Why this ride
264 km from Auchel to Auchel, about 4 h 14 of riding. It goes by way of Cité des Petits Bois, Fosse n°2 de Flines, Château Dampierre and Cités de Guesnain. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Monument aux morts and Cités de Guesnain
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 264 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 14
- 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 aux morts
In the centre of Auchel, the war memorial stands as it does in every French town and village, listing the names of the men who died in the First and Second World Wars, and in mining towns these lists are often heartbreakingly long. But the memorials of the coalfield have a particular resonance, because the front line of the First World War ran through the edge of the mining basin, only a few kilometres east of here. The Germans occupied Lens and the eastern pits for most of the war, and when they withdrew in 1918, they flooded and sabotaged the mines, which took years to restore. Auchel and the western towns, on the Allied side, kept producing coal for the war effort under constant pressure.
Read the complete Monument aux morts write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Monument aux morts is where the day begins. Next is Cité des Petits Bois.
2. Cité des Petits Bois
There is a particular kind of street in the old coalfield that outsiders mistake for suburban normality. Rows of identical brick houses, each with a small front garden, line a gently curving road, with a school at one end and a church at the other. These are the cités, built by the mining companies to house their workers, and the Cité des Petits Bois at Liévin is one of them. It belongs to the same family as the cités of the Solitude, named on this ride, and together they tell how a company could organise the life of its men from cradle to pit head.
Read the complete Cité des Petits Bois write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cité des Petits Bois comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fosse n°2 de Flines.
3. Fosse n°2 de Flines
The headframe is the giveaway. In the low, watery country between Lallaing, Anhiers and Flines-lez-Raches, the steel or concrete winding towers of old coal pits still stand as markers, and Fosse n°2 de Flines is one of the sites that recall the industry that shaped this corner of the Douai area. A fosse in the local vocabulary is a pit with its shafts, buildings and spoil heap, and around each one a small world grew: rows of brick housing, a church, a school, and the company offices that ran the lives of everyone underground and above it.
Read the complete Fosse n°2 de Flines write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 63 km into the recorded legs you reach Fosse n°2 de Flines. Next is Château Dampierre.
4. Château Dampierre
Anzin, on the northern edge of Valenciennes, is where coal mining in northern France began on an industrial scale. In the eighteenth century, the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin became one of the largest companies in France, and its mines, workers' housing, slag heaps and buildings shaped the landscape of the region. Château Dampierre is one of the buildings linked to that history, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, inscribed in 2012, which preserves more than a hundred sites across a vast area: pits, headframes, miners' cités, churches, schools and the great black spoil heaps known as terrils. The big miners' strike at Anzin in 1884 helped inspire Émile Zola's novel Germinal.
Read the complete Château Dampierre write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Château Dampierre, about halfway. Next is Cités de Guesnain.
5. Cités de Guesnain
A kilometre down the road from the workers' housing of Guesnain stands the best place in France to understand what coal really meant. The Centre Historique Minier at Lewarde occupies the old Delloye pit, which closed in 1971, and it walks you through the whole life of a mine: the lamp room, the showers where miners hung their clothes on chains up to the ceiling, the stables for the pit ponies, and a reconstructed gallery underground where you hear the noise of the picks and the creak of the props. Come here first, and every terrace and terril you pass afterwards will make more sense.
Read the complete Cités de Guesnain write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cités de Guesnain sits at 137 km, about halfway. Next is back through Château Dampierre.
6. back through Château Dampierre
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château Dampierre write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Château Dampierre comes up about 164 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Fosse n°2 de Flines.
7. back through Fosse n°2 de Flines
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fosse n°2 de Flines write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 198 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Fosse n°2 de Flines. Next is back through Cité des Petits Bois.
8. back through Cité des Petits Bois
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité des Petits Bois write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Cité des Petits Bois, late in the day. Next is Monument aux morts.
9. Monument aux morts
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monument aux morts write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 264 km.
Leg by leg
Monument aux morts to Cité des Petits Bois
Monument aux morts → Cité des Petits Bois is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité des Petits Bois to Fosse n°2 de Flines
Cité des Petits Bois → Fosse n°2 de Flines is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fosse n°2 de Flines to Château Dampierre
Fosse n°2 de Flines → Château Dampierre is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château Dampierre to Cités de Guesnain
Château Dampierre → Cités de Guesnain is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de Guesnain to back through Château Dampierre
Cités de Guesnain → back through Château Dampierre is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Château Dampierre to back through Fosse n°2 de Flines
back through Château Dampierre → back through Fosse n°2 de Flines is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fosse n°2 de Flines to back through Cité des Petits Bois
back through Fosse n°2 de Flines → back through Cité des Petits Bois is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité des Petits Bois to Monument aux morts
back through Cité des Petits Bois → Monument aux morts is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.