Why this ride
A 67 km round trip from Liévin - roughly 1 h 12 in the saddle. It goes by way of Cité Foch, Cités de la Solitude and back through Cité Foch. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Cité des Petits Bois and Cités de la Solitude
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 67 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 1 h 12
- 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 des Petits Bois
There is a particular kind of street in the old coalfield that outsiders mistake for suburban normality. Rows of identical brick houses, each with a small front garden, line a gently curving road, with a school at one end and a church at the other. These are the cités, built by the mining companies to house their workers, and the Cité des Petits Bois at Liévin is one of them. It belongs to the same family as the cités of the Solitude, named on this ride, and together they tell how a company could organise the life of its men from cradle to pit head.
Read the complete Cité des Petits Bois write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cité des Petits Bois is where the day begins. Next is Cité Foch.
2. Cité Foch
Row upon row of identical brick houses, each with its small garden, outbuilding and front door painted in the colour of the mining company: that is a cité minière, and Cité Foch, between Hénin-Beaumont and Montigny-en-Gohelle, is one of the many hundreds that the coal companies built across northern France. They were designed to house miners and their families close to the pits, and they came in different forms over the decades, from the long terraces of the nineteenth century, the corons, to the garden cities of the early twentieth century, with semi-detached houses, wide streets and green spaces. Many of these neighbourhoods are included in the UNESCO listing of the mining basin.
Read the complete Cité Foch write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cité Foch comes up about 15 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cités de la Solitude.
3. Cités de la Solitude
On the edge of Waziers, near Douai, the cités de la Solitude are rows of brick houses built by a mining company for its workers, laid out in neat streets with small gardens. Such company towns, the cités minières, were the backbone of life in the coal basin of northern France, providing housing, schools, churches and shops for miners and their families, and they are among the most important elements of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012. The name Solitude seems almost ironic for a place built to house so many people close together.
Read the complete Cités de la Solitude write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 33 km into the recorded legs you reach Cités de la Solitude. Next is back through Cité Foch.
4. back through Cité Foch
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité Foch write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Cité Foch, late in the day. Next is Cité des Petits Bois.
5. Cité des Petits Bois
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité des Petits Bois write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Cité des Petits Bois. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Cité des Petits Bois to Cité Foch
Cité des Petits Bois → Cité Foch is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité Foch to Cités de la Solitude
Cité Foch → Cités de la Solitude is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Solitude to back through Cité Foch
Cités de la Solitude → back through Cité Foch is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité Foch to Cité des Petits Bois
back through Cité Foch → Cité des Petits Bois is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.