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.
245 km from Lens to Lens, about 4 h 13 of riding. It goes by way of Belfort en Stadhuis, Stadshal met 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.
Every mining company in the north of France needed an office, and the one that held the pay books, maps and plans of the Lens pits needed a large one. The Grands Bureaux of the Société des Mines de Lens stand in the middle of the town as a monument to an organisation that employed tens of thousands of men and controlled whole districts: the housing, the schools, the shops, the churches and the clinics were all in the company's gift. The building was part of the reconstruction after the First World War, when the town had been reduced to rubble and the company set about rebuilding its pits and its headquarters in brick and stone.
Read the complete Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de is where the day begins. 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.
Belfort en Stadhuis comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stadshal met Belfort.
Nieuwpoort's cloth hall and belfry look medieval, and in a sense they are: they follow the design of the thirteenth-century originals. But almost everything you see was rebuilt after the First World War, when the town was reduced to rubble. Nieuwpoort lay at the northern end of the Western Front, where the River Yser reaches the sea, and in October 1914 the Belgians made a decision that changed the course of the war. By opening the sluices of the canals and the river at high tide, they flooded the low-lying land between Nieuwpoort and Diksmuide, creating a barrier of water that stopped the German advance. The front line stayed there for four years, and the town was shelled into ruins. The belfry is part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France.
Read the complete Stadshal met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 122 km into the recorded legs you reach Stadshal met Belfort. 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, late in the day. Next is Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de. That is the ride.
Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de → Belfort en Stadhuis is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfort en Stadhuis → Stadshal met Belfort is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stadshal met Belfort → back through Belfort en Stadhuis is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Belfort en Stadhuis → Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.