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 70 km round trip from Denain - roughly 1 h 06 in the saddle. On the way it passes Cités Sainte-Marie, Cités de la Justice et du Moulin and back through Cités Sainte-Marie. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The name on the label belongs to the most famous pit in the whole northern coalfield. Fosse Delloye, at Lewarde a short ride west of here, closed in 1971 and became the Centre Historique Minier, France's largest mining museum, where former miners once guided visitors through reconstructed galleries and the old lamp rooms, showers and machine halls still stand as they were left. The point itself, though, sits beside Denain on the Escaut, and Denain deserves a story of its own.
Read the complete Fosse Delloye write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fosse Delloye 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 18 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cités de la Justice et du Moulin.
For almost three centuries, coal shaped the land between Valenciennes and Béthune in northern France, creating a landscape of pits, slag heaps, railway lines and miners' housing estates. The Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2012, and the Cités de la Justice et du Moulin in Auby are part of it: rows of brick houses built by the mining companies to house their workers, with gardens, churches, schools and shops, all organised around the pit. The cités are still inhabited, so treat them as neighbourhoods rather than museums.
Read the complete Cités de la Justice et du Moulin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 35 km into the recorded legs you reach Cités de la Justice et du Moulin. 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 Fosse Delloye.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fosse Delloye write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Fosse Delloye. That is the ride.
Fosse Delloye → Cités Sainte-Marie is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités Sainte-Marie → Cités de la Justice et du Moulin is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Justice et du Moulin → back through Cités Sainte-Marie is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités Sainte-Marie → Fosse Delloye is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.