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 Lens it runs 245 km to Lens; allow about 4 h 13 of riding. The stops in between: Belfort en Stadhuis, Stadshal met Belfort and back through Belfort en Stadhuis. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Lens is a mining town that was flattened in the First World War and rebuilt in brick, and the monument to the dead of 1914 to 1918 stands as a reminder of what happened here. Lines of trenches ran across this plain for years, and the surrounding ridges, Vimy and Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, were the scene of huge battles. At Vimy, the great white Canadian memorial stands on the ridge, commemorating the attack of April 1917 in which Canadian troops took the hill, and the preserved trenches and tunnels can be visited. At Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, a vast French military cemetery and a lantern tower hold the remains of tens of thousands of soldiers. They are quiet places, and the silence is part of the experience.
Read the complete Monument aux morts 1914-1918 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monument aux morts 1914-1918 is where the day begins. Next is Belfort en Stadhuis.
British soldiers marching to the front in the First World War left Ypres by the road that led east towards Menen, and the gate they passed through became the Menin Gate, now a memorial bearing the names of more than fifty thousand soldiers with no known grave. Menen itself, about twenty kilometres from Ypres, sits right on the French border, on the river Leie, which the French call the Lys, and its town hall and belfry, standing on the market square, are part of the UNESCO listing of the belfries of Belgium and France. The belfry, like much of the town, was damaged in the war and rebuilt, and it remains the proud symbol of the town's civic history.
Read the complete Belfort en Stadhuis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Belfort en Stadhuis comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stadshal met Belfort.
Nieuwpoort's cloth hall and belfry look medieval, and in a sense they are: they follow the design of the thirteenth-century originals. But almost everything you see was rebuilt after the First World War, when the town was reduced to rubble. Nieuwpoort lay at the northern end of the Western Front, where the River Yser reaches the sea, and in October 1914 the Belgians made a decision that changed the course of the war. By opening the sluices of the canals and the river at high tide, they flooded the low-lying land between Nieuwpoort and Diksmuide, creating a barrier of water that stopped the German advance. The front line stayed there for four years, and the town was shelled into ruins. The belfry is part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France.
Read the complete Stadshal met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 122 km into the recorded legs you reach Stadshal met Belfort. Next is back through Belfort en Stadhuis.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Belfort en Stadhuis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Belfort en Stadhuis, late in the day. Next is Monument aux morts 1914-1918.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monument aux morts 1914-1918 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Monument aux morts 1914-1918. That is the ride.
Monument aux morts 1914-1918 → Belfort en Stadhuis is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfort en Stadhuis → Stadshal met Belfort is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stadshal met Belfort → back through Belfort en Stadhuis is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Belfort en Stadhuis → Monument aux morts 1914-1918 is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.