Why this ride
From Vendin-le-Vieil it runs 236 km to Vendin-le-Vieil; allow about 4 h 18 of riding. The stops in between: Beffroi de porte de Lucheux, Beffroi de Rue and back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi and Beffroi de Rue
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 236 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 18
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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. Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi
Flat country hides its stories well, and the strip of land around Vendin-le-Vieil, Pont-à-Vendin and Annay looks at first like any other piece of French Flanders suburbia: rows of brick houses, a canal, a few fields, a tangle of roads. Look again and the pattern reveals itself. The terraced streets are company housing, laid out by mining firms for their workers, and the low hills on the horizon are not hills at all but spoil heaps from the pits that once ran under this ground. The whole Nord-Pas de Calais coal basin was listed by UNESCO in 2012 as a living cultural landscape, and the area around Auchy-les-Mines and its neighbours is part of that long chain of pits, cités and terrils stretching across the north of France.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.
2. Beffroi de porte de Lucheux
Lucheux is a small village in a wooded valley in the north of the Somme, close to the border with the Pas-de-Calais, and its belfry is something of an oddity. Rather than rising above a town hall or a market square, as in the larger towns of Flanders and Picardy, it is built into a fortified gateway, a stout stone tower straddling the road through the village. It is part of the group of belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO, a symbol of the civic freedoms that towns and villages won from their feudal lords in the Middle Ages. Above the village stand the ruins of a castle that belonged to the Counts of Saint-Pol, with a great hall and towers in a romantic state of decay.
Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux comes up 67 km in. Next is Beffroi de Rue.
3. Beffroi de Rue
Rue is a small town of three thousand people that used to be a seaport, and the belfry in the middle of it is one of the reasons it still feels more important than its size suggests. Over centuries the Baie de Somme silted up and the sea pulled back, leaving Rue stranded a few kilometres inland among salt meadows and polders, but the stone tower that once watched the harbour still stands over the square. It is part of the group of belfries of Belgium and northern France on the UNESCO list, symbols of civic freedom built by towns that wanted the world to know they governed themselves.
Read the complete Beffroi de Rue write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
134 km in you reach Beffroi de Rue. Next is back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.
4. back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux 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 porte de Lucheux, late in the day. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi.
5. Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi to Beffroi de porte de Lucheux
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi → Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux to Beffroi de Rue
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → Beffroi de Rue is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Beffroi de Rue to back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux
Beffroi de Rue → back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux to Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi
back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.