Coal was first found in France not far from here. In 1720, prospectors working near Fresnes-sur-Escaut struck a seam, and within a few years the Anzin company was sinking shafts all along the valley of the Escaut, the river the Dutch and Belgians call the Scheldt. The Pompe à feu, the fire pump, is the old steam engine house at the Sarteau pit in Vieux-Condé, and its name comes from the early engines, which burned coal to make steam and pumped water out of the workings. Inside the red brick building the beam engine would have towered over the floor with its great rocking arm. The whole mining basin of Nord-Pas-de-Calais was listed by UNESCO in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape, and the pit at Sarteau is one of the pieces of it.
The country here is a low, gentle plain on the edge of the Parc naturel régional Scarpe-Escaut, where canals, poplar lines and beet fields mix with the grey brick of mining settlements. The Belgian border is a few kilometres off, and the region feels like a corner of both countries. Brick, not stone, is the local material, and the little streets of workers' houses, in tidy rows with small gardens, repeat on every road.
The riding is not about curves. It is flat and mostly straight, on small roads between hedges and fields, with occasional cobbled sections known as pavé that the Paris-Roubaix cycle race made famous, and these can be slick when wet. Traffic is local, with the odd lorry from the nearby motorway. The lanes beside the river and canal are good for an easy loop, and spring brings blossom to the orchards. It can rain at any moment, and the sky is often a flat grey, which suits the brickwork.
Vieux-Condé and Condé-sur-l'Escaut each have about ten thousand people, so fuel and bakeries are close. Valenciennes lies a few kilometres south-west and offers a larger town centre with Flemish-style brick buildings and a good selection of cafes. A plate of local specialities, such as carbonade flamande, beef stewed in beer, and a mug of dark beer, make a sound lunch. Time spent in the pump house will explain the countryside better than any map.