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.
From Auchel it runs 148 km to Auchel; allow about 2 h 19 of riding. It goes by way of Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d, Terrils 87 et 92, Cités Sainte-Marie and back through Terrils 87 et 92. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monument aux morts is where the day begins. Next is Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d.
In the mining towns of northern France, the companies built not only pits and houses but whole communities, with churches, schools, dispensaries and, after the First World War, monuments to the dead. This war memorial and the iron gates of a mining cité in Mazingarbe are small parts of that story, included in the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site. They stand among rows of brick houses, gardens and allotments in a town shaped by coal.
Read the complete Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Terrils 87 et 92.
From a distance they look like hills, which in this flat country is reason enough to stare. The terrils numbered 87 and 92, on the edge of Noyelles-Godault and Dourges next to Hénin-Beaumont, are spoil heaps from the coal mines of the Nord-Pas de Calais basin, made of the shale and rock that came up with the coal over a century and more of mining. They are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2012 as a whole cultural landscape: pits, headframes, miners' housing, schools, churches and these artificial black mountains, more than a hundred of which are protected.
Read the complete Terrils 87 et 92 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 50 km into the recorded legs you reach Terrils 87 et 92. Next is Cités Sainte-Marie.
Pecquencourt sits on the edge of the Scarpe valley east of Douai, where the coal basin meets a land of marshes, ponds and forests, and the Cités Sainte-Marie are rows of miners' houses built for the workers of the nearby Sainte-Marie pit. Like many mining settlements, they follow a regular pattern, with brick houses in pairs or rows, gardens at the back and wide streets, designed by the company to house its workforce and keep them close to the pit. They are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
Read the complete Cités Sainte-Marie write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités Sainte-Marie, about halfway. Next is back through Terrils 87 et 92.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terrils 87 et 92 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Terrils 87 et 92 sits at 99 km, about halfway. Next is back through Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d comes up about 122 km into the recorded legs. Next is Monument aux morts.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monument aux morts write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monument aux morts closes the day.
Monument aux morts → Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d → Terrils 87 et 92 is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terrils 87 et 92 → Cités Sainte-Marie is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités Sainte-Marie → back through Terrils 87 et 92 is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terrils 87 et 92 → back through Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d → Monument aux morts is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.