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.
A 273 km round trip from Fouquières-lès-Lens - roughly 4 h 42 in the saddle. The stops in between: Ensemble minier des Argales, Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat, Beffroi de Mons and Château de l’Hermitage. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité du Moulin is where the day begins. Next is Ensemble minier des Argales.
At Rieulay, in the middle of the Scarpe valley, the terril des Argales is one of the largest spoil heaps in France, a vast, flat-topped plateau of mining waste stretching for well over a kilometre. Once a stark, black wasteland, it has been transformed into a nature and leisure area, with a lake at its foot, trails, viewpoints and a nature reserve where rare plants and birds have found a home. The site, together with nearby mining remains, is part of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Ensemble minier des Argales write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ensemble minier des Argales comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat.
At Condé-sur-l'Escaut, right on the Belgian border, the coal basin of northern France reaches its eastern end, and the old mining site of Chabaud-Latour shows how industry and nature have come to terms. A pit operated here for decades, and today what remains is a landscape of slag heaps, ponds formed by mining subsidence, woods and wetlands, part of the UNESCO site of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat. Next is Beffroi de Mons.
Belgium has many belfries, but only one in the baroque style, and it rises above Mons on the hill where the medieval castle stood. Built in the seventeenth century, it is about eighty-seven metres tall, with a carillon of forty-nine bells, and it was listed by UNESCO with the other belfries of Belgium and France. A lift takes visitors to the top, where the view stretches across the Borinage, the old coal-mining country around the city, and over the rooftops of the old town. Inside, an interpretation centre tells the story of the tower.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Mons, about halfway. Next is Château de l’Hermitage.
On the Franco-Belgian border, in a forest that has never much cared which country it is in, a pale classical château stands in a clearing. The Château de l'Hermitage was built in the eighteenth century for the dukes of Croÿ, one of the great aristocratic families of the region, as a refined country retreat, and it sits just inside France, near Condé-sur-l'Escaut, at the edge of the forest of Bon-Secours. The family's title went back centuries, and their estates spread across both sides of what is now the border.
Read the complete Château de l’Hermitage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château de l’Hermitage sits at 137 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de Mons.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de Mons comes up about 171 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 206 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat. Next is back through Ensemble minier des Argales.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier des Argales write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ensemble minier des Argales, late in the day. Next is Cité du Moulin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité du Moulin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 273 km.
Cité du Moulin → Ensemble minier des Argales is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier des Argales → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat → Beffroi de Mons is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Mons → Château de l’Hermitage is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château de l’Hermitage → back through Beffroi de Mons is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de Mons → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat → back through Ensemble minier des Argales is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ensemble minier des Argales → Cité du Moulin is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.