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.
243 km from Auchel to Auchel, about 4 h 11 of riding. On the way it passes Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille, Voormalig Stadhuis met Belfort and back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules.
West of Béthune, the coalfield starts to run out of flat land. The first chalk hills of Artois rise around Auchel and Cauchy-à-la-Tour, and the pit villages climb their slopes in neat rows of brick. The Cité de Rimbert is one of these, built by the mining company of Marles to house its workers, and it belongs to the long necklace of sites in the UNESCO-listed mining basin. Its houses, gardens and straight streets are a textbook example of company planning, with every family given a home, a vegetable plot and a short walk to the pit.
Read the complete Cité de Rimbert write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité de Rimbert is where the day begins. 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.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Voormalig Stadhuis met Belfort.
Lo is one of the smallest towns in Belgium, a cluster of brick houses around a market square in the flat polders of the Westhoek, a few kilometres from the French border. Its former town hall, built in the sixteenth century in Renaissance style, has a small belfry tower, and it is part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France, alongside much grander towers in Bruges, Ghent and Lille. It is a reminder that even tiny towns had civic pride and privileges worth announcing to the world.
Read the complete Voormalig Stadhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 122 km into the recorded legs you reach Voormalig Stadhuis met Belfort. 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.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille, late in the day. Next is Cité de Rimbert.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité de Rimbert write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cité de Rimbert. That is the ride.
Cité de Rimbert → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille → Voormalig Stadhuis met Belfort is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Voormalig Stadhuis met Belfort → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille → Cité de Rimbert is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.