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 Noyelles-sous-Lens it runs 267 km to Noyelles-sous-Lens; allow about 4 h 36 of riding. On the way it passes Château Dampierre, Stadhuis met Belfort and back through Château Dampierre. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Cité Bellevue means beautiful view, and in this part of the Pas-de-Calais the joke, whether intended or not, is that the view is of other mining estates and a skyline of terrils. Noyelles-sous-Lens lies right beside Lens, the old capital of the coalfield, in a landscape that feels like one continuous town. The mines here were among the richest in France, and also among the most dangerous. The Courrières disaster of 1906, in which more than a thousand miners died, happened only a few kilometres away, and it remains the worst mining accident in European history.
Read the complete Cité Bellevue ancienne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité Bellevue ancienne is where the day begins. Next is Château Dampierre.
Anzin, on the northern edge of Valenciennes, is where coal mining in northern France began on an industrial scale. In the eighteenth century, the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin became one of the largest companies in France, and its mines, workers' housing, slag heaps and buildings shaped the landscape of the region. Château Dampierre is one of the buildings linked to that history, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, inscribed in 2012, which preserves more than a hundred sites across a vast area: pits, headframes, miners' cités, churches, schools and the great black spoil heaps known as terrils. The big miners' strike at Anzin in 1884 helped inspire Émile Zola's novel Germinal.
Read the complete Château Dampierre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château Dampierre comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stadhuis met Belfort.
Oudenaarde's town hall looks like something carved from lace. Built in the early sixteenth century in the late Gothic style, it has a facade covered with pointed arches, niches and statues, and a slender belfry topped with a gilded crown on which stands a small knight known locally as Hanske de Krijger, Little John the Warrior. The building is one of the finest of its kind in Flanders, and it is listed by UNESCO among the belfries of Belgium and France. Inside, there are displays of the tapestries for which Oudenaarde was famous across Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially its verdures, woven scenes of forests and greenery.
Read the complete Stadhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 133 km into the recorded legs you reach Stadhuis met Belfort. Next is back through Château Dampierre.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château Dampierre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Château Dampierre, late in the day. Next is Cité Bellevue ancienne.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité Bellevue ancienne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cité Bellevue ancienne. That is the ride.
Cité Bellevue ancienne → Château Dampierre is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château Dampierre → Stadhuis met Belfort is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Stadhuis met Belfort → back through Château Dampierre is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Château Dampierre → Cité Bellevue ancienne is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.