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.
From Pecquencourt it runs 256 km to Pecquencourt; allow about 4 h 25 of riding. It goes by way of Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7, Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor and back through Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7. 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 Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7.
Picture a pit village at six in the morning in 1950: men walking to the headframe with their lunch tins, the siren calling the shift, the women already up and stoking the stoves, children getting ready for the company school. The ensemble around Fosse n°7, near Maisnil-lès-Ruitz and Barlin, preserves the setting for that daily routine: the pit buildings, the housing, the paths between them, and the terril rising nearby. It was a self-contained world, owned and run by the mining company, which provided houses, coal for heating, schools, churches and even doctors, in exchange for loyalty and hard work. The site is one of the many components of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin on the UNESCO list.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor.
Every evening at eight o'clock, traffic stops under the Menin Gate in Ypres, and buglers from the local fire brigade sound the Last Post in memory of the soldiers of the British Empire who died in the Ypres Salient during the First World War. The ceremony has been held almost every evening since 1928, interrupted only during the German occupation in the Second World War, and it draws crowds of all ages, many of them descendants of the fallen. The gate itself is inscribed with the names of more than fifty thousand soldiers whose bodies were never found. It is one of the sites included in the World Heritage inscription of the Funerary and Memory Sites of the First World War, inscribed in 2023.
Read the complete Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 128 km into the recorded legs you reach Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor. Next is back through Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7, 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.
Back at Cités Sainte-Marie. That is the ride.
Cités Sainte-Marie → Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 → Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor → back through Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 → Cités Sainte-Marie is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.