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 180 km round trip from Pecquencourt - roughly 3 h 06 in the saddle. The stops in between: Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple, Major Mining Sites of Wallonia, The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and and back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia. 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.
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 Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple.
A steel tower with a big wheel at the top: once you have seen one headframe, you start to spot them all across the north of France, but each one marks a place where men went down into the dark. The headframe of the Fosse Dutemple, between Valenciennes and Petite-Forêt, is one of the survivors, kept as part of the UNESCO-listed Nord-Pas de Calais mining basin. Under it, cages once dropped miners hundreds of metres to the coal seams; now it stands as a monument, its pulleys still against the sky.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 61 km into the recorded legs you reach Major Mining Sites of Wallonia. Next is The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and.
Picture a barge sitting in a huge iron tank full of water, rising more than fifteen metres into the air while another tank, counterweighted, sinks beside it. That is what happens at the four hydraulic boat lifts on the old Canal du Centre in Hainaut, built between the 1880s and 1917 to carry boats over a steep change in level between the basins of the Meuse and the Scheldt. They were engineering marvels in their day, cast-iron and steel giants powered by water pressure, and they are still in working order, though now mostly used by pleasure boats. UNESCO listed them, along with their surroundings, in 1998.
Read the complete The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and, about halfway. Next is back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia sits at 120 km, about halfway. Next is back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple comes up about 155 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Cités Sainte-Marie closes the day.
Cités Sainte-Marie → Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → 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 → The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and → back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → Cités Sainte-Marie is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.