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.
From Cambrai it runs 294 km to Cambrai; allow about 4 h 24 of riding. On the way it passes Cités de la Solitude, Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple, Ensemble minier de la Belleforière and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Cambrai gave its name to a fabric. Cambric, a fine light linen, was once woven and traded in this town, and the word survives in English. The town is also known for a small, translucent mint sweet called the bêtise de Cambrai, which the locals say was invented by mistake, and a visit to a confectioner is a pleasant way to spend ten minutes. The belfry is one of the group of belfries across northern France and Belgium that UNESCO listed together, as symbols of the independence of medieval towns, and in Cambrai it is a tall stone tower in the town centre, while the town hall nearby has two mechanical figures, Martin and Martine, who strike the hours.
Read the complete Belfries of Belgium and France write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Belfries of Belgium and France is where the day begins. Next is Cités de la Solitude.
On the edge of Waziers, near Douai, the cités de la Solitude are rows of brick houses built by a mining company for its workers, laid out in neat streets with small gardens. Such company towns, the cités minières, were the backbone of life in the coal basin of northern France, providing housing, schools, churches and shops for miners and their families, and they are among the most important elements of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012. The name Solitude seems almost ironic for a place built to house so many people close together.
Read the complete Cités de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de la Solitude comes up about 31 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple.
A steel tower with a big wheel at the top: once you have seen one headframe, you start to spot them all across the north of France, but each one marks a place where men went down into the dark. The headframe of the Fosse Dutemple, between Valenciennes and Petite-Forêt, is one of the survivors, kept as part of the UNESCO-listed Nord-Pas de Calais mining basin. Under it, cages once dropped miners hundreds of metres to the coal seams; now it stands as a monument, its pulleys still against the sky.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple. Next is Ensemble minier de la Belleforière.
Roost-Warendin, Waziers and Râches sit just north of Douai, where the old Scarpe floodplain met the coal seams, and the Belleforière mining ensemble is one of the clusters that shows how a pit site was organised. Shafts, buildings, workers' housing and spoil heaps were laid out together, with the railway linking them all, and in a few places the ensemble survives well enough that you can read it on the ground. Part of the regional mining landscape listed by UNESCO in 2012, it is a good example of how coal companies planned whole villages around their extraction.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la Belleforière write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ensemble minier de la Belleforière, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille.
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 sits at 138 km, about halfway. Next is back through Ensemble minier de la Belleforière.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la Belleforière write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ensemble minier de la Belleforière comes up about 187 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 228 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple. Next is back through Cités de la Solitude.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cités de la Solitude, late in the day. Next is Belfries of Belgium and France.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Belfries of Belgium and France write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 294 km.
Belfries of Belgium and France → Cités de la Solitude is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Solitude → Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → Ensemble minier de la Belleforière is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier de la Belleforière → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille → back through Ensemble minier de la Belleforière is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ensemble minier de la Belleforière → back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → back through Cités de la Solitude is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités de la Solitude → Belfries of Belgium and France is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.