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 Waterloo it runs 255 km to Waterloo; allow about 4 h 24 of riding. On the way it passes Beffroi de Mons, Cités de Beaurepaire and back through Beffroi de Mons. It crosses from Belgium into France - carry ID and check the toll rules. Much of it runs through woodland.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de Mons.
Belgium has many belfries, but only one in the baroque style, and it rises above Mons on the hill where the medieval castle stood. Built in the seventeenth century, it is about eighty-seven metres tall, with a carillon of forty-nine bells, and it was listed by UNESCO with the other belfries of Belgium and France. A lift takes visitors to the top, where the view stretches across the Borinage, the old coal-mining country around the city, and over the rooftops of the old town. Inside, an interpretation centre tells the story of the tower.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Mons comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cités de Beaurepaire.
Somain exists because of the railway. Several lines meet here, and the town grew up around the station, which still has the busy feel of a junction. The Cités de Beaurepaire were built by the Aniche mining company, one of the great concerns of the northern coalfield, and they show how a company could shape a landscape: neat brick rows, small squares, a few shared buildings, and gardens laid out to a plan. A local will tell you who lived in which house and which families still do; an outsider notices the symmetry first, and then the small signs of individuality, a painted door, a trellis, a satellite dish pointing the wrong way.
Read the complete Cités de Beaurepaire write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 127 km into the recorded legs you reach Cités de Beaurepaire. Next is back through Beffroi de Mons.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de Mons, late in the day. Next is 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 at Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict. That is the ride.
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → Beffroi de Mons is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Mons → Cités de Beaurepaire is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cités de Beaurepaire → back through Beffroi de Mons is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Beffroi de Mons → Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.