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: 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.
A 158 km round trip from Lille - roughly 2 h 32 in the saddle. It goes by way of Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image, Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras and back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Lille's town hall belfry is a child of the twentieth century. After the old town hall was lost, the architect Émile Dubuisson built a new one in the 1920s and early 1930s in a working-class district south of the centre, and its belfry, rising about 104 metres, is the tallest civic belfry in Europe. Built of reinforced concrete and brick in an Art Deco reinterpretation of the Flemish tradition, it is part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France, a group that celebrates the towers built by towns to symbolise their freedom and civic pride.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is where the day begins. Next is Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image.
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 comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi.
Take any road across the Artois plain around Grenay and you will see the shape of the mining basin on the skyline: conical slag heaps, called terrils, rising out of the farmland and cités, and tall brick pit-head buildings that once housed the winding gear. This area lies between Lens and Béthune, in a district called the Gohelle, and it was mined intensively from the nineteenth century until the last pit closed in 1990. The Grenay and Mazingarbe sites are part of the UNESCO-listed mining basin, which recognises both the buildings and the landscape, and the way company housing, railways and spoil heaps shaped one another.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 55 km into the recorded legs you reach Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi. 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, about halfway. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi sits at 99 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image comes up about 133 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille closes the day.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille → Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi → back through Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.