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 Aalst it runs 326 km to Aalst; allow about 5 h 37 of riding. It goes by way of Belfort, \Halletoren\ ou Belfort, Belfort en Stadhuis and Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault. It crosses from Belgium into France - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Aalst's Schepenhuis, the old aldermen's house on the Grote Markt, is reckoned to be the oldest surviving town hall in the Low Countries, its oldest parts going back to the thirteenth century, and its belfry, added later, carries the bells that once regulated the town's life. Together they are part of the UNESCO listing of the Belfries of Belgium and France. In front of them stands a statue of Dirk Martens, who set up one of the first printing presses in the Southern Netherlands here in the 1470s and later printed works by Erasmus and Thomas More.
Read the complete Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison is where the day begins. Next is Belfort.
Ghent has three towers standing in a row, and the middle one is the belfry, rising over the old centre between St Bavo's Cathedral and St Nicholas' Church. Begun in the fourteenth century, it was the town's watchtower, bell tower and strongroom, where the charters granting the city its privileges were locked away. On its spire sits a gilded dragon, the city's mascot, keeping an eye on things. The belfry, with the cloth hall attached to its base, is part of the UNESCO list of belfries of Belgium and France, and you can climb it, partly by lift, for one of the best views over the rooftops, canals and spires.
Read the complete Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Belfort comes up about 34 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 73 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 Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault.
The flat country between Douai and Lens does not look like much from a motorway, but it holds one of the great industrial landscapes of Europe. For more than two centuries coal was dug from under these fields, and the mining basin of the Nord-Pas de Calais was listed by UNESCO in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape of pits, slag heaps, railway lines and workers' housing. The Fosse Cornuault at Évin-Malmaison is one piece of that vast mosaic, a former colliery site with its associated buildings, set among the brick villages of the eastern part of the basin.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault sits at 163 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 217 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 253 km into the recorded legs you reach back through \Halletoren\ ou Belfort. Next is back through Belfort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Belfort, late in the day. Next is Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 326 km.
Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison → Belfort is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfort → \Halletoren\ ou Belfort is 39 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 → Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault → back through Belfort en Stadhuis is 54 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 Belfort is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Belfort → Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.