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 Harnes it runs 245 km to Harnes; allow about 4 h 13 of riding. The stops in between: Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, Béguinage de Kortrijk and back through Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Estevelles is a small town where the mining basin meets the waterways of the Deûle, between Pont-à-Vendin and Carvin. The label points to one of the mining ensembles of the area, part of the UNESCO-listed basin: a pit, a cité, perhaps a spoil heap, all together telling the story of how coal shaped every aspect of local life. The mining companies built not only houses but churches, schools, health centres and gardens, controlling their workers' lives from cradle to grave. The cités around here, with their neat rows of brick houses and small vegetable gardens, still house many descendants of miners.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e is where the day begins. Next is Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin.
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 comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 123 km into the recorded legs you reach Béguinage de Kortrijk. Next is back through 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 through Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, late in the day. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e. That is the ride.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e → Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
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 → back through Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.