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 Grenay it runs 244 km to Grenay; allow about 4 h 12 of riding. It goes by way of Belfort met Lakenhal, Béguinage de Bruges and back through Belfort met Lakenhal. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
61 km on Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi → Belfort met Lakenhal.
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.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi 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 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Béguinage de Bruges.
The Princely Beguinage of Bruges, Ten Wijngaerde, is the sort of place that makes people lower their voices without being asked. White-washed houses surround a grassy courtyard planted with old trees, and in spring thousands of daffodils bloom under them. A beguinage was a community where lay women lived a religious life without taking full vows, and Flanders had many of them from the thirteenth century. This one was founded around 1245 under Margaret of Constantinople, Countess of Flanders, and the UNESCO listing of Flemish Beguinages covers it, along with Diest and others.
Read the complete Béguinage de Bruges write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 122 km into the recorded legs you reach Béguinage de Bruges. 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 Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
Back at Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi. That is the ride.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi → Belfort met Lakenhal is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfort met Lakenhal → Béguinage de Bruges is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Béguinage de Bruges → 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 → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.