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 278 km to Kortrijk; allow about 4 h 48 of riding. It goes by way of Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille, Ensemble minier de la Belleforière, Cité du n°7 de Béthune and Chevalement de la fosse n°9. It crosses from Belgium into France - carry ID and check the toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
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 Cité du n°7 de Béthune.
Between Grenay, Mazingarbe and Vermelles, in the heart of the Gohelle, the Cité du n°7 is one of the mining villages built by the Compagnie des mines de Béthune for the workers of its pit number 7. The houses, laid out in tidy rows with gardens, still form a coherent neighbourhood, part of the UNESCO-listed mining basin. Each company built its cités in its own style, and the variety of brick patterns, porches and layouts is surprisingly rich once you start looking.
Read the complete Cité du n°7 de Béthune write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité du n°7 de Béthune, about halfway. Next is Chevalement de la fosse n°9.
The tall steel frame that stands over a coal pit shaft is called a chevalement in French, and a headframe in English, and in the old mining basin of northern France they are the cathedrals of a vanished industry. This one stands at the Fosse n°9, a few kilometres north of Douai, in the plain of the Pévèle, where coal was dug for more than two centuries. The basin of Nord-Pas-de-Calais stretches for over a hundred kilometres across flat farmland, and its pits, slag heaps, workers' villages and railway lines are now protected by UNESCO, listed in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape. The last pit closed in 1990, and the people here still talk about the mine in the present tense.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse n°9 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chevalement de la fosse n°9 sits at 139 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cité du n°7 de Béthune.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité du n°7 de Béthune write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cité du n°7 de Béthune comes up about 173 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 209 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 278 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 → Cité du n°7 de Béthune is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité du n°7 de Béthune → Chevalement de la fosse n°9 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement de la fosse n°9 → back through Cité du n°7 de Béthune is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité du n°7 de Béthune → 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.