Why this ride
A 232 km round trip from Fouquières-lès-Lens - roughly 3 h 36 in the saddle. On the way it passes Terril 244, Beffroi de Gravelines and back through Terril 244. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Cité du Moulin and Beffroi de Gravelines
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 232 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 3 h 36
- 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 du Moulin
Around Lens the slag heaps rise from the plain like a chain of black pyramids, and the twin cones at Loos-en-Gohelle, among the highest in Europe, are visible for miles. The Cité du Moulin sits in this landscape at Fouquières-lès-Lens, next to Harnes and Billy-Montigny, one of the pit villages built by the mining companies and now part of the UNESCO-listed mining basin. It is a quiet residential area today, but its streets tell the story of the coalfield's most terrible moment.
Read the complete Cité du Moulin write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cité du Moulin is where the day begins. Next is Terril 244.
2. Terril 244
Way out at the western tip of the coalfield, near the villages of Mametz and Norrent-Fontes, Terril 244 marks the place where coal mining reached its limit. Beyond it, the land belongs to farmers, and the next towns, Aire-sur-la-Lys and Saint-Omer, have more to do with canals, marshes and markets than with mines. The heap stands as a solitary landmark in the fields, smaller than the giants further east, and its green-covered slopes blend into the landscape. It is one of the outlying components of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin listed by UNESCO, a reminder that the coalfield stretched for over a hundred kilometres from the Belgian border to here.
Read the complete Terril 244 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Terril 244 comes up about 58 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de Gravelines.
3. Beffroi de Gravelines
Gravelines sits right where the river Aa meets the Channel, between Calais and Dunkirk, and it still wears its walls. The town is wrapped in Vauban-era fortifications, a star of brick ramparts, bastions and water-filled moats that you can walk or ride around, and in the middle of it rises the belfry, one of the towers listed by UNESCO among the belfries of northern France and Belgium. It is a solid, sober tower rather than a showpiece, built to watch, warn and ring the hours for a frontier town that changed hands more than once.
Read the complete Beffroi de Gravelines write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 114 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de Gravelines. Next is back through Terril 244.
4. back through Terril 244
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 244 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Terril 244, late in the day. Next is Cité du Moulin.
5. Cité du Moulin
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité du Moulin write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Cité du Moulin. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Cité du Moulin to Terril 244
Cité du Moulin → Terril 244 is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 244 to Beffroi de Gravelines
Terril 244 → Beffroi de Gravelines is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Gravelines to back through Terril 244
Beffroi de Gravelines → back through Terril 244 is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril 244 to Cité du Moulin
back through Terril 244 → Cité du Moulin is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.