Hi all, long time reader, first time poster.

Booked my summer holls in France this year, the Mrs and I taking both road and mountain bikes. We’re mtb’ers by trade, but I love the sense of “journey” you get with roadies.

Anyway, it’s a bit of a drive to where we’re going (Dijon, then onto Chamonix) so we thought we’d stop off in northern France for a bit of Pavé. I’ve looked online to try and find some (relatively) short loops in the area, but had no luck. Anyone had any experience riding up there?

I’ve put together the following route based on the official race route (http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2440193) and wondered if anyone could shed some light on whether this looks like a good one or not? It’s hard to tell from Google sat view. I wanted to get up and see/ride the Trouée d’Arenberg, but apparently you can’t ride it when it’s not the race weekend?

We’ve got another 4-5 hours of driving after the ride, so need to keep the ride to between 50 and 80km. If anyone has any suggestions, I’m all ears.

Cheers.

You can ride the Arenberg, and there are plenty of other bits to do round there.

This is a loop we did a few years ago from Lille; takes in the Arenberg and a few bits of pave round Cysoing: https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=http://www.stewartpratt.com/temp/ArenbergLoop.kml&ie=UTF8&ll=50.51561,3.223801&spn=0.20521,0.604935&t=h&z=11

may i suggest, parking up in Lille, geting the train to a town 10 miles or so south of the Arenburg, then you can ride the final 80k, with all the pave, then ashort ride from Roubaix to Lille. Thats what I did, and it was brilliant!

That’s a pretty darn good idea warton, I may well look into that… now….