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.
253 km from Douai to Douai, about 4 h 22 of riding. It goes by way of Terril 14, Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor and back through Terril 14. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
The ride follows Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame → Terril 14 for 62 km.
Douai is a handsome old town on the river Scarpe, and its belfry is the thing to look for. The tall Gothic tower, topped with a lion, rises above the town hall and holds a carillon of bells, and it is one of the belfries of Belgium and France that UNESCO listed together. Every July the town stages a big parade of giants, huge wicker figures carried through the streets that represent Gayant, a giant from local legend, with his wife and children, a tradition that dates back centuries and which UNESCO recognises as intangible heritage. The Chartreuse museum, in a former monastery, holds paintings and sculpture from the town's long history.
Read the complete Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame is where the day begins. Next is Terril 14.
Auchel lies on the western rim of the coalfield, where the black seams run out against the chalk hills of the Artois, and Terril 14 rises above the town and its neighbour Marles-les-Mines as a long, dark ridge softened by birch and grass. The heap is built of shale and waste rock brought up from the pits of the old company that worked this corner of the basin, and like many of the terrils, it has been left to nature since mining ended. Its slopes are now home to plants that love warm, dry ground, and the summit offers a view over the rooftops of the mining towns toward the green hills to the west. It belongs to the vast mining landscape listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Terril 14 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 14 comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor.
Every evening at eight o'clock, traffic stops under the Menin Gate in Ypres, and buglers from the local fire brigade sound the Last Post in memory of the soldiers of the British Empire who died in the Ypres Salient during the First World War. The ceremony has been held almost every evening since 1928, interrupted only during the German occupation in the Second World War, and it draws crowds of all ages, many of them descendants of the fallen. The gate itself is inscribed with the names of more than fifty thousand soldiers whose bodies were never found. It is one of the sites included in the World Heritage inscription of the Funerary and Memory Sites of the First World War, inscribed in 2023.
Read the complete Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 127 km into the recorded legs you reach Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor. Next is back through Terril 14.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 14 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Terril 14, late in the day. Next is Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame. That is the ride.
Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame → Terril 14 is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 14 → Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor → back through Terril 14 is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril 14 → Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.