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.
315 km from Billy-Montigny to Billy-Montigny, about 5 h 27 of riding. The stops in between: Hôtel de ville, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la and Beffroi de Bergues. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
On 10 March 1906 a fire in a pit at Courrières, a few kilometres from here, set off a coal-dust explosion that ran through the galleries of three linked mines and killed 1,099 men and boys. It is the worst mining disaster in European history. Rescue teams came from Germany's Westphalian coalfield and worked alongside French crews, a rare moment of cooperation between two countries that would be at war within a decade. Twenty days after the explosion, thirteen survivors were found alive, which astonished the country. The disaster led to strikes and a national debate on safety and the role of the state, with the interior minister, Georges Clemenceau, sending troops to the area, and it changed mining law in France.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- is where the day begins. Next is Hôtel de ville.
Bruay-la-Buissière is a mining town that grew from almost nothing into a busy industrial centre in less than a century, and its town hall, an imposing building in the heart of town, is a statement of that civic pride. The label points to the Hôtel de ville, one of the many urban and public buildings of the mining era that are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site. It sits on the western end of the coalfield, where the plain begins to rise towards the chalk hills of Artois.
Read the complete Hôtel de ville write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hôtel de ville comes up about 32 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul.
Bailleul sits in French Flanders, so close to the Belgian border that you can hear Flemish place names on every signpost, and its town hall belfry, rising over the main square with a pointed spire and a carillon, looks every bit as Flemish as the towers of Ypres or Bruges. Like much of the town, it is a rebuilding: Bailleul was almost entirely destroyed in the spring of 1918, during the German offensive in Flanders, and was reconstructed in the 1920s in a neo-Flemish style of brick, stepped gables and decorative stonework. The belfry is one of the belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 76 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la-.
Aire-sur-la-Lys is the kind of small French town that rewards a slow walk with no plan. Its belfry rises from the eighteenth-century town hall on the Grand Place, an elegant classical building topped by a tall tower with a lantern and a carillon, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France. Across the square stands the Bailliage, a richly decorated Renaissance building from around 1600, with arches, carved figures and a little loggia, which once housed the guard and the town's officials. A few streets away, the great collegiate church of Saint-Pierre, built in a flamboyant Gothic style, rises above the rooftops.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la- write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la-, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de Bergues.
Bergues found a new kind of fame in 2008, when the comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, filmed here, became one of the most successful French films of all time, and suddenly the whole country wanted to see the town where a postman from the south is exiled to the cold north and ends up falling in love with it. The film's best-known scenes include the belfry, from which the hero rings the carillon, and the town still welcomes visitors who come in search of the locations. But Bergues was a proud place long before cinema arrived. It is a small fortified town in French Flanders, surrounded by ramparts and canals, with fortifications improved by Vauban in the seventeenth century.
Read the complete Beffroi de Bergues write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Bergues sits at 162 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la-.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la- write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la- comes up about 211 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 241 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul. Next is back through Hôtel de ville.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hôtel de ville write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hôtel de ville, late in the day. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières-.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 315 km.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- → Hôtel de ville is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hôtel de ville → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la- is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la- → Beffroi de Bergues is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Bergues → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la- is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la- → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bailleul → back through Hôtel de ville is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hôtel de ville → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.