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.
63 km from Douvrin to Douvrin, about 1 h 03 of riding. It goes by way of Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras and back through Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval. The line favours views over speed.
Douvrin, Billy-Berclau and Wingles form a little triangle of brick towns at the northern edge of the Lens coalfield, and the old pit known as Fosse n°5 sits among them. It is not a famous site and does not need to be: its value lies in being one of the many pieces that make up the mining landscape UNESCO listed in 2012, a network of pits, housing estates, slag heaps, railways and public buildings stretching for over a hundred kilometres across the north of France. Seen from the saddle, the area is a patchwork of cités, fields, canals and newer industrial estates, with the occasional terril breaking the skyline.
Read the complete Fosse n°5 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fosse n°5 is where the day begins. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval.
The flat coalfield of northern France has one real hill near Liévin, and on top of it stand two tall white pylons carved with figures of grief. This is Vimy Ridge, taken by the Canadian Corps in April 1917, and the Canadian National Vimy Memorial looks out over the mining country below. Down on the plain, in Avion and Liévin, Pinchonval is a cité, a miners' housing estate of brick houses and gardens, and with dozens of other sites it makes up the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, a World Heritage Site since 2012.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval comes up about 16 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras.
Arras has two great squares, the Grand-Place and the Place des Héros, surrounded by tall Flemish-baroque houses with curved gables and arcades, and towering above them is the belfry of the town hall, over seventy metres high. It looks medieval, but most of it is a careful reconstruction: Arras was devastated by German artillery during the First World War, when the front line ran just east of the town for years, and the belfry was destroyed in 1914. After the war, the people of Arras rebuilt it, along with the squares, and today it is one of the belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 32 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval, late in the day. Next is Fosse n°5.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fosse n°5 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Fosse n°5. That is the ride.
Fosse n°5 → Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers des Pinchonval → Fosse n°5 is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.