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.
290 km from Ieper to Ieper, about 5 h of riding. It goes by way of Het Belfort of Halletoren, Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai, Cité du Rivage ancienne and Beffroi de Mons. It crosses from Belgium into France - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 35 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
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.
Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor is where the day begins. Next is Het Belfort of Halletoren.
On the Grote Markt of Kortrijk a tower stands alone in the middle of the square, as if the building it belonged to had wandered off. In a sense it did. The Belfort, or Halletoren, was once part of the cloth hall, the trading heart of a medieval textile town, and when the hall disappeared the tower stayed. It is one of the belfries of Belgium and France on the UNESCO list, and it has a pair of local celebrities at the top: two gilded figures, Manten and Kalle, who strike the hours on the bell. Kortrijk people are fond of them, and you will see their likenesses on all sorts of souvenirs.
Read the complete Het Belfort of Halletoren write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Het Belfort of Halletoren comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai.
Five towers. That is what everyone remembers about Tournai's cathedral, and when you first see them rising above the rooftops of this old city on the Scheldt, they seem almost too many for one building. The cathedral of Notre-Dame is one of the great churches of Europe, with a massive Romanesque nave and transept from the twelfth century and a later Gothic choir, tall and light, built in the following century. The combination is a lesson in medieval architecture, and it earned the building a place on the UNESCO World Heritage list. It has been under long restoration after a storm in 1999 damaged the structure, so parts may be covered in scaffolding when you visit.
Read the complete Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai. Next is Cité du Rivage ancienne.
Brick terraced houses, small gardens and a straight street running toward the Escaut: at first glance the Cité du Rivage in Bruay-sur-l'Escaut looks like any working-class neighbourhood in northern France. It is part of something much larger. In 2012, UNESCO listed the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, a landscape of pit villages, headframes, slag heaps and railways stretching over a hundred kilometres, as a monument to three centuries of coal. This cité is one of its many fragments, an early housing development built by the mining companies to keep their workers close to the pits.
Read the complete Cité du Rivage ancienne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité du Rivage ancienne, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de Mons.
Belgium has many belfries, but only one in the baroque style, and it rises above Mons on the hill where the medieval castle stood. Built in the seventeenth century, it is about eighty-seven metres tall, with a carillon of forty-nine bells, and it was listed by UNESCO with the other belfries of Belgium and France. A lift takes visitors to the top, where the view stretches across the Borinage, the old coal-mining country around the city, and over the rooftops of the old town. Inside, an interpretation centre tells the story of the tower.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Mons sits at 145 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cité du Rivage ancienne.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité du Rivage ancienne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cité du Rivage ancienne comes up about 183 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 217 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai. Next is back through Het Belfort of Halletoren.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Het Belfort of Halletoren write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Het Belfort of Halletoren, late in the day. Next is Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
The route ends here after 290 km.
Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor → Het Belfort of Halletoren is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Het Belfort of Halletoren → Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai → Cité du Rivage ancienne is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité du Rivage ancienne → Beffroi de Mons is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Mons → back through Cité du Rivage ancienne is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité du Rivage ancienne → back through Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai → back through Het Belfort of Halletoren is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Het Belfort of Halletoren → Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.