CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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.
295 km from Oignies to Oignies, about 5 h 14 of riding. It goes by way of Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras, Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs, Beffroi de porte de Lucheux and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Oignies holds a special place in the history of northern France: it is where coal mining in the Pas-de-Calais began and where it ended. In 1842, coal was found here during a search for water on the estate of a local landowner, Henriette de Clercq, starting a rush that transformed the region. And on 21 December 1990, the last tonne of coal in the Nord-Pas de Calais basin was brought up from the 9-9bis pit in Oignies, ending more than two and a half centuries of mining in the region. The old Fosse n°2 and its mine-image, a training gallery where young miners learned their trade above ground, are part of the World Heritage site.
Read the complete Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras.
Arras has two great squares, the Grand-Place and the Place des Héros, surrounded by tall Flemish-baroque houses with curved gables and arcades, and towering above them is the belfry of the town hall, over seventy metres high. It looks medieval, but most of it is a careful reconstruction: Arras was devastated by German artillery during the First World War, when the front line ran just east of the town for years, and the belfry was destroyed in 1914. After the war, the people of Arras rebuilt it, along with the squares, and today it is one of the belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras comes up 39 km in. Next is Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs.
The coal companies were not short of optimism when they named their housing. In Bruay-la-Buissière, two neighbouring cités were called the New World and the Flowers, and their brick houses with front gardens, laid out along tidy streets, were meant to sell a better life to the families who came from across France, Poland, Italy and North Africa to work the pits. They belong to the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage Site, and they remain ordinary homes, so look respectfully.
Read the complete Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
79 km in you reach Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs. Next is Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.
Lucheux is a small village in a wooded valley in the north of the Somme, close to the border with the Pas-de-Calais, and its belfry is something of an oddity. Rather than rising above a town hall or a market square, as in the larger towns of Flanders and Picardy, it is built into a fortified gateway, a stout stone tower straddling the road through the village. It is part of the group of belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO, a symbol of the civic freedoms that towns and villages won from their feudal lords in the Middle Ages. Above the village stand the ruins of a castle that belonged to the Counts of Saint-Pol, with a great hall and towers in a romantic state of decay.
Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin.
Hesdin is a small market town in the green valley of the Canche, in the Pas-de-Calais, and it owes its existence to an act of destruction. The original town, a few kilometres upstream, was razed in 1553 by the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and a new fortified town was built here the following year as a strongpoint on the frontier between France and the Habsburg Netherlands. The grid of streets and the large market square still follow that plan. On the square stands the town hall, a former palace of the Habsburg governors, with a beautifully carved Renaissance balcony from which proclamations were read, and its belfry is part of the UNESCO list of belfries in Belgium and France.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin sits at 157 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux comes up 196 km in. Next is back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
236 km in you reach back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras, late in the day. Next is Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 295 km.
Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras → Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs → Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin → back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras → Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.