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.
399 km from Grenay to Grenay, about 6 h 53 of riding. On the way it passes Chevalement de la fosse n°9, Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple, Major Mining Sites of Wallonia and Petit Béguinage de Gent. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Between Grenay, Mazingarbe and Vermelles, in the heart of the Gohelle, the Cité du n°7 is one of the mining villages built by the Compagnie des mines de Béthune for the workers of its pit number 7. The houses, laid out in tidy rows with gardens, still form a coherent neighbourhood, part of the UNESCO-listed mining basin. Each company built its cités in its own style, and the variety of brick patterns, porches and layouts is surprisingly rich once you start looking.
Read the complete Cité du n°7 de Béthune write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité du n°7 de Béthune is where the day begins. Next is Chevalement de la fosse n°9.
The tall steel frame that stands over a coal pit shaft is called a chevalement in French, and a headframe in English, and in the old mining basin of northern France they are the cathedrals of a vanished industry. This one stands at the Fosse n°9, a few kilometres north of Douai, in the plain of the Pévèle, where coal was dug for more than two centuries. The basin of Nord-Pas-de-Calais stretches for over a hundred kilometres across flat farmland, and its pits, slag heaps, workers' villages and railway lines are now protected by UNESCO, listed in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape. The last pit closed in 1990, and the people here still talk about the mine in the present tense.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse n°9 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chevalement de la fosse n°9 comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple.
A steel tower with a big wheel at the top: once you have seen one headframe, you start to spot them all across the north of France, but each one marks a place where men went down into the dark. The headframe of the Fosse Dutemple, between Valenciennes and Petite-Forêt, is one of the survivors, kept as part of the UNESCO-listed Nord-Pas de Calais mining basin. Under it, cages once dropped miners hundreds of metres to the coal seams; now it stands as a monument, its pulleys still against the sky.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple. 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.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia, about halfway. Next is Petit Béguinage de Gent.
Push open a gate off a busy Ghent street and the noise drops away. The Klein Begijnhof, the Small Béguinage, is a walled enclave of whitewashed and brick houses with stepped gables around a green courtyard and a Baroque church. Béguines were lay women who lived in community, devoted to prayer and work but without taking permanent vows, and this béguinage was founded in the thirteenth century. Most of the present buildings date from the seventeenth century. Together with other Flemish béguinages, it is on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and it remains one of the calmest places in the city.
Read the complete Petit Béguinage de Gent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Petit Béguinage de Gent sits at 200 km, about halfway. Next is back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia comes up about 291 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 327 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple. Next is back through Chevalement de la fosse n°9.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse n°9 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chevalement de la fosse n°9, late in the day. Next is Cité du n°7 de Béthune.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité du n°7 de Béthune write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 399 km.
Cité du n°7 de Béthune → Chevalement de la fosse n°9 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement de la fosse n°9 → Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → Petit Béguinage de Gent is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Petit Béguinage de Gent → back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → back through Chevalement de la fosse n°9 is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chevalement de la fosse n°9 → Cité du n°7 de Béthune is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.