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.
271 km from Lens to Lens, about 4 h 40 of riding. The stops in between: Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple, Béguinage de Kortrijk 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.
The mining basin of Nord-Pas-de-Calais is flat country made hilly by hand. Around Lens, the heaps of slag left by two centuries of coal digging rise like black pyramids above the fields, and the red-brick miners' houses stand in long, tidy terraces, row after row, called corons. This particular stop lies in the town of Lens, in a cité, the name for a company-built miners' estate, and the numbers in the label come from the way the mining companies numbered their pits and estates.
Read the complete Cité n°2 62 Pas-de-Calais write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité n°2 62 Pas-de-Calais 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 Béguinage de Kortrijk.
Step through a gate off a busy street in the centre of Kortrijk and the noise falls away. The béguinage is a tiny enclosed village of whitewashed houses, cobbled lanes and a small church, founded in the thirteenth century by Countess Joan of Constantinople for the beguines, lay women who lived a religious life without taking full vows. It is one of the Flemish béguinages that UNESCO listed together in 1998, and although it is small, it has a rare atmosphere of calm. A statue of the countess stands at the entrance.
Read the complete Béguinage de Kortrijk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 135 km into the recorded legs you reach Béguinage de Kortrijk. 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 n°2 62 Pas-de-Calais.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité n°2 62 Pas-de-Calais write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cité n°2 62 Pas-de-Calais. That is the ride.
Cité n°2 62 Pas-de-Calais → 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 → Béguinage de Kortrijk is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Béguinage de Kortrijk → 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 n°2 62 Pas-de-Calais is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.