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.
From Noyelles-Godault it runs 200 km to Noyelles-Godault; allow about 3 h 37 of riding. It goes by way of Cité du n°7 de Béthune, Terril 14, Beffroi de porte de Lucheux and back through Terril 14. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Cité Crombez is a miners' settlement at Noyelles-Godault, on the eastern edge of Hénin-Beaumont, in the heart of the old coal basin between Lens and Douai. Built by the mining company to house its workers, it has the classic layout of brick houses, gardens and straight streets, and it is part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site. Today it is a quiet residential area, surrounded by shopping centres, motorways and the remains of heavy industry.
Read the complete Cité Crombez write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité Crombez 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 22 km into the recorded legs. Next is Terril 14.
Auchel lies on the western rim of the coalfield, where the black seams run out against the chalk hills of the Artois, and Terril 14 rises above the town and its neighbour Marles-les-Mines as a long, dark ridge softened by birch and grass. The heap is built of shale and waste rock brought up from the pits of the old company that worked this corner of the basin, and like many of the terrils, it has been left to nature since mining ended. Its slopes are now home to plants that love warm, dry ground, and the summit offers a view over the rooftops of the mining towns toward the green hills to the west. It belongs to the vast mining landscape listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Terril 14 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 55 km into the recorded legs you reach Terril 14. Next is Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.
Lucheux is a small village in a wooded valley in the north of the Somme, close to the border with the Pas-de-Calais, and its belfry is something of an oddity. Rather than rising above a town hall or a market square, as in the larger towns of Flanders and Picardy, it is built into a fortified gateway, a stout stone tower straddling the road through the village. It is part of the group of belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO, a symbol of the civic freedoms that towns and villages won from their feudal lords in the Middle Ages. Above the village stand the ruins of a castle that belonged to the Counts of Saint-Pol, with a great hall and towers in a romantic state of decay.
Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux, about halfway. Next is back through Terril 14.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 14 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Terril 14 sits at 130 km, about halfway. 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 comes up about 179 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cité Crombez.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité Crombez write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité Crombez closes the day.
Cité Crombez → Cité du n°7 de Béthune is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité du n°7 de Béthune → Terril 14 is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 14 → Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → back through Terril 14 is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril 14 → back through Cité du n°7 de Béthune is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité du n°7 de Béthune → Cité Crombez is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.