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.
160 km from Lallaing to Lallaing, about 2 h 27 of riding. On the way it passes Fosse n°13 bis, Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel, Terril 14 and back through Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Montigny-en-Ostrevent is a small town in the Ostrevent, the strip of land between the Scarpe and the Escaut rivers east of Douai, and its miners' settlements, the Cités de Montigny and du Moucheron, are typical of the housing built by the mining companies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rows of brick houses with small gardens, built along straight streets, often with a church, a school and a shop nearby, formed the backbone of community life in the coalfield. These cités are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
Read the complete Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron is where the day begins. Next is Fosse n°13 bis.
Oignies holds a special place in the story of French coal, because it was the last place in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais where a pit closed. The final coal came up at Oignies in December 1990, ending nearly three centuries of mining in the basin, and the old pit buildings there have since been turned into a concert hall and cultural centre. Fosse 13 bis, a few kilometres off, belonged to the Compagnie des mines de Courrières, one of the great names of the coalfield, and the whole district falls inside the Mining Basin World Heritage Site that UNESCO recognised in 2012.
Read the complete Fosse n°13 bis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fosse n°13 bis comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel.
A dispensary may seem an odd thing to visit, but this is a monument to something remarkable. In the nineteenth century the coal companies of northern France built housing, schools, churches and clinics for their workers, partly out of paternalism and partly to keep a stable workforce, and the miners themselves set up mutual aid societies, the sociétés de secours mutuel, to pay for doctors, medicines and funerals. The dispensary at Bully-les-Mines belongs to that world of care and control, and it is one of the buildings that explain why UNESCO listed the whole mining basin in 2012. The brick architecture has a plain, solid dignity, and the sense of a community looking after its own is easy to feel.
Read the complete Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 57 km into the recorded legs you reach Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 14, about halfway. Next is back through Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel sits at 99 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fosse n°13 bis.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fosse n°13 bis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fosse n°13 bis comes up about 134 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron closes the day.
Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron → Fosse n°13 bis is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fosse n°13 bis → Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel → Terril 14 is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 14 → back through Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel → back through Fosse n°13 bis is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fosse n°13 bis → Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.