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.
173 km from Sin-le-Noble to Sin-le-Noble, about 2 h 43 of riding. The stops in between: Paysage et ensemble miniers de Libercourt, Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi, Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image and back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi.
A kilometre down the road from the workers' housing of Guesnain stands the best place in France to understand what coal really meant. The Centre Historique Minier at Lewarde occupies the old Delloye pit, which closed in 1971, and it walks you through the whole life of a mine: the lamp room, the showers where miners hung their clothes on chains up to the ceiling, the stables for the pit ponies, and a reconstructed gallery underground where you hear the noise of the picks and the creak of the props. Come here first, and every terrace and terril you pass afterwards will make more sense.
Read the complete Cités de Guesnain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de Guesnain is where the day begins. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers de Libercourt.
Libercourt is a young town by French standards. It grew in the early twentieth century around a coal company's pits and a railway line, on land that had been farm and marsh, and the planners laid it out from scratch, with straight streets, a station and cités of brick cottages in tidy rows. Many of the miners who filled them came from Poland, recruited in large numbers between the wars, and Polish names, church services and recipes marked the mining villages of the north for generations.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Libercourt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Libercourt comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi.
Take any road across the Artois plain around Grenay and you will see the shape of the mining basin on the skyline: conical slag heaps, called terrils, rising out of the farmland and cités, and tall brick pit-head buildings that once housed the winding gear. This area lies between Lens and Béthune, in a district called the Gohelle, and it was mined intensively from the nineteenth century until the last pit closed in 1990. The Grenay and Mazingarbe sites are part of the UNESCO-listed mining basin, which recognises both the buildings and the landscape, and the way company housing, railways and spoil heaps shaped one another.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 59 km into the recorded legs you reach Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi. Next is Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image.
Oignies holds a special place in the history of northern France: it is where coal mining in the Pas-de-Calais began and where it ended. In 1842, coal was found here during a search for water on the estate of a local landowner, Henriette de Clercq, starting a rush that transformed the region. And on 21 December 1990, the last tonne of coal in the Nord-Pas de Calais basin was brought up from the 9-9bis pit in Oignies, ending more than two and a half centuries of mining in the region. The old Fosse n°2 and its mine-image, a training gallery where young miners learned their trade above ground, are part of the World Heritage site.
Read the complete Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image, about halfway. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi sits at 99 km, about halfway. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Libercourt.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Libercourt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Libercourt comes up about 144 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cités de Guesnain.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de Guesnain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de Guesnain closes the day.
Cités de Guesnain → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Libercourt is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Libercourt → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi → Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Libercourt is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Libercourt → Cités de Guesnain is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.