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.
247 km from Ieper to Ieper, about 4 h 16 of riding. The stops in between: Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi, Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu and back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi. It crosses from Belgium into France - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
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 Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi.
Take any road across the Artois plain around Grenay and you will see the shape of the mining basin on the skyline: conical slag heaps, called terrils, rising out of the farmland and cités, and tall brick pit-head buildings that once housed the winding gear. This area lies between Lens and Béthune, in a district called the Gohelle, and it was mined intensively from the nineteenth century until the last pit closed in 1990. The Grenay and Mazingarbe sites are part of the UNESCO-listed mining basin, which recognises both the buildings and the landscape, and the way company housing, railways and spoil heaps shaped one another.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu.
Lourches is a small mining town in the Nord department, on the banks of the Escaut river, between Denain and Valenciennes, in the heart of the old coal mining basin that stretched across northern France. The memorial named after Charles Mathieu is one of the elements listed as part of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin UNESCO site, alongside pitheads, slag heaps, miners' housing and the buildings of the mining companies.
Read the complete Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 124 km into the recorded legs you reach Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi, 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.
Back at Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor. That is the ride.
Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi → Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi → Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.