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 Anzin it runs 89 km to Anzin; allow about 1 h 32 of riding. The stops in between: Cité de la Solitude, Major Mining Sites of Wallonia and back through Cité de la Solitude. 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.
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 Cité de la Solitude.
The Cité de la Solitude sounds like the name of a novel, but it is a real miners' housing estate in the far east of the French coalfield, near Vieux-Condé and Condé-sur-l'Escaut, within a few kilometres of the Belgian border. Here the mining basin merges into the Hainaut country on the other side, and the two halves share a single history of coal, iron and hard work. The French basin was listed by UNESCO in 2012, and on the Belgian side the major mining sites of Wallonia, including the Grand-Hornu and the Bois-du-Cazier, were listed in the same year. The Beffroi de Thuin, in the Belgian town of Thuin, is one of several belfries in the region recognised by UNESCO as symbols of civic pride.
Read the complete Cité de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité de la Solitude comes up about 19 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 45 km into the recorded legs you reach Major Mining Sites of Wallonia. Next is back through Cité de la Solitude.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cité de la Solitude, late in the day. 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.
Back at Coron des 120. That is the ride.
Coron des 120 → Cité de la Solitude is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité de la Solitude → Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → back through Cité de la Solitude is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité de la Solitude → Coron des 120 is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.