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 Vieux-Condé it runs 253 km to Vieux-Condé; allow about 4 h 22 of riding. On the way it passes Béguinage de Kortrijk, Cité d’Auchy and back through Béguinage de Kortrijk. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Black hills on a flat land. That is the image most people keep of the Nord-Pas de Calais coal basin, a band of former mining country stretching about 120 kilometres from the Belgian border westward towards Béthune, where for nearly three centuries coal was dug from deep underground. The slag heaps, the terrils, rise like pyramids above the towns, and the mining villages, the cités, line the streets in rows of brick houses. In 2012 the basin was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognised as a living cultural landscape, with over three hundred elements protected.
Read the complete Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin is where the day begins. Next is Béguinage de Kortrijk.
Step through a gate off a busy street in the centre of Kortrijk and the noise falls away. The béguinage is a tiny enclosed village of whitewashed houses, cobbled lanes and a small church, founded in the thirteenth century by Countess Joan of Constantinople for the beguines, lay women who lived a religious life without taking full vows. It is one of the Flemish béguinages that UNESCO listed together in 1998, and although it is small, it has a rare atmosphere of calm. A statue of the countess stands at the entrance.
Read the complete Béguinage de Kortrijk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Béguinage de Kortrijk comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cité d’Auchy.
Rows of identical brick houses with small gardens, laid out in straight lines or gentle curves, each with its own vegetable plot and outhouse: the cité at Auchy-les-Mines is a textbook example of the miners' housing built by mining companies in northern France. The companies provided homes, schools, churches and shops, both to attract workers and to control them, and the cités, with their distinctive layouts and architecture, are a central part of the World Heritage listing of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin.
Read the complete Cité d’Auchy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 127 km into the recorded legs you reach Cité d’Auchy. Next is back through Béguinage de Kortrijk.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Béguinage de Kortrijk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Béguinage de Kortrijk, late in the day. Next is Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin. That is the ride.
Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin → Béguinage de Kortrijk is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Béguinage de Kortrijk → Cité d’Auchy is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cité d’Auchy → back through Béguinage de Kortrijk is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Béguinage de Kortrijk → Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.