The name on the label belongs to the most famous pit in the whole northern coalfield. Fosse Delloye, at Lewarde a short ride west of here, closed in 1971 and became the Centre Historique Minier, France's largest mining museum, where former miners once guided visitors through reconstructed galleries and the old lamp rooms, showers and machine halls still stand as they were left. The point itself, though, sits beside Denain on the Escaut, and Denain deserves a story of its own.
In July 1712, during the War of the Spanish Succession, Marshal Villars surprised and routed an allied army here in a battle that saved France from invasion and helped bring the long war to an end. A monument outside town still recalls it. A century and a half later, the town's fortunes were made by coal and then steel. The Usinor steelworks dominated Denain for decades, and when they closed around 1980 the town lost thousands of jobs at a stroke. Like much of the mining basin, it has been slowly finding a new shape since, and the brick cités, chapels and pit buildings scattered around are now part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
For a rider, this is honest, workaday country. The roads between Denain, Lewarde, Douai and Valenciennes are flat, frequently interrupted by roundabouts and small towns, and in places still paved with the old cobbles, the pavés that make the region famous among cycling fans. Wet cobbles under a motorcycle tyre are slippery and unforgiving, so take them upright and slow. The joy here lies in the details: a lone headframe against the sky, a terril turned green with birch trees, a corner café full of retired miners.
If you go to Lewarde, give it at least two hours. The museum does a fine job of explaining what life underground meant, from pit ponies to the firedamp explosions that killed so many men, and it ends with the gradual closure of the pits through the late twentieth century.
Denain, half a kilometre away, has fuel, supermarkets and places to eat. Douai and Valenciennes are larger and offer more choice. A plate of chicons au gratin, endives rolled in ham under a cheese sauce, is the sort of northern comfort food that makes sense after a grey day on the cobbles.