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 Brugge it runs 246 km to Brugge; allow about 4 h 14 of riding. The stops in between: Belfort met Lakenhal, Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi and back through Belfort met Lakenhal. It crosses from Belgium into France - carry ID and check the toll rules.
62 km on Historic Centre of Brugge → Belfort met Lakenhal.
Bruges was once one of the richest cities in northern Europe, a trading hub where merchants from Italy, Germany, England and Spain bought and sold wool, cloth, spices and luxury goods. Its wealth came from its access to the sea through an inlet called the Zwin, and when that silted up in the fifteenth century, trade moved to Antwerp and Bruges slowly fell asleep. For centuries it was a quiet, poor town, and that is why its medieval centre survived almost intact. In the nineteenth century, writers and painters rediscovered it, and Georges Rodenbach's novel Bruges-la-Morte made it famous as a melancholy city of canals and bells. The historic centre was listed by UNESCO in 2000.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Brugge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Brugge is where the day begins. Next is Belfort met Lakenhal.
Every evening at eight o'clock, traffic stops under the Menin Gate in Ieper and buglers of the local fire brigade play the Last Post for the soldiers of the British Empire who died in the Ypres Salient and have no known grave. The ceremony has been held almost every evening since 1928, interrupted only during the German occupation in the Second World War. Walk from the gate to the Grote Markt and you come to the Cloth Hall and its belfry, a huge Gothic building that dominated medieval Flanders, when Ypres was one of the great cloth towns of Europe.
Read the complete Belfort met Lakenhal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Belfort met Lakenhal comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 123 km into the recorded legs you reach Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi. Next is back through Belfort met Lakenhal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Belfort met Lakenhal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Belfort met Lakenhal, late in the day. Next is Historic Centre of Brugge.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Brugge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Historic Centre of Brugge. That is the ride.
Historic Centre of Brugge → Belfort met Lakenhal is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfort met Lakenhal → 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 → back through Belfort met Lakenhal is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Belfort met Lakenhal → Historic Centre of Brugge is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.