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.
279 km from Bruay-la-Buissière to Bruay-la-Buissière, about 3 h 52 of riding. It goes by way of Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines, Beffroi de Bergues and back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
The coal companies were not short of optimism when they named their housing. In Bruay-la-Buissière, two neighbouring cités were called the New World and the Flowers, and their brick houses with front gardens, laid out along tidy streets, were meant to sell a better life to the families who came from across France, Poland, Italy and North Africa to work the pits. They belong to the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage Site, and they remain ordinary homes, so look respectfully.
Read the complete Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines.
Comines is one of those towns the border runs straight through. The river Lys, the Leie to the Flemish, divides French Comines from Belgian Comines-Warneton, and you can cross from one country to the other on a bridge without noticing much more than a change in the shape of the street signs. On the French side the town hall and its belfry stand over the main square, a tall brick tower in the Flemish style with a pointed roof and a carillon, part of the group of belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines comes up about 73 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de Bergues.
Bergues found a new kind of fame in 2008, when the comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, filmed here, became one of the most successful French films of all time, and suddenly the whole country wanted to see the town where a postman from the south is exiled to the cold north and ends up falling in love with it. The film's best-known scenes include the belfry, from which the hero rings the carillon, and the town still welcomes visitors who come in search of the locations. But Bergues was a proud place long before cinema arrived. It is a small fortified town in French Flanders, surrounded by ramparts and canals, with fortifications improved by Vauban in the seventeenth century.
Read the complete Beffroi de Bergues write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 139 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de Bergues. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines, late in the day. Next is Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs. That is the ride.
Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines → Beffroi de Bergues is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Bergues → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines → Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.