CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 Vieux-Condé it runs 276 km to Vieux-Condé; allow about 3 h 58 of riding. The stops in between: Cité de la Parisienne, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la and back through Cité de la Parisienne. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The Cité de la Solitude sounds like the name of a novel, but it is a real miners' housing estate in the far east of the French coalfield, near Vieux-Condé and Condé-sur-l'Escaut, within a few kilometres of the Belgian border. Here the mining basin merges into the Hainaut country on the other side, and the two halves share a single history of coal, iron and hard work. The French basin was listed by UNESCO in 2012, and on the Belgian side the major mining sites of Wallonia, including the Grand-Hornu and the Bois-du-Cazier, were listed in the same year. The Beffroi de Thuin, in the Belgian town of Thuin, is one of several belfries in the region recognised by UNESCO as symbols of civic pride.
Read the complete Cité de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité de la Solitude is where the day begins. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité de la Parisienne comes up 63 km in. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la-.
Aire-sur-la-Lys is the kind of small French town that rewards a slow walk with no plan. Its belfry rises from the eighteenth-century town hall on the Grand Place, an elegant classical building topped by a tall tower with a lantern and a carillon, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France. Across the square stands the Bailliage, a richly decorated Renaissance building from around 1600, with arches, carved figures and a little loggia, which once housed the guard and the town's officials. A few streets away, the great collegiate church of Saint-Pierre, built in a flamboyant Gothic style, rises above the rooftops.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la- write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
126 km in you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la-. Next is back through Cité de la Parisienne.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité de la Parisienne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cité de la Parisienne, late in the day. Next is Cité de la Solitude.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cité de la Solitude. That is the ride.
Cité de la Solitude → Cité de la Parisienne is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité de la Parisienne → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la- is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la- → back through Cité de la Parisienne is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité de la Parisienne → Cité de la Solitude is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.