Why this ride
An 80 km round trip from Wingles - roughly 1 h 27 in the saddle. The stops in between: Cité de la Parisienne, Ensemble minier de la Belleforière and back through Cité de la Parisienne.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Cité de la Gare and Ensemble minier de la Belleforière
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 80 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 1 h 27
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Cité de la Gare
Wingles is a small town of nearly nine thousand people on the southern edge of the Lens coalfield, and its Cité de la Gare takes its name from the railway station that once carried coal away. This is the logistics of the mining basin laid bare: pit, rail, canal and village. The coal came up the shafts, was hauled to the sorting plants and loaded on trains that ran to the factories of the north and the ports of the Channel, while the people who dug it lived in neat brick rows within sight of the headframes.
Read the complete Cité de la Gare write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cité de la Gare is where the day begins. Next is Cité de la Parisienne.
2. Cité de la Parisienne
Drocourt is the sort of place you could ride through without a second glance, and you would miss a small piece of the story of northern France. The Cité de la Parisienne is a mining housing estate on the edge of the town, a grid of brick houses built by the coal company for its workers and their families, part of the UNESCO-listed Mining Basin. The name comes from the company that dug coal here. Hénin-Beaumont and Rouvroy press in on either side, and the black cones of the slag heaps rise above the rooftops.
Read the complete Cité de la Parisienne write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cité de la Parisienne comes up about 20 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ensemble minier de la Belleforière.
3. Ensemble minier de la Belleforière
Roost-Warendin, Waziers and Râches sit just north of Douai, where the old Scarpe floodplain met the coal seams, and the Belleforière mining ensemble is one of the clusters that shows how a pit site was organised. Shafts, buildings, workers' housing and spoil heaps were laid out together, with the railway linking them all, and in a few places the ensemble survives well enough that you can read it on the ground. Part of the regional mining landscape listed by UNESCO in 2012, it is a good example of how coal companies planned whole villages around their extraction.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la Belleforière write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 41 km into the recorded legs you reach Ensemble minier de la Belleforière. Next is back through Cité de la Parisienne.
4. back through Cité de la Parisienne
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité de la Parisienne write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Cité de la Parisienne, late in the day. Next is Cité de la Gare.
5. Cité de la Gare
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité de la Gare write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Cité de la Gare. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Cité de la Gare to Cité de la Parisienne
Cité de la Gare → Cité de la Parisienne is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité de la Parisienne to Ensemble minier de la Belleforière
Cité de la Parisienne → Ensemble minier de la Belleforière is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier de la Belleforière to back through Cité de la Parisienne
Ensemble minier de la Belleforière → back through Cité de la Parisienne is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité de la Parisienne to Cité de la Gare
back through Cité de la Parisienne → Cité de la Gare is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.