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.
A 348 km round trip from Roeulx - roughly 5 h 03 in the saddle. It goes by way of Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict, Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort, Béguinage de Diest and Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto. 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 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 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort.
Leuven is a university town through and through. Its university, founded in 1425, is the oldest in the Low Countries, and its students fill the streets, cafés and squares, giving the city a youthful energy. At its heart is the Grote Markt, dominated by two buildings: the Town Hall, a Gothic masterpiece covered in hundreds of statues, and opposite it, the Church of St Peter, a great Gothic church whose tower was never finished but which is part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France.
Read the complete Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 83 km into the recorded legs you reach Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort. Next is Béguinage de Diest.
Diest has one of the largest béguinages in Flanders, a walled town within the town, with its own streets, gates, church and some ninety houses. The béguines were laywomen who lived a religious life without taking permanent vows, earning their own living and sharing a community, and their béguinages flourished in the Low Countries from the thirteenth century onward. The Flemish béguinages are listed together by UNESCO. In Diest, the béguinage has been restored with care, and its cobbled streets, whitewashed houses and quiet gardens feel worlds away from the traffic outside.
Read the complete Béguinage de Diest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Béguinage de Diest, about halfway. Next is Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto.
Tongeren likes to remind you that it is the oldest town in Belgium, and it has a strong claim. The Romans founded a settlement here, Atuatuca Tungrorum, on the road between Cologne and Bavay, and the remains of its walls can still be seen around the town. Before that, the area was home to the Eburones, a Celtic tribe whose chieftain Ambiorix famously ambushed and destroyed a Roman legion in 54 BC. His statue, a heroic nineteenth-century figure with a winged helmet and a magnificent moustache, stands in the main square, the Grote Markt.
Read the complete Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto sits at 168 km, about halfway. Next is back through Béguinage de Diest.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Béguinage de Diest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Béguinage de Diest comes up about 229 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 264 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort. 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 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 route ends here after 348 km.
The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and → Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort → Béguinage de Diest is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Béguinage de Diest → Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto → back through Béguinage de Diest is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Béguinage de Diest → back through Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort → back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.