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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Roost-Warendin it runs 153 km to Roost-Warendin; allow about 2 h 38 of riding. It goes by way of Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain, Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm, Major Mining Sites of Wallonia and back through Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
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 Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain.
Escaudain sits in the old heartland of the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin, the oldest and once the most powerful of the coal companies in northern France, and the landscape around it is pure mining country: rows of brick terraces, spoil heaps, old railway embankments and the occasional headframe standing like a monument. This is the Valenciennes end of the coalfield, close to the Belgian border, and it was here that coal mining in the north began in the eighteenth century. The town and its surroundings form one of the many components of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, which UNESCO inscribed in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm.
In 1757, a group of aristocrats and entrepreneurs founded the Compagnie des Mines d'Anzin to work the coal seams found under the plains near Valenciennes. It grew into one of the largest industrial companies in France, owning dozens of pits, thousands of workers' houses and its own schools, churches and shops. The ensemble here at Fresnes-sur-Escaut, close to the Belgian border, includes buildings connected with the company's long history, and it is part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
Read the complete Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 50 km into the recorded legs you reach Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm. Next is Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Grand-Hornu, on the edge of the Borinage coalfield west of Mons, looks less like a coal mine than a neoclassical palace. In the early nineteenth century the industrialist Henri De Gorge built it as a model colliery, with workshops, offices and stables arranged around a vast oval courtyard of brick arches, and hundreds of houses for workers, each with its own garden, laid out in streets around it. It was a revolutionary idea at the time, combining industry and housing in one planned complex. Mining ended in the mid-twentieth century, and after years of neglect the site was restored. Today it houses a museum of contemporary art and a design centre, and it is one of the four Major Mining Sites of Wallonia listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia, about halfway. Next is back through Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm sits at 102 km, about halfway. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain comes up about 129 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Chevalement de la fosse n°9 closes the day.
Chevalement de la fosse n°9 → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain → Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm → Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → back through Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain → Chevalement de la fosse n°9 is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.