Why this ride
232 km from Lille to Lille, about 3 h 21 of riding. The stops in between: Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens, Grands Bureaux de la Société Houillère de, Cité Barrois and Temple protestant.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Lille day out · Temple protestant
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 232 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 3 h 21
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Lille
Lille is a Flemish city that happens to be in France, and its brick and gables show it. The Grand'Place, with its tall merchants' houses and a theatre that looks like a wedding cake, is the centre of a lively old town of cobbled streets, and the nearby Vieille Bourse, the old stock exchange, is a courtyard of carved stone where secondhand-book sellers set out their stalls. The citadel, built by Vauban for Louis XIV, still stands to the west, a star-shaped fortress inside a park.
Read the complete Lille write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lille is where the day begins. Next is Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens.
2. Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens
A headframe is the most honest piece of architecture in a mining country, because it exists only to hold up a wheel. The chevalement of Pit 3 bis at Lens is one of those tall, simple frames of concrete or steel, once used to raise coal and men from hundreds of metres underground, and it is now one of the markers of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012 as a living cultural landscape. At the height of the industry, hundreds of such frames stood on this flat country, and the sky was filled with smoke and steam.
Read the complete Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens comes up 31 km in. Next is Grands Bureaux de la Société Houillère de.
3. Grands Bureaux de la Société Houillère de
The Grands Bureaux of the mining company at Liévin are the opposite of a pit: a big, solid brick office building where the engineers, accountants and managers ran the underground world from desks. Built in the style of company headquarters across the basin, with generous windows, a formal entrance and a clock, the building announces that coal was a serious business, with a payroll, a hierarchy and a public face. It sits in the town centre, a few hundred metres from the heart of Liévin, and it forms part of the Mining Basin that UNESCO listed in 2012.
Read the complete Grands Bureaux de la Société Houillère de write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
61 km in you reach Grands Bureaux de la Société Houillère de. Next is Cité Barrois.
4. Cité Barrois
Rows of red-brick cottages, each with its garden, set along curving streets with trees: the Cité Barrois in Pecquencourt looks almost English, and that is no accident. In the later years of the coal era, the mining companies of northern France built garden cities for their workers, influenced by ideas from across the Channel about healthy housing and green space. This one is part of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012 as an entire landscape of pits, slag heaps, workers' housing, schools, churches and railways spread over more than a hundred kilometres.
Read the complete Cité Barrois write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cité Barrois, about halfway. Next is Temple protestant.
5. Temple protestant
Liévin is a town of thirty-four thousand people that grew up around coal, and the Protestant temple on its streets is a small reminder of how mixed the mining population was. The pits drew workers from Belgium, Poland, Italy and North Africa as well as from the French countryside, and the mining companies built churches, schools, shops and entire districts for them. In a region that was overwhelmingly Catholic, a temple stood a little apart, and its quiet presence says something about the way the basin took in newcomers.
Read the complete Temple protestant write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Temple protestant sits at 123 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cité Barrois.
6. back through Cité Barrois
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité Barrois write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Cité Barrois comes up 153 km in. Next is back through Grands Bureaux de la Société Houillère de.
7. back through Grands Bureaux de la Société Houillère de
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grands Bureaux de la Société Houillère de write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
184 km in you reach back through Grands Bureaux de la Société Houillère de. Next is back through Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens.
8. back through Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens, late in the day. Next is Lille.
9. Lille
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lille write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 232 km.
Leg by leg
Lille to Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens
Lille → Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grands Bureaux de la Société Houillère de to Cité Barrois
Grands Bureaux de la Société Houillère de → Cité Barrois is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité Barrois to Temple protestant
Cité Barrois → Temple protestant is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Temple protestant to back through Cité Barrois
Temple protestant → back through Cité Barrois is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité Barrois to back through Grands Bureaux de la Société Houillère de
back through Cité Barrois → back through Grands Bureaux de la Société Houillère de is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens to Lille
back through Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens → Lille is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.