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.
From Ledeberg it runs 288 km to Ledeberg; allow about 4 h 58 of riding. It goes by way of Stadhuis met Belfort, \Halletoren\ ou Belfort, Belfort en Stadhuis and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul. It crosses from Belgium into France - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The Great Béguinage of Sint-Amandsberg looks like a small walled town of its own, tucked into a residential suburb just east of the centre of Ghent. When the city expanded in the 1870s and the old béguinage of St Elisabeth was in the way, the beguines, lay religious women who lived in community without taking permanent vows, moved here to a new complex of neo-Gothic houses, convents and a church, all laid out around streets, squares and gardens behind a wall and gate. The move was funded by the Duke of Arenberg, and the whole place was finished in just a few years. It is one of the thirteen Flemish Béguinages on the UNESCO list since 1998, and although the beguines are gone, the houses are still lived in, and the atmosphere is calm and quiet.
Read the complete Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent is where the day begins. Next is Stadhuis met Belfort.
Oudenaarde's town hall looks like something carved from lace. Built in the early sixteenth century in the late Gothic style, it has a facade covered with pointed arches, niches and statues, and a slender belfry topped with a gilded crown on which stands a small knight known locally as Hanske de Krijger, Little John the Warrior. The building is one of the finest of its kind in Flanders, and it is listed by UNESCO among the belfries of Belgium and France. Inside, there are displays of the tapestries for which Oudenaarde was famous across Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially its verdures, woven scenes of forests and greenery.
Read the complete Stadhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stadhuis met Belfort comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is \Halletoren\ ou Belfort.
Tielt is a working town in the heart of West Flanders, a place of farmers' markets, textile history and flat roads, and its belfry rises above the market square like a stubborn finger pointing at the clouds. The Halletoren, the hall tower, stands on top of the old cloth hall, the building where merchants once inspected and traded woollen cloth, the source of Flanders' wealth in the Middle Ages. The belfry is one of the group of Belgian and French belfries that UNESCO listed together, symbols of the civic freedom that the cities of Flanders won from their lords, where the town charters were kept and the bells rang to call citizens to arms or to work.
Read the complete \Halletoren\ ou Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 70 km into the recorded legs you reach \Halletoren\ ou Belfort. Next is Belfort en Stadhuis.
British soldiers marching to the front in the First World War left Ypres by the road that led east towards Menen, and the gate they passed through became the Menin Gate, now a memorial bearing the names of more than fifty thousand soldiers with no known grave. Menen itself, about twenty kilometres from Ypres, sits right on the French border, on the river Leie, which the French call the Lys, and its town hall and belfry, standing on the market square, are part of the UNESCO listing of the belfries of Belgium and France. The belfry, like much of the town, was damaged in the war and rebuilt, and it remains the proud symbol of the town's civic history.
Read the complete Belfort en Stadhuis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Belfort en Stadhuis, about halfway. 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 sits at 144 km, about halfway. Next is back through Belfort en Stadhuis.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Belfort en Stadhuis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Belfort en Stadhuis comes up about 182 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through \Halletoren\ ou Belfort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete \Halletoren\ ou Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 218 km into the recorded legs you reach back through \Halletoren\ ou Belfort. Next is back through Stadhuis met Belfort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stadhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Stadhuis met Belfort, late in the day. Next is Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 288 km.
Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent → Stadhuis met Belfort is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stadhuis met Belfort → \Halletoren\ ou Belfort is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
\Halletoren\ ou Belfort → Belfort en Stadhuis is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfort en Stadhuis → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul → back through Belfort en Stadhuis is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Belfort en Stadhuis → back through \Halletoren\ ou Belfort is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through \Halletoren\ ou Belfort → back through Stadhuis met Belfort is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Stadhuis met Belfort → Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.