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.
297 km from Auchel to Auchel, about 5 h 07 of riding. It goes by way of Temple protestant, Fosse n°2 de Flines, Château Dampierre and Beffroi de Mons. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
West of Béthune, the coalfield starts to run out of flat land. The first chalk hills of Artois rise around Auchel and Cauchy-à-la-Tour, and the pit villages climb their slopes in neat rows of brick. The Cité de Rimbert is one of these, built by the mining company of Marles to house its workers, and it belongs to the long necklace of sites in the UNESCO-listed mining basin. Its houses, gardens and straight streets are a textbook example of company planning, with every family given a home, a vegetable plot and a short walk to the pit.
Read the complete Cité de Rimbert write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité de Rimbert is where the day begins. Next is Temple protestant.
Liévin is a town of thirty-four thousand people that grew up around coal, and the Protestant temple on its streets is a small reminder of how mixed the mining population was. The pits drew workers from Belgium, Poland, Italy and North Africa as well as from the French countryside, and the mining companies built churches, schools, shops and entire districts for them. In a region that was overwhelmingly Catholic, a temple stood a little apart, and its quiet presence says something about the way the basin took in newcomers.
Read the complete Temple protestant write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple protestant comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fosse n°2 de Flines.
The headframe is the giveaway. In the low, watery country between Lallaing, Anhiers and Flines-lez-Raches, the steel or concrete winding towers of old coal pits still stand as markers, and Fosse n°2 de Flines is one of the sites that recall the industry that shaped this corner of the Douai area. A fosse in the local vocabulary is a pit with its shafts, buildings and spoil heap, and around each one a small world grew: rows of brick housing, a church, a school, and the company offices that ran the lives of everyone underground and above it.
Read the complete Fosse n°2 de Flines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 70 km into the recorded legs you reach Fosse n°2 de Flines. 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, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de Mons.
Belgium has many belfries, but only one in the baroque style, and it rises above Mons on the hill where the medieval castle stood. Built in the seventeenth century, it is about eighty-seven metres tall, with a carillon of forty-nine bells, and it was listed by UNESCO with the other belfries of Belgium and France. A lift takes visitors to the top, where the view stretches across the Borinage, the old coal-mining country around the city, and over the rooftops of the old town. Inside, an interpretation centre tells the story of the tower.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Mons sits at 149 km, about halfway. 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 comes up about 192 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Fosse n°2 de Flines.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fosse n°2 de Flines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 226 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Fosse n°2 de Flines. Next is back through Temple protestant.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Temple protestant write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Temple protestant, late in the day. Next is Cité de Rimbert.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité de Rimbert write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 297 km.
Cité de Rimbert → Temple protestant is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Temple protestant → Fosse n°2 de Flines is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fosse n°2 de Flines → Château Dampierre is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château Dampierre → Beffroi de Mons is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Mons → back through Château Dampierre is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Château Dampierre → back through Fosse n°2 de Flines is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fosse n°2 de Flines → back through Temple protestant is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Temple protestant → Cité de Rimbert is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.