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.
From Douvrin it runs 191 km to Douvrin; allow about 2 h 47 of riding. It goes by way of Terril 140, Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain, Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm and back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain. 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 Terril 140.
Rising out of the flat fields north of Douai, the black, cone-shaped hill of Terril 140 is not a natural feature at all: it is a heap of mining waste, the spoil left over from decades of coal extraction. The mining basin of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, listed by UNESCO in 2012 as a cultural landscape, is studded with hundreds of these terrils, some flat-topped, some pointed, and together with the pitheads, workers' housing and railways they tell the story of an industry that shaped the region for nearly three centuries.
Read the complete Terril 140 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 140 comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain.
Escaudain sits in the old heartland of the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin, the oldest and once the most powerful of the coal companies in northern France, and the landscape around it is pure mining country: rows of brick terraces, spoil heaps, old railway embankments and the occasional headframe standing like a monument. This is the Valenciennes end of the coalfield, close to the Belgian border, and it was here that coal mining in the north began in the eighteenth century. The town and its surroundings form one of the many components of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, which UNESCO inscribed in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 59 km into the recorded legs you reach Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain. Next is Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm.
In 1757, a group of aristocrats and entrepreneurs founded the Compagnie des Mines d'Anzin to work the coal seams found under the plains near Valenciennes. It grew into one of the largest industrial companies in France, owning dozens of pits, thousands of workers' houses and its own schools, churches and shops. The ensemble here at Fresnes-sur-Escaut, close to the Belgian border, includes buildings connected with the company's long history, and it is part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
Read the complete Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm, about halfway. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain sits at 104 km, about halfway. Next is back through Terril 140.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 140 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Terril 140 comes up about 161 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Fosse n°5 closes the day.
Fosse n°5 → Terril 140 is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 140 → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain → Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain → back through Terril 140 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril 140 → Fosse n°5 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.