Cité des Sports Wingles and Beffroi de Rue

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Cité des Sports Wingles

   Wingles is a town of nine thousand people in the old mining basin, sitting on the edge of the plain where the Lens-Béthune coal fields meet the canal of La Bassée. The coal here was dug from the mid-nineteenth century, and the town still bears the marks: rows of workers' houses, a handful of pit headframes, and slag heaps that rise from the farmland. The sports complex that gives this stop its name is a modern echo of the old social life of the mine, when companies built stadiums, bandstands and gymnasia for their workers, and brass bands and football clubs were as central to the community as the pit itself.

   Read the complete Cité des Sports Wingles write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Cité des Sports Wingles is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.

2. 2. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Beffroi de porte de Lucheux comes up 67 km in. Next is Beffroi de Rue.

3. 3. Beffroi de Rue

   Rue is a small town of three thousand people that used to be a seaport, and the belfry in the middle of it is one of the reasons it still feels more important than its size suggests. Over centuries the Baie de Somme silted up and the sea pulled back, leaving Rue stranded a few kilometres inland among salt meadows and polders, but the stone tower that once watched the harbour still stands over the square. It is part of the group of belfries of Belgium and northern France on the UNESCO list, symbols of civic freedom built by towns that wanted the world to know they governed themselves.

   Read the complete Beffroi de Rue write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   133 km in you reach Beffroi de Rue. Next is back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.

4. 4. back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux, late in the day. Next is Cité des Sports Wingles.

5. 5. Cité des Sports Wingles

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Cité des Sports Wingles 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 Sports Wingles. That is the ride.