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.
249 km from Diksmuide to Diksmuide, about 4 h 18 of riding. It goes by way of Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille, Cité de Rimbert and back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille. It crosses from Belgium into France - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Diksmuide was almost wiped from the map in the First World War. The town stood right on the front line along the Yser, and from 1914 to 1918 it was pounded into rubble, along with its town hall, belfry and church. In October 1914, the Belgian army halted the German advance by opening the sluices at Nieuwpoort and flooding the low-lying plain, creating a watery barrier that held for four years. After the war, the town was rebuilt in the old style, with the town hall and belfry carefully reconstructed on the market square, and the belfry is now part of the UNESCO listing of the belfries of Belgium and France.
Read the complete Stadhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stadhuis met Belfort is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille.
Lille's town hall belfry is a child of the twentieth century. After the old town hall was lost, the architect Émile Dubuisson built a new one in the 1920s and early 1930s in a working-class district south of the centre, and its belfry, rising about 104 metres, is the tallest civic belfry in Europe. Built of reinforced concrete and brick in an Art Deco reinterpretation of the Flemish tradition, it is part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France, a group that celebrates the towers built by towns to symbolise their freedom and civic pride.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille comes up about 64 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cité de Rimbert.
West of Béthune, the coalfield starts to run out of flat land. The first chalk hills of Artois rise around Auchel and Cauchy-à-la-Tour, and the pit villages climb their slopes in neat rows of brick. The Cité de Rimbert is one of these, built by the mining company of Marles to house its workers, and it belongs to the long necklace of sites in the UNESCO-listed mining basin. Its houses, gardens and straight streets are a textbook example of company planning, with every family given a home, a vegetable plot and a short walk to the pit.
Read the complete Cité de Rimbert write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 125 km into the recorded legs you reach Cité de Rimbert. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille, late in the day. Next is Stadhuis met Belfort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stadhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Stadhuis met Belfort. That is the ride.
Stadhuis met Belfort → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille → Cité de Rimbert is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité de Rimbert → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille → Stadhuis met Belfort is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.