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: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 115 km round trip from Brussels - roughly 2 h 08 in the saddle. The stops in between: Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict, Grand Béguinage of Leuven and back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict. The line favours views over speed.
In 1893, a young architect named Victor Horta finished a town house in Brussels for a professor called Emile Tassel, and in doing so he changed the course of European design. The Hotel Tassel is generally regarded as the first true Art Nouveau building. Its facade looks restrained from the street, with a curved bay window and a bit of ironwork, but inside, the staircase is a revelation. Slim iron columns split into whiplash curves that spread across the walls and ceiling, mosaics ripple across the floor, and the whole space seems to grow like a plant.
Read the complete Hôtel Tassel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hôtel Tassel is where the day begins. Next is Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict.
The beeches in the Sonian Forest grow so tall and straight that people call it the cathedral forest, and once you stand under them on a misty autumn morning the name stops sounding like tourist talk. This great woodland on the southeastern edge of Brussels covers thousands of hectares, and most of the famous columns of grey trunks were planted in the late eighteenth century, when the Austrian Habsburgs ruled these lands and their foresters reshaped the old wood. A few patches, including the Tict reserve near La Hulpe and Waterloo, are left to grow wild with no felling at all, and they form part of the UNESCO listing for the ancient and primeval beech forests of Europe, a chain of reserves stretching across the continent.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict comes up about 18 km into the recorded legs. Next is Grand Béguinage of Leuven.
Step through the gate of the Groot Begijnhof in Leuven and the city noise drops away. Cobbled lanes, small brick houses with white window frames and stepped gables, little bridges over the arms of the river Dijle, and a Gothic church in the middle: this is one of the largest béguinages in the Low Countries, part of the Flemish Béguinages group listed by UNESCO in 1998.
Read the complete Grand Béguinage of Leuven write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 57 km into the recorded legs you reach Grand Béguinage of Leuven. Next is back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict, late in the day. Next is Hôtel Tassel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hôtel Tassel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Hôtel Tassel. That is the ride.
Hôtel Tassel → Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → Grand Béguinage of Leuven is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grand Béguinage of Leuven → back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → Hôtel Tassel is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.