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 159 km round trip from Fresnes-sur-Escaut - roughly 2 h 32 in the saddle. The stops in between: Terril Renard, Cités de la Solitude, Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e and back through Cités de la Solitude. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Customs officers and smugglers have been playing the same game along the northern border for centuries, and Fresnes-sur-Escaut sits right on the line. The little town of seven and a half thousand people lies on the French bank of the river Escaut, a few kilometres from Belgium, in the country that was once part of the Spanish Netherlands and later the heart of the Anzin coalfield. The Château des Douaniers recalls the border guards who watched the lanes and the river for contraband, and the frontier traffic in coffee, tobacco, butter and spirits was an economic force for generations.
Read the complete Château des Douaniers write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château des Douaniers is where the day begins. Next is Terril Renard.
Climb the Renard slag heap near Denain and you are standing on two centuries of work. Terrils are the waste rock hauled out of a mine in wagons and tipped, one load after another, until the pile became a hill. This one, the Fox, lies barely a kilometre and a half from the middle of Denain, a town of twenty-one thousand people that grew fat on coal and steel. It is named after the Renard pit, and it was down the Renard pit in 1884 that Émile Zola was lowered while he researched Germinal, notebook in hand, listening to the men who worked the seam.
Read the complete Terril Renard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril Renard comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 56 km into the recorded legs you reach Cités de la Solitude. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e.
Estevelles is a small town where the mining basin meets the waterways of the Deûle, between Pont-à-Vendin and Carvin. The label points to one of the mining ensembles of the area, part of the UNESCO-listed basin: a pit, a cité, perhaps a spoil heap, all together telling the story of how coal shaped every aspect of local life. The mining companies built not only houses but churches, schools, health centres and gardens, controlling their workers' lives from cradle to grave. The cités around here, with their neat rows of brick houses and small vegetable gardens, still house many descendants of miners.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e, about halfway. 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 sits at 100 km, about halfway. Next is back through Terril Renard.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril Renard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Terril Renard comes up about 127 km into the recorded legs. Next is Château des Douaniers.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château des Douaniers write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château des Douaniers closes the day.
Château des Douaniers → Terril Renard is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril Renard → Cités de la Solitude is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Solitude → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e → back through Cités de la Solitude is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités de la Solitude → back through Terril Renard is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril Renard → Château des Douaniers is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.