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 Mazingarbe it runs 168 km to Mazingarbe; allow about 2 h 35 of riding. It goes by way of Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n°, Cités Sainte-Marie, Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple and back through Cités Sainte-Marie. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Mining companies built for rank as well as for need. The ordinary miners got brick cottages in terraces, but the engineers and directors got something grander, detached houses with larger gardens and, for the top man, a house that was called a château and looked like one. Château Mercier at Mazingarbe belongs to that tradition, and the ride titles pair it with the engineers' houses. A walk through the old cité shows you the whole hierarchy of a company town in a few hundred metres, from the pit and the cottages to the engineers' row and the director's lawn. UNESCO's 2012 listing of the mining basin covers this social geography as much as the machinery.
Read the complete Château Mercier et maisons d’ingénieur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château Mercier et maisons d’ingénieur is where the day begins. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n°.
At Oignies the last coal in the whole Nord-Pas-de-Calais basin was brought up, and the pit closed in December 1990. That was the end of more than two and a half centuries of mining in northern France, and the buildings of pit number 9 and 9 bis survive as a monument and, remarkably, as a concert hall. The old headframes and sheds now host rock bands, and the site is one of the most striking pieces of the UNESCO-listed mining landscape. Two terrils, slag heaps from the mine, rise behind it, green with birch and bramble.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n° write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n° comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cités Sainte-Marie.
Pecquencourt sits on the edge of the Scarpe valley east of Douai, where the coal basin meets a land of marshes, ponds and forests, and the Cités Sainte-Marie are rows of miners' houses built for the workers of the nearby Sainte-Marie pit. Like many mining settlements, they follow a regular pattern, with brick houses in pairs or rows, gardens at the back and wide streets, designed by the company to house its workforce and keep them close to the pit. They are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
Read the complete Cités Sainte-Marie write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 55 km into the recorded legs you reach Cités Sainte-Marie. 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.
Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple, about halfway. Next is back through Cités Sainte-Marie.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités Sainte-Marie write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cités Sainte-Marie sits at 101 km, about halfway. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n°.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n° write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n° comes up about 141 km into the recorded legs. Next is Château Mercier et maisons d’ingénieur.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château Mercier et maisons d’ingénieur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château Mercier et maisons d’ingénieur closes the day.
Château Mercier et maisons d’ingénieur → Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n° is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n° → Cités Sainte-Marie is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités Sainte-Marie → Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → back through Cités Sainte-Marie is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités Sainte-Marie → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n° is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n° → Château Mercier et maisons d’ingénieur is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.