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.
From Billy-Montigny it runs 163 km to Billy-Montigny; allow about 2 h 56 of riding. The stops in between: La citadella d’Arras, Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7, Terril 34 and back through Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7. 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 La citadella d’Arras.
The people of Arras call their citadel la belle inutile, the beautiful useless one, and they say it with affection. Vauban built it in the late seventeenth century, after Louis XIV took Artois from Spain, as part of the chain of fortresses meant to lock France's northern border. Its star-shaped ramparts, bastions and moats are textbook Vauban, but the border moved north before the fortress ever saw a serious siege, hence the nickname. It is one of the twelve sites grouped as the Fortifications of Vauban on the UNESCO list since 2008. Its later history is darker: during the Second World War, the Germans executed resistance fighters in the moat, and a memorial there lists their names.
Read the complete La citadella d’Arras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La citadella d’Arras comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7.
Picture a pit village at six in the morning in 1950: men walking to the headframe with their lunch tins, the siren calling the shift, the women already up and stoking the stoves, children getting ready for the company school. The ensemble around Fosse n°7, near Maisnil-lès-Ruitz and Barlin, preserves the setting for that daily routine: the pit buildings, the housing, the paths between them, and the terril rising nearby. It was a self-contained world, owned and run by the mining company, which provided houses, coal for heating, schools, churches and even doctors, in exchange for loyalty and hard work. The site is one of the many components of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin on the UNESCO list.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 57 km into the recorded legs you reach Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7. Next is Terril 34.
A terril is a slag heap, a mountain of waste rock dumped beside a coal mine, and in the flat land of northern France these man-made hills are the closest thing to relief for miles around. Terril 34 is one of hundreds that dot the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, a UNESCO site since 2012, which recognises not only the heaps but also the pithead frames, miners' housing estates, schools, churches and railway lines that made up the landscape of coal mining in the region for nearly three centuries. This one sits near Norrent-Fontes and Lillers, at the western end of the basin, where it meets the chalk hills of Artois.
Read the complete Terril 34 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 34, about halfway. Next is back through Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 sits at 109 km, about halfway. Next is back through La citadella d’Arras.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La citadella d’Arras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La citadella d’Arras comes up about 139 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- closes the day.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- → La citadella d’Arras is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La citadella d’Arras → Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 → Terril 34 is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 34 → back through Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ensemble minier de la fosse n°7 → back through La citadella d’Arras is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La citadella d’Arras → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.