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 Tienen it runs 354 km to Tienen; allow about 6 h 06 of riding. The stops in between: Beffroi de Gembloux, Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict, The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and and Château de l’Hermitage. The line favours views over speed.
Tienen means sugar to most Belgians. The town in the east of Flemish Brabant has been the home of Belgium's largest sugar refinery since the nineteenth century, and the smell of sugar beet being processed hangs over the town in autumn during the campaign, when trucks loaded with beets roll in from the surrounding fields. The Sint-Germanuskerk, the church of Saint Germanus, with its massive tower serving as the town's belfry, stands near the huge Grote Markt, one of the largest market squares in Belgium, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of the belfries of Belgium and France. The tower, a mix of Romanesque and Gothic, has a carillon whose bells ring out over the town.
Read the complete Sint-Germanuskerk met Stadstoren write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sint-Germanuskerk met Stadstoren is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de Gembloux.
Gembloux grew up around a Benedictine abbey founded in the tenth century, and for most of its history the monks ran the show. The abbey buildings, rebuilt in a grand classical style in the eighteenth century, now house a university faculty of agricultural sciences, fitting for a town surrounded by some of the richest farmland in Belgium. The belfry, a solid tower that was once part of a church and later became the town's civic symbol, stands in the centre and is part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France. Climbing it gives views over the rooftops and across the open fields of the Hesbaye.
Read the complete Beffroi de Gembloux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Gembloux comes up about 44 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 79 km into the recorded legs you reach Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict. Next is The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and.
Picture a barge sitting in a huge iron tank full of water, rising more than fifteen metres into the air while another tank, counterweighted, sinks beside it. That is what happens at the four hydraulic boat lifts on the old Canal du Centre in Hainaut, built between the 1880s and 1917 to carry boats over a steep change in level between the basins of the Meuse and the Scheldt. They were engineering marvels in their day, cast-iron and steel giants powered by water pressure, and they are still in working order, though now mostly used by pleasure boats. UNESCO listed them, along with their surroundings, in 1998.
Read the complete The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and, about halfway. 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.
Château de l’Hermitage sits at 177 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and comes up about 229 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 275 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict. Next is back through Beffroi de Gembloux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Gembloux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de Gembloux, late in the day. Next is Sint-Germanuskerk met Stadstoren.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sint-Germanuskerk met Stadstoren write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 354 km.
Sint-Germanuskerk met Stadstoren → Beffroi de Gembloux is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Gembloux → Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and → Château de l’Hermitage is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château de l’Hermitage → back through The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and → back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → back through Beffroi de Gembloux is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de Gembloux → Sint-Germanuskerk met Stadstoren is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.