A town hall makes an odd target for a ride, but Carvin's is a good excuse to stop in a place most people only see from the A1. The town sits on the northern edge of the old coalfield, between Lens and Lille, and its civic buildings and squares reflect the confidence of a community that grew with the mines. Like many such places, Carvin's centre is a mix of brick, stone and post-war rebuilding, and the town hall faces a square with cafés, bakeries and a market on certain days.
The history around here is heavy. Courrières, just a few kilometres south, gave its name to the worst mining disaster in European history: in March 1906 an explosion swept through the Courrières company's pits and killed more than a thousand miners. Rescuers came from Germany to help, and a group of survivors emerged after nearly three weeks underground, which made headlines across the world. The disaster led to strikes and reforms in French mining safety, and there are memorials in the towns around.
The landscape is the Mining Basin, now a UNESCO World Heritage site: terrils, workers' housing estates, headframes and railway lines threaded through farmland and towns. The slag heaps near Carvin and Oignies are some of the most distinctive in the area, and at Oignies the former 9-9bis pit has been turned into a cultural centre and concert venue. Riding past them is a reminder of how big this industry once was.
As for the riding, Carvin is a town stop, plain and simple. The roads in and out are flat and urban, with roundabouts, traffic lights and speed bumps, and the A1 motorway runs close by. Expect trucks and commuter traffic at peak hours. If you are looking for bends, you will need to head west towards the hills of Artois, where the terrain begins to rise around Notre-Dame-de-Lorette and Vimy.
Practically, Carvin has everything: fuel stations, supermarkets, cafés and restaurants. It is a good place for a coffee and a sandwich, or for a plate of frites from a friterie, a northern tradition that locals take very seriously. Weather is changeable, so carry rain gear. Take a moment in the square, watch the town go by, and think about the generations of miners who built this place.