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 Cambrai it runs 283 km to Cambrai; allow about 4 h 53 of riding. The stops in between: Cités de la Solitude, Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos and Belfort met Lakenhal. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules.
The ride follows Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos → Belfort met Lakenhal for 38 km.
Cambrai gave its name to a fabric. Cambric, a fine light linen, was once woven and traded in this town, and the word survives in English. The town is also known for a small, translucent mint sweet called the bêtise de Cambrai, which the locals say was invented by mistake, and a visit to a confectioner is a pleasant way to spend ten minutes. The belfry is one of the group of belfries across northern France and Belgium that UNESCO listed together, as symbols of the independence of medieval towns, and in Cambrai it is a tall stone tower in the town centre, while the town hall nearby has two mechanical figures, Martin and Martine, who strike the hours.
Read the complete Belfries of Belgium and France write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Belfries of Belgium and France is where the day begins. Next is Cités de la Solitude.
On the edge of Waziers, near Douai, the cités de la Solitude are rows of brick houses built by a mining company for its workers, laid out in neat streets with small gardens. Such company towns, the cités minières, were the backbone of life in the coal basin of northern France, providing housing, schools, churches and shops for miners and their families, and they are among the most important elements of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012. The name Solitude seems almost ironic for a place built to house so many people close together.
Read the complete Cités de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de la Solitude comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens.
A headframe is the most honest piece of architecture in a mining country, because it exists only to hold up a wheel. The chevalement of Pit 3 bis at Lens is one of those tall, simple frames of concrete or steel, once used to raise coal and men from hundreds of metres underground, and it is now one of the markers of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012 as a living cultural landscape. At the height of the industry, hundreds of such frames stood on this flat country, and the sky was filled with smoke and steam.
Read the complete Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens. 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.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos, about halfway. Next is Belfort met Lakenhal.
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 sits at 142 km, 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 comes up about 180 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 216 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens. Next is back through Cités de la Solitude.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cités de la Solitude, late in the day. Next is Belfries of Belgium and France.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Belfries of Belgium and France write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 283 km.
Belfries of Belgium and France → Cités de la Solitude is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Solitude → Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos → Belfort met Lakenhal is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfort met Lakenhal → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos is 38 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 Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens → back through Cités de la Solitude is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités de la Solitude → Belfries of Belgium and France is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.