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: 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.
A 290 km round trip from Somain - roughly 4 h 38 in the saddle. It goes by way of Hôtel de ville, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras, Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs and Beffroi de porte de Lucheux. The line favours views over speed.
Somain exists because of the railway. Several lines meet here, and the town grew up around the station, which still has the busy feel of a junction. The Cités de Beaurepaire were built by the Aniche mining company, one of the great concerns of the northern coalfield, and they show how a company could shape a landscape: neat brick rows, small squares, a few shared buildings, and gardens laid out to a plan. A local will tell you who lived in which house and which families still do; an outsider notices the symmetry first, and then the small signs of individuality, a painted door, a trellis, a satellite dish pointing the wrong way.
Read the complete Cités de Beaurepaire write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de Beaurepaire is where the day begins. Next is Hôtel de ville.
A town hall makes an odd target for a ride, but Carvin's is a good excuse to stop in a place most people only see from the A1. The town sits on the northern edge of the old coalfield, between Lens and Lille, and its civic buildings and squares reflect the confidence of a community that grew with the mines. Like many such places, Carvin's centre is a mix of brick, stone and post-war rebuilding, and the town hall faces a square with cafés, bakeries and a market on certain days.
Read the complete Hôtel de ville write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hôtel de ville comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras.
Arras has two great squares, the Grand-Place and the Place des Héros, surrounded by tall Flemish-baroque houses with curved gables and arcades, and towering above them is the belfry of the town hall, over seventy metres high. It looks medieval, but most of it is a careful reconstruction: Arras was devastated by German artillery during the First World War, when the front line ran just east of the town for years, and the belfry was destroyed in 1914. After the war, the people of Arras rebuilt it, along with the squares, and today it is one of the belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 69 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras. Next is Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs.
The coal companies were not short of optimism when they named their housing. In Bruay-la-Buissière, two neighbouring cités were called the New World and the Flowers, and their brick houses with front gardens, laid out along tidy streets, were meant to sell a better life to the families who came from across France, Poland, Italy and North Africa to work the pits. They belong to the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage Site, and they remain ordinary homes, so look respectfully.
Read the complete Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.
Lucheux is a small village in a wooded valley in the north of the Somme, close to the border with the Pas-de-Calais, and its belfry is something of an oddity. Rather than rising above a town hall or a market square, as in the larger towns of Flanders and Picardy, it is built into a fortified gateway, a stout stone tower straddling the road through the village. It is part of the group of belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO, a symbol of the civic freedoms that towns and villages won from their feudal lords in the Middle Ages. Above the village stand the ruins of a castle that belonged to the Counts of Saint-Pol, with a great hall and towers in a romantic state of decay.
Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux sits at 147 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs comes up about 184 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 221 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras. Next is back through Hôtel de ville.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hôtel de ville write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hôtel de ville, late in the day. Next is Cités de Beaurepaire.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de Beaurepaire write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 290 km.
Cités de Beaurepaire → Hôtel de ville is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hôtel de ville → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras → Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs → Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras → back through Hôtel de ville is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hôtel de ville → Cités de Beaurepaire is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.