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.
A 297 km round trip from Fresnes-sur-Escaut - roughly 4 h 55 in the saddle. On the way it passes Cités Sainte-Marie, Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e, Hôtel de ville and Beffroi de porte de Lucheux. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Fresnes-sur-Escaut sits right beside the Belgian border, on the river Escaut, which flows north into Belgium as the Scheldt. In 1720, so the story goes, coal was found here for the first time in the Nord, and that find began the transformation of the region. The Compagnie des Mines d'Anzin, founded later in the eighteenth century, became one of the largest industrial enterprises in France and helped create the landscape you ride through today.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la Compagnie des Mines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ensemble minier de la Compagnie des Mines is where the day begins. Next is Cités Sainte-Marie.
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 comes up about 45 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 76 km into the recorded legs you reach Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e. Next is Hôtel de ville.
Bruay-la-Buissière is a mining town that grew from almost nothing into a busy industrial centre in less than a century, and its town hall, an imposing building in the heart of town, is a statement of that civic pride. The label points to the Hôtel de ville, one of the many urban and public buildings of the mining era that are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site. It sits on the western end of the coalfield, where the plain begins to rise towards the chalk hills of Artois.
Read the complete Hôtel de ville write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hôtel de ville, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.
Lucheux is a small village in a wooded valley in the north of the Somme, close to the border with the Pas-de-Calais, and its belfry is something of an oddity. Rather than rising above a town hall or a market square, as in the larger towns of Flanders and Picardy, it is built into a fortified gateway, a stout stone tower straddling the road through the village. It is part of the group of belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO, a symbol of the civic freedoms that towns and villages won from their feudal lords in the Middle Ages. Above the village stand the ruins of a castle that belonged to the Counts of Saint-Pol, with a great hall and towers in a romantic state of decay.
Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux sits at 148 km, about halfway. Next is back through Hôtel de ville.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hôtel de ville write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hôtel de ville comes up about 188 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
about 220 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e. Next is back through 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.
back through Cités Sainte-Marie, late in the day. Next is Ensemble minier de la Compagnie des Mines.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la Compagnie des Mines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 297 km.
Ensemble minier de la Compagnie des Mines → Cités Sainte-Marie is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités Sainte-Marie → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e → Hôtel de ville is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hôtel de ville → Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → back through Hôtel de ville is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hôtel de ville → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e → back through Cités Sainte-Marie is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités Sainte-Marie → Ensemble minier de la Compagnie des Mines is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.