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 Anzin it runs 169 km to Anzin; allow about 2 h 49 of riding. The stops in between: Terril 125a, Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos and back through Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The Coron des 120 is among the most famous rows of miners' houses in France, partly because a film crew chose it. A coron is a long terrace of identical brick cottages built by a mining company, and this one, with its endless line of doors, chimneys and small gardens, was used in the 1993 film of Germinal, Zola's novel of the miners' strike. It lies near Anzin and Petite-Forêt, in the Valenciennes area, at the heart of the mining basin that UNESCO listed in 2012.
Read the complete Coron des 120 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Coron des 120 is where the day begins. Next is Terril 125a.
On the southern edge of the coal basin, where Auberchicourt, Écaillon and Aniche run into one another, a long spoil heap rises above the brick roofs and the fields. Terril 125a is one of the many numbered heaps that the Nord-Pas de Calais inventory catalogues, and it belongs to the old concession of the Compagnie des mines d'Aniche, one of the historic coal companies of the region. Aniche itself is a reminder that the north was not only about coal: the town had a long glassmaking tradition, and the combination of fuel, sand and labour made the area an industrial hub well before the twentieth century.
Read the complete Terril 125a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 125a comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault.
The flat country between Douai and Lens does not look like much from a motorway, but it holds one of the great industrial landscapes of Europe. For more than two centuries coal was dug from under these fields, and the mining basin of the Nord-Pas de Calais was listed by UNESCO in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape of pits, slag heaps, railway lines and workers' housing. The Fosse Cornuault at Évin-Malmaison is one piece of that vast mosaic, a former colliery site with its associated buildings, set among the brick villages of the eastern part of the basin.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 53 km into the recorded legs you reach Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos.
Loos is a town on the southwestern edge of Lille, and its town hall belfry is part of the same UNESCO family as the medieval towers of Bruges and Ghent, though it is a much more modern member. In this corner of Europe a belfry was the symbol of a town's independence from lord and church, and when the industrial towns of the Nord built new town halls in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they gave them belfries too, as a statement that they had grown up. Loos's tower, in brick and stone, does exactly that.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos, about halfway. Next is back through Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault sits at 102 km, about halfway. Next is back through Terril 125a.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 125a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Terril 125a comes up about 140 km into the recorded legs. Next is Coron des 120.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Coron des 120 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Coron des 120 closes the day.
Coron des 120 → Terril 125a is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 125a → Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos → back through Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault → back through Terril 125a is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril 125a → Coron des 120 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.