Why this ride
A 381 km round trip from Sin-le-Noble - roughly 6 h 33 in the saddle. It goes by way of Monument Emile Basly, Terril 14, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin and Beffroi de Gravelines. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Cités de Guesnain and Beffroi de Gravelines
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 381 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 6 h 33
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Cités de Guesnain
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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cités de Guesnain is where the day begins. Next is Monument Emile Basly.
2. Monument Emile Basly
Émile Basly was a miner who became a union leader, a deputy and for a long time the mayor of Lens, and his monument stands in the town as a salute to the people who worked underground. He led the great strike of 1884 at Anzin, which inspired Zola's Germinal, and later rose to national politics as a socialist. In Lens, a town of over thirty-eight thousand people at the heart of the Pas-de-Calais coalfield, he remains a local hero. The town was razed in the First World War and rebuilt in the 1920s, so much of the centre has the brick-and-concrete look of that rebuilding.
Read the complete Monument Emile Basly write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Monument Emile Basly comes up about 32 km into the recorded legs. Next is Terril 14.
3. Terril 14
Auchel lies on the western rim of the coalfield, where the black seams run out against the chalk hills of the Artois, and Terril 14 rises above the town and its neighbour Marles-les-Mines as a long, dark ridge softened by birch and grass. The heap is built of shale and waste rock brought up from the pits of the old company that worked this corner of the basin, and like many of the terrils, it has been left to nature since mining ended. Its slopes are now home to plants that love warm, dry ground, and the summit offers a view over the rooftops of the mining towns toward the green hills to the west. It belongs to the vast mining landscape listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Terril 14 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 64 km into the recorded legs you reach Terril 14. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin.
4. Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin
Hesdin is a small market town in the green valley of the Canche, in the Pas-de-Calais, and it owes its existence to an act of destruction. The original town, a few kilometres upstream, was razed in 1553 by the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and a new fortified town was built here the following year as a strongpoint on the frontier between France and the Habsburg Netherlands. The grid of streets and the large market square still follow that plan. On the square stands the town hall, a former palace of the Habsburg governors, with a beautifully carved Renaissance balcony from which proclamations were read, and its belfry is part of the UNESCO list of belfries in Belgium and France.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de Gravelines.
5. Beffroi de Gravelines
Gravelines sits right where the river Aa meets the Channel, between Calais and Dunkirk, and it still wears its walls. The town is wrapped in Vauban-era fortifications, a star of brick ramparts, bastions and water-filled moats that you can walk or ride around, and in the middle of it rises the belfry, one of the towers listed by UNESCO among the belfries of northern France and Belgium. It is a solid, sober tower rather than a showpiece, built to watch, warn and ring the hours for a frontier town that changed hands more than once.
Read the complete Beffroi de Gravelines write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Beffroi de Gravelines sits at 208 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin.
6. back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin comes up about 278 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Terril 14.
7. back through Terril 14
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 14 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 318 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Terril 14. Next is back through Monument Emile Basly.
8. back through Monument Emile Basly
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monument Emile Basly write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Monument Emile Basly, late in the day. Next is Cités de Guesnain.
9. Cités de Guesnain
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de Guesnain write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 381 km.
Leg by leg
Cités de Guesnain to Monument Emile Basly
Cités de Guesnain → Monument Emile Basly is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monument Emile Basly to Terril 14
Monument Emile Basly → Terril 14 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 14 to Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin
Terril 14 → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin to Beffroi de Gravelines
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin → Beffroi de Gravelines is 87 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Beffroi de Gravelines to back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin
Beffroi de Gravelines → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin is 87 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin to back through Terril 14
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin → back through Terril 14 is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril 14 to back through Monument Emile Basly
back through Terril 14 → back through Monument Emile Basly is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monument Emile Basly to Cités de Guesnain
back through Monument Emile Basly → Cités de Guesnain is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
More motorcycle rides nearby
- Cité n°2 and Terril 34 · 75 km
- Terril 31 and Cité des Soeurs · 130 km
- Terril 32 and Cité des Soeurs · 128 km
- Château Mercier et maisons d’ingénieur and Terril 34 · 77 km