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.
A 289 km round trip from Brussels - roughly 4 h 59 in the saddle. On the way it passes Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi, Château de l’Hermitage and back through Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Brussels is a city you ride into rather than through, and Avenue Louise is one of its grand approaches. The Hôtel Solvay stands on it, number 224, a townhouse that the architect Victor Horta designed in the 1890s for the industrialist Armand Solvay, whose family fortune came from soda production. Horta was in his early thirties when he started working on houses like this, and he was one of the founders of Art Nouveau. Here he gave everything a whiplash curve: the iron balcony, the stair rail, the stained glass, even the door handles. Several of his town houses are now on the UNESCO list together.
Read the complete Hôtel Solvay write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hôtel Solvay is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi.
Charleroi has a reputation, unfairly earned or not, as one of the grittiest cities in Belgium, and its belfry is a fine reason to look again. Rising from the town hall on the Place Charles II, the belfry was built in the 1930s in an elegant Art Deco style, replacing an older tower, and it is one of the belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO. Its slender shape, topped with a dome and carillon, is a symbol of the city's pride and resilience, and inside, the town hall has a sumptuous Art Deco interior.
Read the complete Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi comes up about 63 km into the recorded legs. Next is Château de l’Hermitage.
On the Franco-Belgian border, in a forest that has never much cared which country it is in, a pale classical château stands in a clearing. The Château de l'Hermitage was built in the eighteenth century for the dukes of Croÿ, one of the great aristocratic families of the region, as a refined country retreat, and it sits just inside France, near Condé-sur-l'Escaut, at the edge of the forest of Bon-Secours. The family's title went back centuries, and their estates spread across both sides of what is now the border.
Read the complete Château de l’Hermitage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 145 km into the recorded legs you reach Château de l’Hermitage. Next is back through Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi, late in the day. Next is Hôtel Solvay.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hôtel Solvay write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Hôtel Solvay. That is the ride.
Hôtel Solvay → Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi → Château de l’Hermitage is 82 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Château de l’Hermitage → back through Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi is 82 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Beffroi de l'Hôtel de Ville de Charleroi → Hôtel Solvay is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.