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.
311 km from Douvrin to Douvrin, about 5 h 46 of riding. It goes by way of Terril 14, Beffroi de porte de Lucheux, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin and Beffroi de Saint-Riquier. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 Terril 14.
Auchel lies on the western rim of the coalfield, where the black seams run out against the chalk hills of the Artois, and Terril 14 rises above the town and its neighbour Marles-les-Mines as a long, dark ridge softened by birch and grass. The heap is built of shale and waste rock brought up from the pits of the old company that worked this corner of the basin, and like many of the terrils, it has been left to nature since mining ended. Its slopes are now home to plants that love warm, dry ground, and the summit offers a view over the rooftops of the mining towns toward the green hills to the west. It belongs to the vast mining landscape listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Terril 14 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 14 comes up 41 km in. 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.
82 km in you reach Beffroi de porte de Lucheux. 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, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de Saint-Riquier.
Saint-Riquier is a small village in the Somme, a few kilometres from Abbeville, and it punches far above its weight. In the early Middle Ages it was the site of Centula, one of the most important monasteries of the Carolingian empire, ruled by Angilbert, a courtier and son-in-law of Charlemagne, who made it a centre of learning and prayer with hundreds of monks. The great abbey church you see today is later, a Gothic building with a richly carved facade, but the scale of the place still reflects that history. The belfry, a solid square tower in the village, was a symbol of the townspeople's rights and is one of the belfries listed by UNESCO in Belgium and France.
Read the complete Beffroi de Saint-Riquier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Saint-Riquier sits at 163 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin comes up 204 km in. 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.
245 km in you reach back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux. Next is back through Terril 14.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 14 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Terril 14, 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.
The route ends here after 311 km.
Fosse n°5 → Terril 14 is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 14 → Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 47 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 → Beffroi de Saint-Riquier is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Saint-Riquier → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through 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 Terril 14 is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril 14 → Fosse n°5 is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.