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.
270 km from Wingles to Wingles, about 4 h 39 of riding. On the way it passes Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple, Stadhuis met Belfort and back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Wingles sits on the northern edge of the coal basin, between Lens and La Bassée, where the mining towns give way to the canals and fields of the Weppes and the outskirts of Lille. The Cité du Pont is one of its miners' settlements, rows of brick houses built for the workers of the local pits, and it is part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site. The name, the bridge settlement, hints at the importance of the waterways that crisscross this flat land.
Read the complete Cité du Pont write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité du Pont is where the day begins. 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.
Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stadhuis met Belfort.
Oudenaarde's town hall looks like something carved from lace. Built in the early sixteenth century in the late Gothic style, it has a facade covered with pointed arches, niches and statues, and a slender belfry topped with a gilded crown on which stands a small knight known locally as Hanske de Krijger, Little John the Warrior. The building is one of the finest of its kind in Flanders, and it is listed by UNESCO among the belfries of Belgium and France. Inside, there are displays of the tapestries for which Oudenaarde was famous across Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially its verdures, woven scenes of forests and greenery.
Read the complete Stadhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 135 km into the recorded legs you reach Stadhuis met Belfort. 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.
back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple, late in the day. Next is Cité du Pont.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité du Pont write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cité du Pont. That is the ride.
Cité du Pont → Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → Stadhuis met Belfort is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Stadhuis met Belfort → back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → Cité du Pont is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.