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.
66 km from Oignies to Oignies, about 1 h 16 of riding. It goes by way of Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de, Cité des Soeurs and back through Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Oignies is a small town in the Pas-de-Calais, at the edge of the old coal basin near the border with the Nord, with a monument at its heart to the people who lived and died by the pits.
Read the complete Monument à Madame Declercq write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monument à Madame Declercq is where the day begins. Next is Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de.
Every mining company in the north of France needed an office, and the one that held the pay books, maps and plans of the Lens pits needed a large one. The Grands Bureaux of the Société des Mines de Lens stand in the middle of the town as a monument to an organisation that employed tens of thousands of men and controlled whole districts: the housing, the schools, the shops, the churches and the clinics were all in the company's gift. The building was part of the reconstruction after the First World War, when the town had been reduced to rubble and the company set about rebuilding its pits and its headquarters in brick and stone.
Read the complete Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de comes up about 15 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cité des Soeurs.
At the western edge of the coalfield, where the plain of the mining basin starts to buckle into the chalk hills of Artois, the town of Barlin grew up around its pits. The Cité des Soeurs is one of its housing estates, rows of brick miners' houses with gardens, and Terril 244, a slag heap now furred with trees, stands nearby like a man-made hill. Both belong to the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage Site, which covers more than a hundred kilometres of coal country from the Belgian border westwards.
Read the complete Cité des Soeurs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 34 km into the recorded legs you reach Cité des Soeurs. Next is back through Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de, late in the day. Next is Monument à Madame Declercq.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monument à Madame Declercq write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Monument à Madame Declercq. That is the ride.
Monument à Madame Declercq → Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de → Cité des Soeurs is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité des Soeurs → back through Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Grands Bureaux de la Société des Mines de → Monument à Madame Declercq is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.