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.
286 km from Bruay-la-Buissière to Bruay-la-Buissière, about 4 h 56 of riding. It goes by way of Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e, Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage, Cité du Rivage ancienne and Beffroi de Mons. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Bruay-la-Buissière is a mining town that grew from almost nothing into a busy industrial centre in less than a century, and its town hall, an imposing building in the heart of town, is a statement of that civic pride. The label points to the Hôtel de ville, one of the many urban and public buildings of the mining era that are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site. It sits on the western end of the coalfield, where the plain begins to rise towards the chalk hills of Artois.
Read the complete Hôtel de ville write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hôtel de ville is where the day begins. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e.
Estevelles is a small town where the mining basin meets the waterways of the Deûle, between Pont-à-Vendin and Carvin. The label points to one of the mining ensembles of the area, part of the UNESCO-listed basin: a pit, a cité, perhaps a spoil heap, all together telling the story of how coal shaped every aspect of local life. The mining companies built not only houses but churches, schools, health centres and gardens, controlling their workers' lives from cradle to grave. The cités around here, with their neat rows of brick houses and small vegetable gardens, still house many descendants of miners.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage.
Coal made this corner of northern France, and coal left it with a landscape unlike anywhere else in the country: slag heaps rising like black pyramids from the fields, pithead frames standing over old shafts and long rows of brick miners' houses lining the streets of every town. The Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin was listed by UNESCO in 2012, and the Cités du Champ Fleuri et du Garage, near Masny and Lewarde, are among its typical housing estates, built by mining companies to house workers and their families close to the pits.
Read the complete Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage. Next is Cité du Rivage ancienne.
Brick terraced houses, small gardens and a straight street running toward the Escaut: at first glance the Cité du Rivage in Bruay-sur-l'Escaut looks like any working-class neighbourhood in northern France. It is part of something much larger. In 2012, UNESCO listed the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, a landscape of pit villages, headframes, slag heaps and railways stretching over a hundred kilometres, as a monument to three centuries of coal. This cité is one of its many fragments, an early housing development built by the mining companies to keep their workers close to the pits.
Read the complete Cité du Rivage ancienne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité du Rivage ancienne, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de Mons.
Belgium has many belfries, but only one in the baroque style, and it rises above Mons on the hill where the medieval castle stood. Built in the seventeenth century, it is about eighty-seven metres tall, with a carillon of forty-nine bells, and it was listed by UNESCO with the other belfries of Belgium and France. A lift takes visitors to the top, where the view stretches across the Borinage, the old coal-mining country around the city, and over the rooftops of the old town. Inside, an interpretation centre tells the story of the tower.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Mons sits at 143 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cité du Rivage ancienne.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité du Rivage ancienne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cité du Rivage ancienne comes up about 182 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 218 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e, late in the day. Next is Hôtel de ville.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hôtel de ville write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 286 km.
Hôtel de ville → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e → Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage → Cité du Rivage ancienne is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité du Rivage ancienne → Beffroi de Mons is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Mons → back through Cité du Rivage ancienne is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité du Rivage ancienne → back through Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités du Champ fleuri et du Garage → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e → Hôtel de ville is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.