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 318 km round trip from Pecquencourt - roughly 5 h 29 in the saddle. The stops in between: Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau, Beffroi de Mons, Beffroi de Thuin and Beffroi de Gembloux. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Pecquencourt sits on the edge of the Scarpe valley east of Douai, where the coal basin meets a land of marshes, ponds and forests, and the Cités Sainte-Marie are rows of miners' houses built for the workers of the nearby Sainte-Marie pit. Like many mining settlements, they follow a regular pattern, with brick houses in pairs or rows, gardens at the back and wide streets, designed by the company to house its workforce and keep them close to the pit. They are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
Read the complete Cités Sainte-Marie write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités Sainte-Marie is where the day begins. Next is Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau.
Coal was first found in France not far from here. In 1720, prospectors working near Fresnes-sur-Escaut struck a seam, and within a few years the Anzin company was sinking shafts all along the valley of the Escaut, the river the Dutch and Belgians call the Scheldt. The Pompe à feu, the fire pump, is the old steam engine house at the Sarteau pit in Vieux-Condé, and its name comes from the early engines, which burned coal to make steam and pumped water out of the workings. Inside the red brick building the beam engine would have towered over the floor with its great rocking arm. The whole mining basin of Nord-Pas-de-Calais was listed by UNESCO in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape, and the pit at Sarteau is one of the pieces of it.
Read the complete Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de Mons.
Belgium has many belfries, but only one in the baroque style, and it rises above Mons on the hill where the medieval castle stood. Built in the seventeenth century, it is about eighty-seven metres tall, with a carillon of forty-nine bells, and it was listed by UNESCO with the other belfries of Belgium and France. A lift takes visitors to the top, where the view stretches across the Borinage, the old coal-mining country around the city, and over the rooftops of the old town. Inside, an interpretation centre tells the story of the tower.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 72 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de Mons. Next is Beffroi de Thuin.
Thuin sits on a rocky spur above the Sambre, and from the river it looks like a town that climbed a hill to keep its feet dry. At the top stands the belfry, a tall square tower with an onion-shaped spire that was originally the bell tower of a collegiate church and survived when the church itself did not. Since 1999 it has been part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France, a reminder that towns in this region measured their freedom in bells, towers and charters.
Read the complete Beffroi de Thuin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Thuin, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de Gembloux.
Gembloux grew up around a Benedictine abbey founded in the tenth century, and for most of its history the monks ran the show. The abbey buildings, rebuilt in a grand classical style in the eighteenth century, now house a university faculty of agricultural sciences, fitting for a town surrounded by some of the richest farmland in Belgium. The belfry, a solid tower that was once part of a church and later became the town's civic symbol, stands in the centre and is part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France. Climbing it gives views over the rooftops and across the open fields of the Hesbaye.
Read the complete Beffroi de Gembloux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Gembloux sits at 159 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de Thuin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Thuin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de Thuin comes up about 210 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Beffroi de Mons.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 246 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Beffroi de Mons. Next is back through Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau, late in the day. Next is Cités Sainte-Marie.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités Sainte-Marie write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 318 km.
Cités Sainte-Marie → Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau → Beffroi de Mons is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Mons → Beffroi de Thuin is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Thuin → Beffroi de Gembloux is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Gembloux → back through Beffroi de Thuin is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de Thuin → back through Beffroi de Mons is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de Mons → back through Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau → Cités Sainte-Marie is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.