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 161 km to Escaudain; allow about 2 h 47 of riding. It goes by way of Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm, Major Mining Sites of Wallonia, The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and and back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Escaudain sits in the old heartland of the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin, the oldest and once the most powerful of the coal companies in northern France, and the landscape around it is pure mining country: rows of brick terraces, spoil heaps, old railway embankments and the occasional headframe standing like a monument. This is the Valenciennes end of the coalfield, close to the Belgian border, and it was here that coal mining in the north began in the eighteenth century. The town and its surroundings form one of the many components of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, which UNESCO inscribed in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain is where the day begins. Next is Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm.
In 1757, a group of aristocrats and entrepreneurs founded the Compagnie des Mines d'Anzin to work the coal seams found under the plains near Valenciennes. It grew into one of the largest industrial companies in France, owning dozens of pits, thousands of workers' houses and its own schools, churches and shops. The ensemble here at Fresnes-sur-Escaut, close to the Belgian border, includes buildings connected with the company's long history, and it is part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
Read the complete Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Grand-Hornu, on the edge of the Borinage coalfield west of Mons, looks less like a coal mine than a neoclassical palace. In the early nineteenth century the industrialist Henri De Gorge built it as a model colliery, with workshops, offices and stables arranged around a vast oval courtyard of brick arches, and hundreds of houses for workers, each with its own garden, laid out in streets around it. It was a revolutionary idea at the time, combining industry and housing in one planned complex. Mining ended in the mid-twentieth century, and after years of neglect the site was restored. Today it houses a museum of contemporary art and a design centre, and it is one of the four Major Mining Sites of Wallonia listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 52 km into the recorded legs you reach Major Mining Sites of Wallonia. Next is The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and.
Picture a barge sitting in a huge iron tank full of water, rising more than fifteen metres into the air while another tank, counterweighted, sinks beside it. That is what happens at the four hydraulic boat lifts on the old Canal du Centre in Hainaut, built between the 1880s and 1917 to carry boats over a steep change in level between the basins of the Meuse and the Scheldt. They were engineering marvels in their day, cast-iron and steel giants powered by water pressure, and they are still in working order, though now mostly used by pleasure boats. UNESCO listed them, along with their surroundings, in 1998.
Read the complete The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and, about halfway. Next is back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia sits at 107 km, about halfway. Next is back through Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm comes up about 137 km into the recorded legs. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain closes the day.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain → Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm → Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Four Lifts on the Canal du Centre and → back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → back through Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.