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 278 km round trip from Thuin - roughly 4 h 48 in the saddle. It goes by way of Beffroi de Mons, Château de l’Hermitage, Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu and Cités de la Justice et du Moulin. It crosses from Belgium into France - carry ID and check the toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Thuin sits on a rocky spur above the Sambre, and from the river it looks like a town that climbed a hill to keep its feet dry. At the top stands the belfry, a tall square tower with an onion-shaped spire that was originally the bell tower of a collegiate church and survived when the church itself did not. Since 1999 it has been part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France, a reminder that towns in this region measured their freedom in bells, towers and charters.
Read the complete Beffroi de Thuin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Thuin is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de Mons.
Belgium has many belfries, but only one in the baroque style, and it rises above Mons on the hill where the medieval castle stood. Built in the seventeenth century, it is about eighty-seven metres tall, with a carillon of forty-nine bells, and it was listed by UNESCO with the other belfries of Belgium and France. A lift takes visitors to the top, where the view stretches across the Borinage, the old coal-mining country around the city, and over the rooftops of the old town. Inside, an interpretation centre tells the story of the tower.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Mons comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Château de l’Hermitage.
On the Franco-Belgian border, in a forest that has never much cared which country it is in, a pale classical château stands in a clearing. The Château de l'Hermitage was built in the eighteenth century for the dukes of Croÿ, one of the great aristocratic families of the region, as a refined country retreat, and it sits just inside France, near Condé-sur-l'Escaut, at the edge of the forest of Bon-Secours. The family's title went back centuries, and their estates spread across both sides of what is now the border.
Read the complete Château de l’Hermitage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Château de l’Hermitage. Next is Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu.
Lourches is a small mining town in the Nord department, on the banks of the Escaut river, between Denain and Valenciennes, in the heart of the old coal mining basin that stretched across northern France. The memorial named after Charles Mathieu is one of the elements listed as part of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin UNESCO site, alongside pitheads, slag heaps, miners' housing and the buildings of the mining companies.
Read the complete Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu, about halfway. Next is Cités de la Justice et du Moulin.
For almost three centuries, coal shaped the land between Valenciennes and Béthune in northern France, creating a landscape of pits, slag heaps, railway lines and miners' housing estates. The Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2012, and the Cités de la Justice et du Moulin in Auby are part of it: rows of brick houses built by the mining companies to house their workers, with gardens, churches, schools and shops, all organised around the pit. The cités are still inhabited, so treat them as neighbourhoods rather than museums.
Read the complete Cités de la Justice et du Moulin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de la Justice et du Moulin sits at 139 km, about halfway. Next is back through Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu comes up about 174 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Château de l’Hermitage.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château de l’Hermitage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 209 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Château de l’Hermitage. Next is back through Beffroi de Mons.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de Mons, late in the day. Next is Beffroi de Thuin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Thuin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 278 km.
Beffroi de Thuin → Beffroi de Mons is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Mons → Château de l’Hermitage is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château de l’Hermitage → Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu → Cités de la Justice et du Moulin is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Justice et du Moulin → back through Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu → back through Château de l’Hermitage is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Château de l’Hermitage → back through Beffroi de Mons is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de Mons → Beffroi de Thuin is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.