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.
153 km from Bruay-la-Buissière to Bruay-la-Buissière, about 2 h 20 of riding. It goes by way of Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin, 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.
In Bruay-la-Buissière, the streets of one mining estate carry the names of composers, which is where the Cités des Musiciens get their name. The mining company laid out housing in neat rows of brick, with gardens, pavements and modest decorative touches, and gave the lanes names such as Mozart, Berlioz and Bizet, a gesture that mixes paternalism with a certain poetry. Whether the miners cared much about the choice is another question, but the estates have a distinctive atmosphere, and they are listed by UNESCO as part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin.
Read the complete Les cités des Musiciens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les cités des Musiciens is where the day begins. Next is Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin.
Number 1 bis at Liévin was one of the shafts of the old Compagnie des mines de Liévin, and its headframe still stands, a lean tower against a sky that is often low and grey. It is protected as part of the Mining Basin World Heritage Site, listed in 2012, together with the terrils, the cités and a hundred or so other elements across the old coalfield. What strikes you is how ordinary it looks, a plain frame in an urban setting, and yet it stands for generations of men who went down in cages and came back up with faces black with coal.
Read the complete Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin comes up about 23 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 46 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 Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin comes up about 129 km into the recorded legs. Next is Les cités des Musiciens.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Les cités des Musiciens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les cités des Musiciens closes the day.
Les cités des Musiciens → Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin → 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 Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chevalement du n°1 bis de Liévin → Les cités des Musiciens is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.