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: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
117 km from Kraainem to Kraainem, about 2 h 03 of riding. On the way it passes Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict, Grand Béguinage of Leuven and back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
From the street, the Stoclet House on the Avenue de Tervueren looks like a mansion carved out of a block of white marble and trimmed with bronze, with a stepped tower crowned by four male figures and a dome of copper laurel. It was built between 1905 and 1911 for the Belgian banker and art collector Adolphe Stoclet and designed by the Viennese architect Josef Hoffmann, with the artists and craftsmen of the Wiener Werkstätte creating everything from the furniture to the cutlery. Gustav Klimt designed the mosaic frieze in the dining room, one of his most famous works. The house was listed by UNESCO in 2009 as one of the most complete and refined works of the Vienna Secession.
Read the complete Stoclet House write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stoclet House is where the day begins. 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.
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict comes up about 19 km into the recorded legs. Next is Grand Béguinage of Leuven.
Step through the gate of the Groot Begijnhof in Leuven and the city noise drops away. Cobbled lanes, small brick houses with white window frames and stepped gables, little bridges over the arms of the river Dijle, and a Gothic church in the middle: this is one of the largest béguinages in the Low Countries, part of the Flemish Béguinages group listed by UNESCO in 1998.
Read the complete Grand Béguinage of Leuven write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 58 km into the recorded legs you reach Grand Béguinage of Leuven. 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.
back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict, late in the day. Next is Stoclet House.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stoclet House write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Stoclet House. That is the ride.
Stoclet House → Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → Grand Béguinage of Leuven is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grand Béguinage of Leuven → back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → Stoclet House is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.