Why this ride
A 151 km round trip from Oignies - roughly 2 h 27 in the saddle. The stops in between: Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras, Cité n°10 and back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Monument à Madame Declercq and Cité n°10
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 151 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 2 h 27
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Monument à Madame Declercq
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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Monument à Madame Declercq is where the day begins. Next is Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel.
2. Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel
A dispensary may seem an odd thing to visit, but this is a monument to something remarkable. In the nineteenth century the coal companies of northern France built housing, schools, churches and clinics for their workers, partly out of paternalism and partly to keep a stable workforce, and the miners themselves set up mutual aid societies, the sociétés de secours mutuel, to pay for doctors, medicines and funerals. The dispensary at Bully-les-Mines belongs to that world of care and control, and it is one of the buildings that explain why UNESCO listed the whole mining basin in 2012. The brick architecture has a plain, solid dignity, and the sense of a community looking after its own is easy to feel.
Read the complete Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras.
3. Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras
Arras has two great squares, the Grand-Place and the Place des Héros, surrounded by tall Flemish-baroque houses with curved gables and arcades, and towering above them is the belfry of the town hall, over seventy metres high. It looks medieval, but most of it is a careful reconstruction: Arras was devastated by German artillery during the First World War, when the front line ran just east of the town for years, and the belfry was destroyed in 1914. After the war, the people of Arras rebuilt it, along with the squares, and today it is one of the belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 51 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras. Next is Cité n°10.
4. Cité n°10
Sains-en-Gohelle is a former coal town in the heart of the Nord-Pas de Calais mining basin, and Cité n°10 is one of its old mining estates, rows of brick houses built for miners and their families around a pithead. The basin, which stretches about 120 kilometres from the Belgian border towards the west, was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012, and the cités, the slag heaps and the headframes are its most visible remains.
Read the complete Cité n°10 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cité n°10, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras.
5. back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras sits at 97 km, about halfway. Next is back through Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel.
6. back through Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel comes up about 126 km into the recorded legs. Next is Monument à Madame Declercq.
7. Monument à Madame Declercq
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monument à Madame Declercq write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Monument à Madame Declercq closes the day.
Leg by leg
Monument à Madame Declercq to Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel
Monument à Madame Declercq → Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel to Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras
Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras to Cité n°10
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras → Cité n°10 is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité n°10 to back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras
Cité n°10 → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras to back through Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Arras → back through Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel to Monument à Madame Declercq
back through Dispensaire Société de Secours Mutuel → Monument à Madame Declercq is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.