CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Douai it runs 293 km to Douai; allow about 5 h 35 of riding. The stops in between: La citadella d’Arras, Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs, Beffroi de porte de Lucheux and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The ride follows Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame → La citadella d’Arras for 35 km.
Douai is a handsome old town on the river Scarpe, and its belfry is the thing to look for. The tall Gothic tower, topped with a lion, rises above the town hall and holds a carillon of bells, and it is one of the belfries of Belgium and France that UNESCO listed together. Every July the town stages a big parade of giants, huge wicker figures carried through the streets that represent Gayant, a giant from local legend, with his wife and children, a tradition that dates back centuries and which UNESCO recognises as intangible heritage. The Chartreuse museum, in a former monastery, holds paintings and sculpture from the town's long history.
Read the complete Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame is where the day begins. Next is La citadella d’Arras.
The people of Arras call their citadel la belle inutile, the beautiful useless one, and they say it with affection. Vauban built it in the late seventeenth century, after Louis XIV took Artois from Spain, as part of the chain of fortresses meant to lock France's northern border. Its star-shaped ramparts, bastions and moats are textbook Vauban, but the border moved north before the fortress ever saw a serious siege, hence the nickname. It is one of the twelve sites grouped as the Fortifications of Vauban on the UNESCO list since 2008. Its later history is darker: during the Second World War, the Germans executed resistance fighters in the moat, and a memorial there lists their names.
Read the complete La citadella d’Arras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La citadella d’Arras comes up 39 km in. 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.
79 km in you reach Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs. 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, about halfway. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin sits at 158 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux comes up 197 km in. 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.
236 km in you reach back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs. Next is back through La citadella d’Arras.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La citadella d’Arras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La citadella d’Arras, late in the day. Next is Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 293 km.
Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame → La citadella d’Arras is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La citadella d’Arras → Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs is 34 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 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin → back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs is 43 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 La citadella d’Arras is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La citadella d’Arras → Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.