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 281 km round trip from Ieper - roughly 4 h 51 in the saddle. It goes by way of Het Belfort of Halletoren, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille, Ensemble minier de la Belleforière and Cité du n°7 de Béthune. It crosses from Belgium into France - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
This part of the ride is 36 km of Belfort met Lakenhal → Het Belfort of Halletoren.
Every evening at eight o'clock, traffic stops under the Menin Gate in Ieper and buglers of the local fire brigade play the Last Post for the soldiers of the British Empire who died in the Ypres Salient and have no known grave. The ceremony has been held almost every evening since 1928, interrupted only during the German occupation in the Second World War. Walk from the gate to the Grote Markt and you come to the Cloth Hall and its belfry, a huge Gothic building that dominated medieval Flanders, when Ypres was one of the great cloth towns of Europe.
Read the complete Belfort met Lakenhal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Belfort met Lakenhal is where the day begins. Next is Het Belfort of Halletoren.
On the Grote Markt of Kortrijk a tower stands alone in the middle of the square, as if the building it belonged to had wandered off. In a sense it did. The Belfort, or Halletoren, was once part of the cloth hall, the trading heart of a medieval textile town, and when the hall disappeared the tower stayed. It is one of the belfries of Belgium and France on the UNESCO list, and it has a pair of local celebrities at the top: two gilded figures, Manten and Kalle, who strike the hours on the bell. Kortrijk people are fond of them, and you will see their likenesses on all sorts of souvenirs.
Read the complete Het Belfort of Halletoren write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Het Belfort of Halletoren comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille.
Lille's town hall belfry is a child of the twentieth century. After the old town hall was lost, the architect Émile Dubuisson built a new one in the 1920s and early 1930s in a working-class district south of the centre, and its belfry, rising about 104 metres, is the tallest civic belfry in Europe. Built of reinforced concrete and brick in an Art Deco reinterpretation of the Flemish tradition, it is part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France, a group that celebrates the towers built by towns to symbolise their freedom and civic pride.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille. Next is Ensemble minier de la Belleforière.
Roost-Warendin, Waziers and Râches sit just north of Douai, where the old Scarpe floodplain met the coal seams, and the Belleforière mining ensemble is one of the clusters that shows how a pit site was organised. Shafts, buildings, workers' housing and spoil heaps were laid out together, with the railway linking them all, and in a few places the ensemble survives well enough that you can read it on the ground. Part of the regional mining landscape listed by UNESCO in 2012, it is a good example of how coal companies planned whole villages around their extraction.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la Belleforière write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ensemble minier de la Belleforière, about halfway. Next is Cité du n°7 de Béthune.
Between Grenay, Mazingarbe and Vermelles, in the heart of the Gohelle, the Cité du n°7 is one of the mining villages built by the Compagnie des mines de Béthune for the workers of its pit number 7. The houses, laid out in tidy rows with gardens, still form a coherent neighbourhood, part of the UNESCO-listed mining basin. Each company built its cités in its own style, and the variety of brick patterns, porches and layouts is surprisingly rich once you start looking.
Read the complete Cité du n°7 de Béthune write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité du n°7 de Béthune sits at 141 km, about halfway. Next is back through Ensemble minier de la Belleforière.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la Belleforière write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ensemble minier de la Belleforière comes up about 175 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille 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 Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille. Next is back through Het Belfort of Halletoren.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Het Belfort of Halletoren write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Het Belfort of Halletoren, late in the day. Next is Belfort met Lakenhal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Belfort met Lakenhal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 281 km.
Belfort met Lakenhal → Het Belfort of Halletoren is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Het Belfort of Halletoren → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille → Ensemble minier de la Belleforière is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier de la Belleforière → Cité du n°7 de Béthune is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité du n°7 de Béthune → back through Ensemble minier de la Belleforière is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ensemble minier de la Belleforière → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille → back through Het Belfort of Halletoren is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Het Belfort of Halletoren → Belfort met Lakenhal is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.