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 309 km round trip from Vieux-Condé - roughly 5 h 07 in the saddle. It goes by way of Ensemble minier des Argales, Cité du Moulin, Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs and Beffroi de porte de Lucheux. The line favours views over speed.
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 Ensemble minier des Argales.
At Rieulay, in the middle of the Scarpe valley, the terril des Argales is one of the largest spoil heaps in France, a vast, flat-topped plateau of mining waste stretching for well over a kilometre. Once a stark, black wasteland, it has been transformed into a nature and leisure area, with a lake at its foot, trails, viewpoints and a nature reserve where rare plants and birds have found a home. The site, together with nearby mining remains, is part of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Ensemble minier des Argales write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ensemble minier des Argales comes up about 50 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cité du Moulin.
Around Lens the slag heaps rise from the plain like a chain of black pyramids, and the twin cones at Loos-en-Gohelle, among the highest in Europe, are visible for miles. The Cité du Moulin sits in this landscape at Fouquières-lès-Lens, next to Harnes and Billy-Montigny, one of the pit villages built by the mining companies and now part of the UNESCO-listed mining basin. It is a quiet residential area today, but its streets tell the story of the coalfield's most terrible moment.
Read the complete Cité du Moulin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 81 km into the recorded legs you reach Cité du Moulin. Next is Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs.
The coal companies were not short of optimism when they named their housing. In Bruay-la-Buissière, two neighbouring cités were called the New World and the Flowers, and their brick houses with front gardens, laid out along tidy streets, were meant to sell a better life to the families who came from across France, Poland, Italy and North Africa to work the pits. They belong to the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage Site, and they remain ordinary homes, so look respectfully.
Read the complete Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs, about halfway. 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 sits at 146 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs comes up about 192 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Cité du Moulin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité du Moulin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 227 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Cité du Moulin. Next is back through Ensemble minier des Argales.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier des Argales write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ensemble minier des Argales, 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.
The route ends here after 309 km.
Cité de la Solitude → Ensemble minier des Argales is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier des Argales → Cité du Moulin is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité du Moulin → Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs → Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs → back through Cité du Moulin is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité du Moulin → back through Ensemble minier des Argales is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ensemble minier des Argales → Cité de la Solitude is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.