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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Escaudain it runs 250 km to Escaudain; allow about 4 h 19 of riding. On the way it passes Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes, Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict and back through Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. Long stretches are under trees.
Lourches is a small mining town in the Nord department, on the banks of the Escaut river, between Denain and Valenciennes, in the heart of the old coal mining basin that stretched across northern France. The memorial named after Charles Mathieu is one of the elements listed as part of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin UNESCO site, alongside pitheads, slag heaps, miners' housing and the buildings of the mining companies.
Read the complete Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu is where the day begins. Next is Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes.
Beneath the fields south-east of Mons lies a honeycomb of shafts and galleries dug by Neolithic farmers more than six thousand years ago. They were after flint, the essential raw material for axes and tools, and they dug shafts up to fifteen metres deep through the chalk to reach the best seams, using antler picks and stone hammers. The mines at Spiennes, covering more than a hundred hectares, are the largest and earliest in north-western Europe, and they were inscribed by UNESCO in 2000. An interpretation centre allows visitors to descend into one of the shafts, and on the surface the ground is still scattered with flint flakes.
Read the complete Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict.
The beeches in the Sonian Forest grow so tall and straight that people call it the cathedral forest, and once you stand under them on a misty autumn morning the name stops sounding like tourist talk. This great woodland on the southeastern edge of Brussels covers thousands of hectares, and most of the famous columns of grey trunks were planted in the late eighteenth century, when the Austrian Habsburgs ruled these lands and their foresters reshaped the old wood. A few patches, including the Tict reserve near La Hulpe and Waterloo, are left to grow wild with no felling at all, and they form part of the UNESCO listing for the ancient and primeval beech forests of Europe, a chain of reserves stretching across the continent.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 125 km into the recorded legs you reach Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict. Next is back through Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes, late in the day. Next is Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu. That is the ride.
Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu → Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes → Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → back through Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes → Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.