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 160 km to Fresnes-sur-Escaut; allow about 2 h 33 of riding. On the way it passes Terril Renard, Cités de la Solitude, Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e and back through Cités de la Solitude. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 Terril Renard.
Climb the Renard slag heap near Denain and you are standing on two centuries of work. Terrils are the waste rock hauled out of a mine in wagons and tipped, one load after another, until the pile became a hill. This one, the Fox, lies barely a kilometre and a half from the middle of Denain, a town of twenty-one thousand people that grew fat on coal and steel. It is named after the Renard pit, and it was down the Renard pit in 1884 that Émile Zola was lowered while he researched Germinal, notebook in hand, listening to the men who worked the seam.
Read the complete Terril Renard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril Renard comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cités de la Solitude.
On the edge of Waziers, near Douai, the cités de la Solitude are rows of brick houses built by a mining company for its workers, laid out in neat streets with small gardens. Such company towns, the cités minières, were the backbone of life in the coal basin of northern France, providing housing, schools, churches and shops for miners and their families, and they are among the most important elements of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012. The name Solitude seems almost ironic for a place built to house so many people close together.
Read the complete Cités de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 57 km into the recorded legs you reach Cités de la Solitude. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e.
Estevelles is a small town where the mining basin meets the waterways of the Deûle, between Pont-à-Vendin and Carvin. The label points to one of the mining ensembles of the area, part of the UNESCO-listed basin: a pit, a cité, perhaps a spoil heap, all together telling the story of how coal shaped every aspect of local life. The mining companies built not only houses but churches, schools, health centres and gardens, controlling their workers' lives from cradle to grave. The cités around here, with their neat rows of brick houses and small vegetable gardens, still house many descendants of miners.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e, about halfway. Next is back through Cités de la Solitude.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cités de la Solitude sits at 99 km, about halfway. Next is back through Terril Renard.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril Renard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Terril Renard comes up about 128 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm closes the day.
Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm → Terril Renard is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril Renard → Cités de la Solitude is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Solitude → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e → back through Cités de la Solitude is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités de la Solitude → back through Terril Renard is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril Renard → Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.