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.
171 km from Comines to Comines, about 2 h 44 of riding. The stops in between: Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos, Cité des Sports Wingles and back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos. It crosses from Belgium into France - carry ID and check the toll rules.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul.
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 comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 59 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos. Next is Cité des Sports Wingles.
Wingles is a town of nine thousand people in the old mining basin, sitting on the edge of the plain where the Lens-Béthune coal fields meet the canal of La Bassée. The coal here was dug from the mid-nineteenth century, and the town still bears the marks: rows of workers' houses, a handful of pit headframes, and slag heaps that rise from the farmland. The sports complex that gives this stop its name is a modern echo of the old social life of the mine, when companies built stadiums, bandstands and gymnasia for their workers, and brass bands and football clubs were as central to the community as the pit itself.
Read the complete Cité des Sports Wingles write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité des Sports Wingles, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos sits at 111 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul comes up about 139 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines closes the day.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos → Cité des Sports Wingles is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité des Sports Wingles → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.