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: 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.
A 79 km round trip from Fresnes-sur-Escaut - roughly 1 h 21 in the saddle. The stops in between: Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle, Cités de Beaurepaire and back through Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle. The line favours views over speed.
At Condé-sur-l'Escaut, right on the Belgian border, the coal basin of northern France reaches its eastern end, and the old mining site of Chabaud-Latour shows how industry and nature have come to terms. A pit operated here for decades, and today what remains is a landscape of slag heaps, ponds formed by mining subsidence, woods and wetlands, part of the UNESCO site of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat is where the day begins. Next is Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle.
France's coalfield is a long, narrow band that runs from Béthune in the west to the Belgian border in the east, and at its eastern end, around Valenciennes, the ground still carries traces of the first mines. The Anzin company, which controlled much of this area in the nineteenth century, dug shafts, built pumping stations and laid out workers' housing, and in 1884 Émile Zola came to the district to research Germinal, his great novel of a miners' strike. The ensemble at La Sentinelle includes the old pumping engine house of the Sarteau pit, a survivor from that early industrial age, and the nearby Cités de Beaurepaire, rows of company housing for miners and their families. The whole mining basin was listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle comes up about 15 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cités de Beaurepaire.
Somain exists because of the railway. Several lines meet here, and the town grew up around the station, which still has the busy feel of a junction. The Cités de Beaurepaire were built by the Aniche mining company, one of the great concerns of the northern coalfield, and they show how a company could shape a landscape: neat brick rows, small squares, a few shared buildings, and gardens laid out to a plan. A local will tell you who lived in which house and which families still do; an outsider notices the symmetry first, and then the small signs of individuality, a painted door, a trellis, a satellite dish pointing the wrong way.
Read the complete Cités de Beaurepaire write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 39 km into the recorded legs you reach Cités de Beaurepaire. Next is back through Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle, late in the day. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat. That is the ride.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat → Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle → Cités de Beaurepaire is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de Beaurepaire → back through Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ensemble minier de La Sentinelle → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Chabaud-Lat is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.