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 Liévin it runs 393 km to Liévin; allow about 6 h 47 of riding. On the way it passes Cités de la Solitude, Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple, Major Mining Sites of Wallonia and Petit Béguinage de Gent. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Number 1 bis at Liévin was one of the shafts of the old Compagnie des mines de Liévin, and its headframe still stands, a lean tower against a sky that is often low and grey. It is protected as part of the Mining Basin World Heritage Site, listed in 2012, together with the terrils, the cités and a hundred or so other elements across the old coalfield. What strikes you is how ordinary it looks, a plain frame in an urban setting, and yet it stands for generations of men who went down in cages and came back up with faces black with coal.
Read the complete Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin is where the day begins. 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.
Cités de la Solitude comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple. 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 Petit Béguinage de Gent.
Push open a gate off a busy Ghent street and the noise drops away. The Klein Begijnhof, the Small Béguinage, is a walled enclave of whitewashed and brick houses with stepped gables around a green courtyard and a Baroque church. Béguines were lay women who lived in community, devoted to prayer and work but without taking permanent vows, and this béguinage was founded in the thirteenth century. Most of the present buildings date from the seventeenth century. Together with other Flemish béguinages, it is on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and it remains one of the calmest places in the city.
Read the complete Petit Béguinage de Gent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Petit Béguinage de Gent sits at 197 km, about halfway. Next is back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia comes up about 288 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 324 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple. 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, late in the day. Next is Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 393 km.
Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin → Cités de la Solitude is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Solitude → Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → Petit Béguinage de Gent is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Petit Béguinage de Gent → back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → back through Cités de la Solitude is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités de la Solitude → Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.