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.
From Bruay-la-Buissière it runs 239 km to Bruay-la-Buissière; allow about 3 h 36 of riding. The stops in between: Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines and back through Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules.
South of Bruay-la-Buissière the land stops being a miners' plain and starts to feel like Artois, with small rivers, wooded valleys and the first rolling hills. It is the sort of cité that you come across by accident, a cluster of brick houses with gardens, set a little apart from the village, built for the Compagnie des mines de Béthune or one of its neighbours. UNESCO's 2012 listing included many of these, and each has a slightly different plan.
Read the complete Cité du château des Dames write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité du château des Dames is where the day begins. Next is Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron.
Montigny-en-Ostrevent is a small town in the Ostrevent, the strip of land between the Scarpe and the Escaut rivers east of Douai, and its miners' settlements, the Cités de Montigny and du Moucheron, are typical of the housing built by the mining companies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rows of brick houses with small gardens, built along straight streets, often with a church, a school and a shop nearby, formed the backbone of community life in the coalfield. These cités are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
Read the complete Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron comes up about 57 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines.
Comines is one of those towns the border runs straight through. The river Lys, the Leie to the Flemish, divides French Comines from Belgian Comines-Warneton, and you can cross from one country to the other on a bridge without noticing much more than a change in the shape of the street signs. On the French side the town hall and its belfry stand over the main square, a tall brick tower in the Flemish style with a pointed roof and a carillon, part of the group of belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 120 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines. Next is back through Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron, late in the day. Next is Cité du château des Dames.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité du château des Dames write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cité du château des Dames. That is the ride.
Cité du château des Dames → Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines → back through Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron → Cité du château des Dames is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.