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: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
300 km from Charleroi to Charleroi, about 4 h 46 of riding. On the way it passes Beffroi de Gembloux, Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict, Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort and Maison & Atelier Horta. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
On the morning of 8 August 1956, a fire broke out in the Bois du Cazier coal mine in Marcinelle, near Charleroi, after a mechanical error in the shaft loaded a lift cage with a wagon and cut an oil pipe and electric cables. Smoke filled the galleries within minutes. Two hundred and sixty-two miners died, and only thirteen were rescued. Most of the dead were immigrants, and one hundred and thirty-six of them were Italian, men who had come to Belgium under a 1946 agreement that exchanged Italian labour for Belgian coal. The disaster remains a deep wound in Belgian and Italian memory, and it changed mining safety rules across Europe.
Read the complete Bois du Cazier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bois du Cazier is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de Gembloux.
Gembloux grew up around a Benedictine abbey founded in the tenth century, and for most of its history the monks ran the show. The abbey buildings, rebuilt in a grand classical style in the eighteenth century, now house a university faculty of agricultural sciences, fitting for a town surrounded by some of the richest farmland in Belgium. The belfry, a solid tower that was once part of a church and later became the town's civic symbol, stands in the centre and is part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France. Climbing it gives views over the rooftops and across the open fields of the Hesbaye.
Read the complete Beffroi de Gembloux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Gembloux comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict.
The beeches in the Sonian Forest grow so tall and straight that people call it the cathedral forest, and once you stand under them on a misty autumn morning the name stops sounding like tourist talk. This great woodland on the southeastern edge of Brussels covers thousands of hectares, and most of the famous columns of grey trunks were planted in the late eighteenth century, when the Austrian Habsburgs ruled these lands and their foresters reshaped the old wood. A few patches, including the Tict reserve near La Hulpe and Waterloo, are left to grow wild with no felling at all, and they form part of the UNESCO listing for the ancient and primeval beech forests of Europe, a chain of reserves stretching across the continent.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 79 km into the recorded legs you reach Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict. Next is Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort.
Leuven is a university town through and through. Its university, founded in 1425, is the oldest in the Low Countries, and its students fill the streets, cafés and squares, giving the city a youthful energy. At its heart is the Grote Markt, dominated by two buildings: the Town Hall, a Gothic masterpiece covered in hundreds of statues, and opposite it, the Church of St Peter, a great Gothic church whose tower was never finished but which is part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France.
Read the complete Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort, about halfway. Next is Maison & Atelier Horta.
From the street, the house at Rue Américaine in Saint-Gilles is pleasant but unassuming, a narrow town house of stone and iron among many others. Inside, it becomes something else entirely: a flowing space of curving wrought iron, stained glass, mosaic floors and woodwork that seems to grow like plant tendrils, all bathed in light from a glass roof over the stairwell. Victor Horta, one of the founders of Art Nouveau, built it as his home and studio between 1898 and 1901, and it is now a museum dedicated to his work. In 2000, it was listed by UNESCO together with three other Horta town houses in Brussels, including the Hôtel Tassel, often cited as the first true Art Nouveau building.
Read the complete Maison & Atelier Horta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Maison & Atelier Horta sits at 140 km, about halfway. Next is back through Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort comes up about 184 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 224 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict. Next is back through Beffroi de Gembloux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Gembloux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de Gembloux, late in the day. Next is Bois du Cazier.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bois du Cazier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 300 km.
Bois du Cazier → Beffroi de Gembloux is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Gembloux → Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort → Maison & Atelier Horta is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Maison & Atelier Horta → back through Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort → back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → back through Beffroi de Gembloux is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de Gembloux → Bois du Cazier is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.