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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 194 km round trip from Aniche - roughly 3 h 21 in the saddle. On the way it passes Belfries of Belgium and France, Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle, Major Mining Sites of Wallonia and back through Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Coal made this corner of northern France, and coal left it with a landscape unlike anywhere else in the country: slag heaps rising like black pyramids from the fields, pithead frames standing over old shafts and long rows of brick miners' houses lining the streets of every town. The Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin was listed by UNESCO in 2012, and the Cités du Champ Fleuri et du Garage, near Masny and Lewarde, are among its typical housing estates, built by mining companies to house workers and their families close to the pits.
Read the complete Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage is where the day begins. Next is Belfries of Belgium and France.
Cambrai gave its name to a fabric. Cambric, a fine light linen, was once woven and traded in this town, and the word survives in English. The town is also known for a small, translucent mint sweet called the bêtise de Cambrai, which the locals say was invented by mistake, and a visit to a confectioner is a pleasant way to spend ten minutes. The belfry is one of the group of belfries across northern France and Belgium that UNESCO listed together, as symbols of the independence of medieval towns, and in Cambrai it is a tall stone tower in the town centre, while the town hall nearby has two mechanical figures, Martin and Martine, who strike the hours.
Read the complete Belfries of Belgium and France write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Belfries of Belgium and France comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle.
France's coalfield is a long, narrow band that runs from Béthune in the west to the Belgian border in the east, and at its eastern end, around Valenciennes, the ground still carries traces of the first mines. The Anzin company, which controlled much of this area in the nineteenth century, dug shafts, built pumping stations and laid out workers' housing, and in 1884 Émile Zola came to the district to research Germinal, his great novel of a miners' strike. The ensemble at La Sentinelle includes the old pumping engine house of the Sarteau pit, a survivor from that early industrial age, and the nearby Cités de Beaurepaire, rows of company housing for miners and their families. The whole mining basin was listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 61 km into the recorded legs you reach Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle. Next is Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Grand-Hornu, on the edge of the Borinage coalfield west of Mons, looks less like a coal mine than a neoclassical palace. In the early nineteenth century the industrialist Henri De Gorge built it as a model colliery, with workshops, offices and stables arranged around a vast oval courtyard of brick arches, and hundreds of houses for workers, each with its own garden, laid out in streets around it. It was a revolutionary idea at the time, combining industry and housing in one planned complex. Mining ended in the mid-twentieth century, and after years of neglect the site was restored. Today it houses a museum of contemporary art and a design centre, and it is one of the four Major Mining Sites of Wallonia listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia, about halfway. Next is back through Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle sits at 129 km, about halfway. Next is back through Belfries of Belgium and France.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Belfries of Belgium and France write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Belfries of Belgium and France comes up about 169 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage closes the day.
Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage → Belfries of Belgium and France is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfries of Belgium and France → Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle → Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → back through Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle → back through Belfries of Belgium and France is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Belfries of Belgium and France → Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.