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.
From Waziers it runs 245 km to Waziers; allow about 3 h 58 of riding. The stops in between: Chevalement du Vieux-Deux, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines and back through Chevalement du Vieux-Deux. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules.
On the edge of Waziers, near Douai, the cités de la Solitude are rows of brick houses built by a mining company for its workers, laid out in neat streets with small gardens. Such company towns, the cités minières, were the backbone of life in the coal basin of northern France, providing housing, schools, churches and shops for miners and their families, and they are among the most important elements of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012. The name Solitude seems almost ironic for a place built to house so many people close together.
Read the complete Cités de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de la Solitude is where the day begins. Next is Chevalement du Vieux-Deux.
Marles-les-Mines is a small town of about six thousand people west of Béthune, in the hilly western fringe of the coalfield, and the headframe known as the Vieux-Deux, the old Number Two, stands among its houses as a stubborn monument. The Compagnie des mines de Marles sank its shafts here in the nineteenth century, and the pit worked until the twentieth. The tall frame has been preserved, and together with the nearby terril and the cités around it, forms part of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, the World Heritage Site listed in 2012.
Read the complete Chevalement du Vieux-Deux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chevalement du Vieux-Deux comes up about 56 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines.
Comines is one of those towns the border runs straight through. The river Lys, the Leie to the Flemish, divides French Comines from Belgian Comines-Warneton, and you can cross from one country to the other on a bridge without noticing much more than a change in the shape of the street signs. On the French side the town hall and its belfry stand over the main square, a tall brick tower in the Flemish style with a pointed roof and a carillon, part of the group of belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 123 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines. Next is back through Chevalement du Vieux-Deux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement du Vieux-Deux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chevalement du Vieux-Deux, late in the day. Next is Cités de la Solitude.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cités de la Solitude. That is the ride.
Cités de la Solitude → Chevalement du Vieux-Deux is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement du Vieux-Deux → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Comines → back through Chevalement du Vieux-Deux is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chevalement du Vieux-Deux → Cités de la Solitude is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.