CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
284 km from Pecquencourt to Pecquencourt, about 5 h 09 of riding. On the way it passes Cité du Moulin, Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs, Beffroi de porte de Lucheux and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin. The line favours views over speed.
At Rieulay, in the middle of the Scarpe valley, the terril des Argales is one of the largest spoil heaps in France, a vast, flat-topped plateau of mining waste stretching for well over a kilometre. Once a stark, black wasteland, it has been transformed into a nature and leisure area, with a lake at its foot, trails, viewpoints and a nature reserve where rare plants and birds have found a home. The site, together with nearby mining remains, is part of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Ensemble minier des Argales write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ensemble minier des Argales is where the day begins. Next is Cité du Moulin.
Around Lens the slag heaps rise from the plain like a chain of black pyramids, and the twin cones at Loos-en-Gohelle, among the highest in Europe, are visible for miles. The Cité du Moulin sits in this landscape at Fouquières-lès-Lens, next to Harnes and Billy-Montigny, one of the pit villages built by the mining companies and now part of the UNESCO-listed mining basin. It is a quiet residential area today, but its streets tell the story of the coalfield's most terrible moment.
Read the complete Cité du Moulin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité du Moulin comes up 39 km in. Next is Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs.
The coal companies were not short of optimism when they named their housing. In Bruay-la-Buissière, two neighbouring cités were called the New World and the Flowers, and their brick houses with front gardens, laid out along tidy streets, were meant to sell a better life to the families who came from across France, Poland, Italy and North Africa to work the pits. They belong to the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage Site, and they remain ordinary homes, so look respectfully.
Read the complete Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
78 km in you reach Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs. 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, 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 156 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux comes up 194 km in. Next is back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
233 km in you reach back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs. Next is back through Cité du Moulin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité du Moulin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cité du Moulin, late in the day. Next is Ensemble minier des Argales.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier des Argales write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 284 km.
Ensemble minier des Argales → Cité du Moulin is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité du Moulin → Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs → Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin → back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités du Nouveau Monde et des Fleurs → back through Cité du Moulin is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité du Moulin → Ensemble minier des Argales is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.