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 Wingles it runs 180 km to Wingles; allow about 3 h 06 of riding. The stops in between: Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos, Belfort en Stadhuis, \Halletoren\ ou Belfort and back through Belfort en Stadhuis. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Wingles is a town of nine thousand people in the old mining basin, sitting on the edge of the plain where the Lens-Béthune coal fields meet the canal of La Bassée. The coal here was dug from the mid-nineteenth century, and the town still bears the marks: rows of workers' houses, a handful of pit headframes, and slag heaps that rise from the farmland. The sports complex that gives this stop its name is a modern echo of the old social life of the mine, when companies built stadiums, bandstands and gymnasia for their workers, and brass bands and football clubs were as central to the community as the pit itself.
Read the complete Cité des Sports Wingles write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité des Sports Wingles is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 53 km into the recorded legs you reach Belfort en Stadhuis. 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.
\Halletoren\ ou Belfort, 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 sits at 120 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 156 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cité des Sports Wingles.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité des Sports Wingles write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité des Sports Wingles closes the day.
Cité des Sports Wingles → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos → Belfort en Stadhuis is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfort en Stadhuis → \Halletoren\ ou Belfort is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
\Halletoren\ ou Belfort → back through Belfort en Stadhuis is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Belfort en Stadhuis → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos → Cité des Sports Wingles is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.