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 152 km round trip from Bruay-la-Buissière - roughly 2 h 20 in the saddle. On the way it passes Temple protestant, Cités de la Justice et du Moulin, Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain and back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin. 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 Temple protestant.
Liévin is a town of thirty-four thousand people that grew up around coal, and the Protestant temple on its streets is a small reminder of how mixed the mining population was. The pits drew workers from Belgium, Poland, Italy and North Africa as well as from the French countryside, and the mining companies built churches, schools, shops and entire districts for them. In a region that was overwhelmingly Catholic, a temple stood a little apart, and its quiet presence says something about the way the basin took in newcomers.
Read the complete Temple protestant write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple protestant comes up about 22 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 45 km into the recorded legs you reach Cités de la Justice et du Moulin. 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.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain, about halfway. Next is back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin sits at 107 km, about halfway. Next is back through Temple protestant.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Temple protestant write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Temple protestant comes up about 128 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Hôtel de ville closes the day.
Hôtel de ville → Temple protestant is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Temple protestant → Cités de la Justice et du Moulin is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Justice et du Moulin → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain → back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin → back through Temple protestant is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Temple protestant → Hôtel de ville is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.