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.
316 km from Roost-Warendin to Roost-Warendin, about 5 h 36 of riding. The stops in between: Cité du n°7 de Béthune, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières, Cité du château des Dames and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The tall steel frame that stands over a coal pit shaft is called a chevalement in French, and a headframe in English, and in the old mining basin of northern France they are the cathedrals of a vanished industry. This one stands at the Fosse n°9, a few kilometres north of Douai, in the plain of the Pévèle, where coal was dug for more than two centuries. The basin of Nord-Pas-de-Calais stretches for over a hundred kilometres across flat farmland, and its pits, slag heaps, workers' villages and railway lines are now protected by UNESCO, listed in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape. The last pit closed in 1990, and the people here still talk about the mine in the present tense.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse n°9 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chevalement de la fosse n°9 is where the day begins. Next is Cité du n°7 de Béthune.
Between Grenay, Mazingarbe and Vermelles, in the heart of the Gohelle, the Cité du n°7 is one of the mining villages built by the Compagnie des mines de Béthune for the workers of its pit number 7. The houses, laid out in tidy rows with gardens, still form a coherent neighbourhood, part of the UNESCO-listed mining basin. Each company built its cités in its own style, and the variety of brick patterns, porches and layouts is surprisingly rich once you start looking.
Read the complete Cité du n°7 de Béthune write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité du n°7 de Béthune comes up about 31 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières.
Armentières is a textile town on the river Lys, right on the Belgian border, a quarter of an hour west of Lille. Its name is familiar to many English speakers from the bawdy marching song of the First World War, Mademoiselle from Armentières, which British soldiers sang on their way to the front lines nearby. The town paid a terrible price for being so close to that front: it was shelled, occupied and largely destroyed by 1918. The town hall and its belfry were rebuilt in the 1920s and 1930s in a confident Flemish style, and the tower now belongs to the UNESCO group of belfries of Belgium and France.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 79 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières. Next is Cité du château des Dames.
South of Bruay-la-Buissière the land stops being a miners' plain and starts to feel like Artois, with small rivers, wooded valleys and the first rolling hills. It is the sort of cité that you come across by accident, a cluster of brick houses with gardens, set a little apart from the village, built for the Compagnie des mines de Béthune or one of its neighbours. UNESCO's 2012 listing included many of these, and each has a slightly different plan.
Read the complete Cité du château des Dames write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité du château des Dames, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul.
Bailleul sits in French Flanders, so close to the Belgian border that you can hear Flemish place names on every signpost, and its town hall belfry, rising over the main square with a pointed spire and a carillon, looks every bit as Flemish as the towers of Ypres or Bruges. Like much of the town, it is a rebuilding: Bailleul was almost entirely destroyed in the spring of 1918, during the German offensive in Flanders, and was reconstructed in the 1920s in a neo-Flemish style of brick, stepped gables and decorative stonework. The belfry is one of the belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul sits at 147 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cité du château des Dames.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité du château des Dames write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cité du château des Dames comes up about 198 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 238 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières. Next is back through Cité du n°7 de Béthune.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité du n°7 de Béthune write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cité du n°7 de Béthune, late in the day. Next is Chevalement de la fosse n°9.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse n°9 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 316 km.
Chevalement de la fosse n°9 → Cité du n°7 de Béthune is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité du n°7 de Béthune → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières → Cité du château des Dames is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité du château des Dames → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul → back through Cité du château des Dames is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité du château des Dames → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Armentières → back through Cité du n°7 de Béthune is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité du n°7 de Béthune → Chevalement de la fosse n°9 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.