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.
263 km from Liévin to Liévin, about 4 h 32 of riding. On the way it passes Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are, Het Belfort of Halletoren and back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Liévin is a town of thirty-four thousand people that grew up around coal, and the Protestant temple on its streets is a small reminder of how mixed the mining population was. The pits drew workers from Belgium, Poland, Italy and North Africa as well as from the French countryside, and the mining companies built churches, schools, shops and entire districts for them. In a region that was overwhelmingly Catholic, a temple stood a little apart, and its quiet presence says something about the way the basin took in newcomers.
Read the complete Temple protestant write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple protestant is where the day begins. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are.
Anyone who follows cycling knows the Trouée d'Arenberg, the arrow-straight cobbled lane through the forest near Wallers where Paris-Roubaix often breaks apart. What fewer know is that the lane passes the gate of a colliery, and that the colliery is one of the jewels of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage Site. Fosse Arenberg, with its three steel headframes and brick engine houses, closed in 1989, and a few years later Claude Berri filmed his version of Zola's Germinal here, using the pithead and the cités around it as a ready-made nineteenth-century mining town.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Het Belfort of Halletoren.
On the Grote Markt of Kortrijk a tower stands alone in the middle of the square, as if the building it belonged to had wandered off. In a sense it did. The Belfort, or Halletoren, was once part of the cloth hall, the trading heart of a medieval textile town, and when the hall disappeared the tower stayed. It is one of the belfries of Belgium and France on the UNESCO list, and it has a pair of local celebrities at the top: two gilded figures, Manten and Kalle, who strike the hours on the bell. Kortrijk people are fond of them, and you will see their likenesses on all sorts of souvenirs.
Read the complete Het Belfort of Halletoren write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 131 km into the recorded legs you reach Het Belfort of Halletoren. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are, late in the day. Next is Temple protestant.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Temple protestant write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Temple protestant. That is the ride.
Temple protestant → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are → Het Belfort of Halletoren is 70 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Het Belfort of Halletoren → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are is 70 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are → Temple protestant is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.