A steel tower with a big wheel at the top: once you have seen one headframe, you start to spot them all across the north of France, but each one marks a place where men went down into the dark. The headframe of the Fosse Dutemple, between Valenciennes and Petite-Forêt, is one of the survivors, kept as part of the UNESCO-listed Nord-Pas de Calais mining basin. Under it, cages once dropped miners hundreds of metres to the coal seams; now it stands as a monument, its pulleys still against the sky.
The surroundings are a mixture of housing estates, retail parks and pockets of greenery that have grown over old industrial land. To the west lies the forest of Raismes-Saint-Amand-Wallers, one of the largest in the north, and within it, at Wallers, the former Arenberg pit, where a huge mining complex has become a film and media centre. Riders who follow cycling will know the name for another reason: the Trouée d'Arenberg, a straight, brutal stretch of cobbles through the forest, is one of the most feared sections of Paris-Roubaix. Riding it on a motorcycle is legal but rattling; the cobbles are irregular, sometimes greasy, and the bike will tell you exactly what it thinks of them.
Beyond the cobbles, the riding is flat and urban, with a lot of roundabouts and traffic around Valenciennes. The canals, the slag heaps rising like green pyramids and the old railway lines give the landscape a character of its own, and the light on a clear winter afternoon, low and golden over the brick and steel, can be wonderful. Rain is frequent, so be wary of painted lines and cobbles when wet.
Petite-Forêt and the surrounding towns have fuel, supermarkets and cafés. Valenciennes, a few kilometres away, offers a full range of services and a pleasant centre with a lively square. Northern food is filling and comforting: maroilles cheese, in a tart or just with bread, welsh made with cheddar, beer and ham, and frites from a roadside stand. The headframe itself is best seen from close by, with time to read the information boards and imagine the noise of the winding engine, the rattle of the cages and the miners lining up for the shift.