Why this ride
A 68 km round trip from Vendin-le-Vieil - roughly 1 h 21 in the saddle. On the way it passes Cités de la Justice et du Moulin, Cité Barrois and back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi and Cité Barrois
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 68 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 1 h 21
- 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. 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 Cités de la Justice et du Moulin.
2. Cités de la Justice et du Moulin
For almost three centuries, coal shaped the land between Valenciennes and Béthune in northern France, creating a landscape of pits, slag heaps, railway lines and miners' housing estates. The Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2012, and the Cités de la Justice et du Moulin in Auby are part of it: rows of brick houses built by the mining companies to house their workers, with gardens, churches, schools and shops, all organised around the pit. The cités are still inhabited, so treat them as neighbourhoods rather than museums.
Read the complete Cités de la Justice et du Moulin write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cités de la Justice et du Moulin comes up about 18 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cité Barrois.
3. Cité Barrois
Rows of red-brick cottages, each with its garden, set along curving streets with trees: the Cité Barrois in Pecquencourt looks almost English, and that is no accident. In the later years of the coal era, the mining companies of northern France built garden cities for their workers, influenced by ideas from across the Channel about healthy housing and green space. This one is part of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012 as an entire landscape of pits, slag heaps, workers' housing, schools, churches and railways spread over more than a hundred kilometres.
Read the complete Cité Barrois write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 34 km into the recorded legs you reach Cité Barrois. Next is back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin.
4. back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de la Justice et du Moulin write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin, 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 Cités de la Justice et du Moulin
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi → Cités de la Justice et du Moulin is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Justice et du Moulin to Cité Barrois
Cités de la Justice et du Moulin → Cité Barrois is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité Barrois to back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin
Cité Barrois → back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin to Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi
back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.