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 Anzin it runs 278 km to Anzin; allow about 4 h 47 of riding. On the way it passes Fosse n°2 de Flines, Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval, Bâtiment de la Goutte de Lait and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 is where the day begins. 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.
Fosse n°2 de Flines comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 67 km into the recorded legs you reach Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval. Next is Bâtiment de la Goutte de Lait.
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, 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 149 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Bâtiment de la Goutte de Lait comes up about 176 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 209 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval. 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.
back through Fosse n°2 de Flines, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 278 km.
Château Dampierre → Fosse n°2 de Flines is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fosse n°2 de Flines → Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval → Bâtiment de la Goutte de Lait is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bâtiment de la Goutte de Lait → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin → back through Bâtiment de la Goutte de Lait is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bâtiment de la Goutte de Lait → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval → back through Fosse n°2 de Flines is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fosse n°2 de Flines → Château Dampierre is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.