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.
From Kortrijk it runs 283 km to Kortrijk; allow about 4 h 53 of riding. On the way it passes Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille, Ensemble minier de la Belleforière, Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple and Belfries of Belgium and France. It crosses from Belgium into France - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille.
Lille's town hall belfry is a child of the twentieth century. After the old town hall was lost, the architect Émile Dubuisson built a new one in the 1920s and early 1930s in a working-class district south of the centre, and its belfry, rising about 104 metres, is the tallest civic belfry in Europe. Built of reinforced concrete and brick in an Art Deco reinterpretation of the Flemish tradition, it is part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France, a group that celebrates the towers built by towns to symbolise their freedom and civic pride.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ensemble minier de la Belleforière.
Roost-Warendin, Waziers and Râches sit just north of Douai, where the old Scarpe floodplain met the coal seams, and the Belleforière mining ensemble is one of the clusters that shows how a pit site was organised. Shafts, buildings, workers' housing and spoil heaps were laid out together, with the railway linking them all, and in a few places the ensemble survives well enough that you can read it on the ground. Part of the regional mining landscape listed by UNESCO in 2012, it is a good example of how coal companies planned whole villages around their extraction.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la Belleforière write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 69 km into the recorded legs you reach Ensemble minier de la Belleforière. Next is Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple.
A steel tower with a big wheel at the top: once you have seen one headframe, you start to spot them all across the north of France, but each one marks a place where men went down into the dark. The headframe of the Fosse Dutemple, between Valenciennes and Petite-Forêt, is one of the survivors, kept as part of the UNESCO-listed Nord-Pas de Calais mining basin. Under it, cages once dropped miners hundreds of metres to the coal seams; now it stands as a monument, its pulleys still against the sky.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple, about halfway. Next is Belfries of Belgium and France.
Cambrai gave its name to a fabric. Cambric, a fine light linen, was once woven and traded in this town, and the word survives in English. The town is also known for a small, translucent mint sweet called the bêtise de Cambrai, which the locals say was invented by mistake, and a visit to a confectioner is a pleasant way to spend ten minutes. The belfry is one of the group of belfries across northern France and Belgium that UNESCO listed together, as symbols of the independence of medieval towns, and in Cambrai it is a tall stone tower in the town centre, while the town hall nearby has two mechanical figures, Martin and Martine, who strike the hours.
Read the complete Belfries of Belgium and France write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Belfries of Belgium and France sits at 142 km, about halfway. Next is back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple comes up about 179 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Ensemble minier de la Belleforière.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la Belleforière write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 215 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Ensemble minier de la Belleforière. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 283 km.
Het Belfort of Halletoren → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille → Ensemble minier de la Belleforière is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier de la Belleforière → Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → Belfries of Belgium and France is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfries of Belgium and France → back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → back through Ensemble minier de la Belleforière is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ensemble minier de la Belleforière → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille → Het Belfort of Halletoren is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.