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.
251 km from Mazingarbe to Mazingarbe, about 4 h 20 of riding. On the way it passes Beffroi de Tournai, Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes and back through Beffroi de Tournai. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Béthune was a mining town on the edge of the Artois, and Pit Number 9 of the Béthune company is one of the surviving complexes that UNESCO included in its listing of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin. A mining complex is more than a hole in the ground: there were the winding house and headframe, the screening and washing plants, the offices, the baths where miners scrubbed off the coal dust, the stables for the pit ponies and the railway sidings, and many of these structures stand near Vermelles. Brick, steel and slag dominate the scene, and a sense of effort and anonymity hangs over it.
Read the complete Ensemble minier du n°9 de Béthune write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ensemble minier du n°9 de Béthune is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de Tournai.
Tournai is one of the oldest towns in Belgium, and it does not shout about it. Sitting on the Scheldt, which the French-speaking locals call the Escaut, it was a Roman settlement, then the first capital of the Franks: Childeric I, father of Clovis, was buried here, and when his tomb was found in 1653 it yielded gold, jewels and hundreds of golden bees that later inspired Napoleon's imperial emblem. The belfry on the Grand-Place was begun in the late twelfth century and is considered the oldest in the country. Climb its two hundred and fifty-odd steps and you look down on a town of grey stone and slate, and straight across at the five towers of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, a Romanesque and Gothic giant listed by UNESCO in its own right.
Read the complete Beffroi de Tournai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Tournai comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes.
Beneath the fields south-east of Mons lies a honeycomb of shafts and galleries dug by Neolithic farmers more than six thousand years ago. They were after flint, the essential raw material for axes and tools, and they dug shafts up to fifteen metres deep through the chalk to reach the best seams, using antler picks and stone hammers. The mines at Spiennes, covering more than a hundred hectares, are the largest and earliest in north-western Europe, and they were inscribed by UNESCO in 2000. An interpretation centre allows visitors to descend into one of the shafts, and on the surface the ground is still scattered with flint flakes.
Read the complete Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 125 km into the recorded legs you reach Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes. Next is back through Beffroi de Tournai.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Tournai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de Tournai, late in the day. Next is Ensemble minier du n°9 de Béthune.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier du n°9 de Béthune write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Ensemble minier du n°9 de Béthune. That is the ride.
Ensemble minier du n°9 de Béthune → Beffroi de Tournai is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Tournai → Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes → back through Beffroi de Tournai is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de Tournai → Ensemble minier du n°9 de Béthune is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.