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.
From Achicourt it runs 270 km to Achicourt; allow about 4 h 39 of riding. The stops in between: Fosse Delloye, Belfort en Stadhuis and back through Fosse Delloye. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The people of Arras call their citadel la belle inutile, the beautiful useless one, and they say it with affection. Vauban built it in the late seventeenth century, after Louis XIV took Artois from Spain, as part of the chain of fortresses meant to lock France's northern border. Its star-shaped ramparts, bastions and moats are textbook Vauban, but the border moved north before the fortress ever saw a serious siege, hence the nickname. It is one of the twelve sites grouped as the Fortifications of Vauban on the UNESCO list since 2008. Its later history is darker: during the Second World War, the Germans executed resistance fighters in the moat, and a memorial there lists their names.
Read the complete La citadella d’Arras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La citadella d’Arras is where the day begins. Next is Fosse Delloye.
The name on the label belongs to the most famous pit in the whole northern coalfield. Fosse Delloye, at Lewarde a short ride west of here, closed in 1971 and became the Centre Historique Minier, France's largest mining museum, where former miners once guided visitors through reconstructed galleries and the old lamp rooms, showers and machine halls still stand as they were left. The point itself, though, sits beside Denain on the Escaut, and Denain deserves a story of its own.
Read the complete Fosse Delloye write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fosse Delloye comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Belfort en Stadhuis.
British soldiers marching to the front in the First World War left Ypres by the road that led east towards Menen, and the gate they passed through became the Menin Gate, now a memorial bearing the names of more than fifty thousand soldiers with no known grave. Menen itself, about twenty kilometres from Ypres, sits right on the French border, on the river Leie, which the French call the Lys, and its town hall and belfry, standing on the market square, are part of the UNESCO listing of the belfries of Belgium and France. The belfry, like much of the town, was damaged in the war and rebuilt, and it remains the proud symbol of the town's civic history.
Read the complete Belfort en Stadhuis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 135 km into the recorded legs you reach Belfort en Stadhuis. Next is back through Fosse Delloye.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fosse Delloye write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fosse Delloye, late in the day. Next is La citadella d’Arras.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La citadella d’Arras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at La citadella d’Arras. That is the ride.
La citadella d’Arras → Fosse Delloye is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fosse Delloye → Belfort en Stadhuis is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Belfort en Stadhuis → back through Fosse Delloye is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Fosse Delloye → La citadella d’Arras is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.