CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
294 km from Auchel to Auchel, about 5 h 04 of riding. On the way it passes Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval, Fosse n°2 de Flines, Château Dampierre and Beffroi de Mons. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Mining companies in northern France did more than dig coal. They built housing, schools, churches, shops and clinics, so that workers' lives were shaped from birth to burial by the company, and the Goutte de Lait, the Drop of Milk, is a piece of that system. The name refers to the charitable clinics set up across France from the late nineteenth century to give mothers advice and clean milk for their babies, in an age when infant mortality was terrifying. In Auchel, the building belonged to the mining community, and it is listed as part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin.
Read the complete Bâtiment de la Goutte de Lait write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bâtiment de la Goutte de Lait is where the day begins. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval.
The flat coalfield of northern France has one real hill near Liévin, and on top of it stand two tall white pylons carved with figures of grief. This is Vimy Ridge, taken by the Canadian Corps in April 1917, and the Canadian National Vimy Memorial looks out over the mining country below. Down on the plain, in Avion and Liévin, Pinchonval is a cité, a miners' housing estate of brick houses and gardens, and with dozens of other sites it makes up the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, a World Heritage Site since 2012.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fosse n°2 de Flines.
The headframe is the giveaway. In the low, watery country between Lallaing, Anhiers and Flines-lez-Raches, the steel or concrete winding towers of old coal pits still stand as markers, and Fosse n°2 de Flines is one of the sites that recall the industry that shaped this corner of the Douai area. A fosse in the local vocabulary is a pit with its shafts, buildings and spoil heap, and around each one a small world grew: rows of brick housing, a church, a school, and the company offices that ran the lives of everyone underground and above it.
Read the complete Fosse n°2 de Flines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 69 km into the recorded legs you reach Fosse n°2 de Flines. Next is Château Dampierre.
Anzin, on the northern edge of Valenciennes, is where coal mining in northern France began on an industrial scale. In the eighteenth century, the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin became one of the largest companies in France, and its mines, workers' housing, slag heaps and buildings shaped the landscape of the region. Château Dampierre is one of the buildings linked to that history, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, inscribed in 2012, which preserves more than a hundred sites across a vast area: pits, headframes, miners' cités, churches, schools and the great black spoil heaps known as terrils. The big miners' strike at Anzin in 1884 helped inspire Émile Zola's novel Germinal.
Read the complete Château Dampierre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château Dampierre, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de Mons.
Belgium has many belfries, but only one in the baroque style, and it rises above Mons on the hill where the medieval castle stood. Built in the seventeenth century, it is about eighty-seven metres tall, with a carillon of forty-nine bells, and it was listed by UNESCO with the other belfries of Belgium and France. A lift takes visitors to the top, where the view stretches across the Borinage, the old coal-mining country around the city, and over the rooftops of the old town. Inside, an interpretation centre tells the story of the tower.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Mons sits at 147 km, about halfway. Next is back through Château Dampierre.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château Dampierre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Château Dampierre comes up about 191 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Fosse n°2 de Flines.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fosse n°2 de Flines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 225 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Fosse n°2 de Flines. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval, late in the day. Next is Bâtiment de la Goutte de Lait.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bâtiment de la Goutte de Lait write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 294 km.
Bâtiment de la Goutte de Lait → Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval → Fosse n°2 de Flines is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fosse n°2 de Flines → Château Dampierre is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château Dampierre → Beffroi de Mons is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Mons → back through Château Dampierre is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Château Dampierre → back through Fosse n°2 de Flines is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fosse n°2 de Flines → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval → Bâtiment de la Goutte de Lait is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.