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 283 km round trip from Marles-les-Mines - roughly 4 h 25 in the saddle. On the way it passes Cité du Pont, La citadella d’Arras, Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n° and Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain. The line favours views over speed.
Marles-les-Mines is a small town of about six thousand people west of Béthune, in the hilly western fringe of the coalfield, and the headframe known as the Vieux-Deux, the old Number Two, stands among its houses as a stubborn monument. The Compagnie des mines de Marles sank its shafts here in the nineteenth century, and the pit worked until the twentieth. The tall frame has been preserved, and together with the nearby terril and the cités around it, forms part of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, the World Heritage Site listed in 2012.
Read the complete Chevalement du Vieux-Deux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chevalement du Vieux-Deux is where the day begins. Next is Cité du Pont.
Wingles sits on the northern edge of the coal basin, between Lens and La Bassée, where the mining towns give way to the canals and fields of the Weppes and the outskirts of Lille. The Cité du Pont is one of its miners' settlements, rows of brick houses built for the workers of the local pits, and it is part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site. The name, the bridge settlement, hints at the importance of the waterways that crisscross this flat land.
Read the complete Cité du Pont write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité du Pont comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is La citadella d’Arras.
The people of Arras call their citadel la belle inutile, the beautiful useless one, and they say it with affection. Vauban built it in the late seventeenth century, after Louis XIV took Artois from Spain, as part of the chain of fortresses meant to lock France's northern border. Its star-shaped ramparts, bastions and moats are textbook Vauban, but the border moved north before the fortress ever saw a serious siege, hence the nickname. It is one of the twelve sites grouped as the Fortifications of Vauban on the UNESCO list since 2008. Its later history is darker: during the Second World War, the Germans executed resistance fighters in the moat, and a memorial there lists their names.
Read the complete La citadella d’Arras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 69 km into the recorded legs you reach La citadella d’Arras. 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°, about halfway. 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 sits at 141 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 181 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through La citadella d’Arras.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La citadella d’Arras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 214 km into the recorded legs you reach back through La citadella d’Arras. Next is back through Cité du Pont.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité du Pont write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cité du Pont, late in the day. Next is Chevalement du Vieux-Deux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement du Vieux-Deux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 283 km.
Chevalement du Vieux-Deux → Cité du Pont is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité du Pont → La citadella d’Arras is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La citadella d’Arras → Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n° is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n° → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n° is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de la fosse n° → back through La citadella d’Arras is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La citadella d’Arras → back through Cité du Pont is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité du Pont → Chevalement du Vieux-Deux is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.