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.
190 km from Roeulx to Roeulx, about 3 h 17 of riding. On the way it passes Beffroi de Thuin, Major Mining Sites of Wallonia, Château de l’Hermitage and back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de Thuin.
Thuin sits on a rocky spur above the Sambre, and from the river it looks like a town that climbed a hill to keep its feet dry. At the top stands the belfry, a tall square tower with an onion-shaped spire that was originally the bell tower of a collegiate church and survived when the church itself did not. Since 1999 it has been part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France, a reminder that towns in this region measured their freedom in bells, towers and charters.
Read the complete Beffroi de Thuin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Thuin comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. Next is Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Grand-Hornu, on the edge of the Borinage coalfield west of Mons, looks less like a coal mine than a neoclassical palace. In the early nineteenth century the industrialist Henri De Gorge built it as a model colliery, with workshops, offices and stables arranged around a vast oval courtyard of brick arches, and hundreds of houses for workers, each with its own garden, laid out in streets around it. It was a revolutionary idea at the time, combining industry and housing in one planned complex. Mining ended in the mid-twentieth century, and after years of neglect the site was restored. Today it houses a museum of contemporary art and a design centre, and it is one of the four Major Mining Sites of Wallonia listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Major Mining Sites of Wallonia. 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, about halfway. Next is back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia sits at 127 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de Thuin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Thuin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de Thuin comes up about 164 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and closes the day.
The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and → Beffroi de Thuin is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Thuin → Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → Château de l’Hermitage is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château de l’Hermitage → back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → back through Beffroi de Thuin is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de Thuin → The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.