about 107 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines. Next is back through Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
back through Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor, late in the day. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 146 km.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul → Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines → back through Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.