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.
From Bruay-la-Buissière it runs 249 km to Bruay-la-Buissière; allow about 4 h 18 of riding. It goes by way of Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron, Major Mining Sites of Wallonia and back through Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron. 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.
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 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Grand-Hornu, on the edge of the Borinage coalfield west of Mons, looks less like a coal mine than a neoclassical palace. In the early nineteenth century the industrialist Henri De Gorge built it as a model colliery, with workshops, offices and stables arranged around a vast oval courtyard of brick arches, and hundreds of houses for workers, each with its own garden, laid out in streets around it. It was a revolutionary idea at the time, combining industry and housing in one planned complex. Mining ended in the mid-twentieth century, and after years of neglect the site was restored. Today it houses a museum of contemporary art and a design centre, and it is one of the four Major Mining Sites of Wallonia listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 124 km into the recorded legs you reach Major Mining Sites of Wallonia. 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 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron → Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → back through Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron is 63 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 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.