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 Petite-Forêt it runs 285 km to Petite-Forêt; allow about 4 h 27 of riding. It goes by way of Cités de la Solitude, Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens, Terril 34 and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
France's coalfield is a long, narrow band that runs from Béthune in the west to the Belgian border in the east, and at its eastern end, around Valenciennes, the ground still carries traces of the first mines. The Anzin company, which controlled much of this area in the nineteenth century, dug shafts, built pumping stations and laid out workers' housing, and in 1884 Émile Zola came to the district to research Germinal, his great novel of a miners' strike. The ensemble at La Sentinelle includes the old pumping engine house of the Sarteau pit, a survivor from that early industrial age, and the nearby Cités de Beaurepaire, rows of company housing for miners and their families. The whole mining basin was listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle is where the day begins. 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.
Cités de la Solitude comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens.
A headframe is the most honest piece of architecture in a mining country, because it exists only to hold up a wheel. The chevalement of Pit 3 bis at Lens is one of those tall, simple frames of concrete or steel, once used to raise coal and men from hundreds of metres underground, and it is now one of the markers of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012 as a living cultural landscape. At the height of the industry, hundreds of such frames stood on this flat country, and the sky was filled with smoke and steam.
Read the complete Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 64 km into the recorded legs you reach Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens. Next is Terril 34.
A terril is a slag heap, a mountain of waste rock dumped beside a coal mine, and in the flat land of northern France these man-made hills are the closest thing to relief for miles around. Terril 34 is one of hundreds that dot the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, a UNESCO site since 2012, which recognises not only the heaps but also the pithead frames, miners' housing estates, schools, churches and railway lines that made up the landscape of coal mining in the region for nearly three centuries. This one sits near Norrent-Fontes and Lillers, at the western end of the basin, where it meets the chalk hills of Artois.
Read the complete Terril 34 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 34, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin.
Hesdin is a small market town in the green valley of the Canche, in the Pas-de-Calais, and it owes its existence to an act of destruction. The original town, a few kilometres upstream, was razed in 1553 by the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and a new fortified town was built here the following year as a strongpoint on the frontier between France and the Habsburg Netherlands. The grid of streets and the large market square still follow that plan. On the square stands the town hall, a former palace of the Habsburg governors, with a beautifully carved Renaissance balcony from which proclamations were read, and its belfry is part of the UNESCO list of belfries in Belgium and France.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin sits at 155 km, about halfway. Next is back through Terril 34.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 34 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Terril 34 comes up about 177 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens 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 Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens. 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, late in the day. Next is Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 285 km.
Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle → Cités de la Solitude is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Solitude → Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens → Terril 34 is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 34 → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin → back through Terril 34 is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril 34 → back through Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chevalement du n°3 bis de Lens → back through Cités de la Solitude is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités de la Solitude → Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.