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.
From Fresnes-sur-Escaut it runs 79 km to Fresnes-sur-Escaut; allow about 1 h 40 of riding. It goes by way of Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are, Ensemble minier des Argales and back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are.
In 1757, a group of aristocrats and entrepreneurs founded the Compagnie des Mines d'Anzin to work the coal seams found under the plains near Valenciennes. It grew into one of the largest industrial companies in France, owning dozens of pits, thousands of workers' houses and its own schools, churches and shops. The ensemble here at Fresnes-sur-Escaut, close to the Belgian border, includes buildings connected with the company's long history, and it is part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
Read the complete Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm is where the day begins. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are.
Anyone who follows cycling knows the Trouée d'Arenberg, the arrow-straight cobbled lane through the forest near Wallers where Paris-Roubaix often breaks apart. What fewer know is that the lane passes the gate of a colliery, and that the colliery is one of the jewels of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage Site. Fosse Arenberg, with its three steel headframes and brick engine houses, closed in 1989, and a few years later Claude Berri filmed his version of Zola's Germinal here, using the pithead and the cités around it as a ready-made nineteenth-century mining town.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are comes up about 20 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ensemble minier des Argales.
At Rieulay, in the middle of the Scarpe valley, the terril des Argales is one of the largest spoil heaps in France, a vast, flat-topped plateau of mining waste stretching for well over a kilometre. Once a stark, black wasteland, it has been transformed into a nature and leisure area, with a lake at its foot, trails, viewpoints and a nature reserve where rare plants and birds have found a home. The site, together with nearby mining remains, is part of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Ensemble minier des Argales write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 39 km into the recorded legs you reach Ensemble minier des Argales. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are, late in the day. Next is Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm. That is the ride.
Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are → Ensemble minier des Argales is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier des Argales → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are → Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.