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.
176 km from Pecquencourt to Pecquencourt, about 3 h 02 of riding. It goes by way of Château Dampierre, Major Mining Sites of Wallonia, The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and and back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. 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 Château Dampierre.
Anzin, on the northern edge of Valenciennes, is where coal mining in northern France began on an industrial scale. In the eighteenth century, the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin became one of the largest companies in France, and its mines, workers' housing, slag heaps and buildings shaped the landscape of the region. Château Dampierre is one of the buildings linked to that history, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, inscribed in 2012, which preserves more than a hundred sites across a vast area: pits, headframes, miners' cités, churches, schools and the great black spoil heaps known as terrils. The big miners' strike at Anzin in 1884 helped inspire Émile Zola's novel Germinal.
Read the complete Château Dampierre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château Dampierre comes up about 25 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 58 km into the recorded legs you reach Major Mining Sites of Wallonia. Next is The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and.
Picture a barge sitting in a huge iron tank full of water, rising more than fifteen metres into the air while another tank, counterweighted, sinks beside it. That is what happens at the four hydraulic boat lifts on the old Canal du Centre in Hainaut, built between the 1880s and 1917 to carry boats over a steep change in level between the basins of the Meuse and the Scheldt. They were engineering marvels in their day, cast-iron and steel giants powered by water pressure, and they are still in working order, though now mostly used by pleasure boats. UNESCO listed them, along with their surroundings, in 1998.
Read the complete The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and, about halfway. Next is back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia sits at 117 km, about halfway. Next is back through Château Dampierre.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château Dampierre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Château Dampierre comes up about 149 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Ensemble minier des Argales closes the day.
Ensemble minier des Argales → Château Dampierre is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château Dampierre → Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and → back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → back through Château Dampierre is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Château Dampierre → Ensemble minier des Argales is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.