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.
A 149 km round trip from Grenay - roughly 2 h 34 in the saddle. The stops in between: Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille, Belfort en Stadhuis and back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Take any road across the Artois plain around Grenay and you will see the shape of the mining basin on the skyline: conical slag heaps, called terrils, rising out of the farmland and cités, and tall brick pit-head buildings that once housed the winding gear. This area lies between Lens and Béthune, in a district called the Gohelle, and it was mined intensively from the nineteenth century until the last pit closed in 1990. The Grenay and Mazingarbe sites are part of the UNESCO-listed mining basin, which recognises both the buildings and the landscape, and the way company housing, railways and spoil heaps shaped one another.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi is where the day begins. Next is Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image.
Oignies holds a special place in the history of northern France: it is where coal mining in the Pas-de-Calais began and where it ended. In 1842, coal was found here during a search for water on the estate of a local landowner, Henriette de Clercq, starting a rush that transformed the region. And on 21 December 1990, the last tonne of coal in the Nord-Pas de Calais basin was brought up from the 9-9bis pit in Oignies, ending more than two and a half centuries of mining in the region. The old Fosse n°2 and its mine-image, a training gallery where young miners learned their trade above ground, are part of the World Heritage site.
Read the complete Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille.
Lille's town hall belfry is a child of the twentieth century. After the old town hall was lost, the architect Émile Dubuisson built a new one in the 1920s and early 1930s in a working-class district south of the centre, and its belfry, rising about 104 metres, is the tallest civic belfry in Europe. Built of reinforced concrete and brick in an Art Deco reinterpretation of the Flemish tradition, it is part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France, a group that celebrates the towers built by towns to symbolise their freedom and civic pride.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 50 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille. Next is Belfort en Stadhuis.
British soldiers marching to the front in the First World War left Ypres by the road that led east towards Menen, and the gate they passed through became the Menin Gate, now a memorial bearing the names of more than fifty thousand soldiers with no known grave. Menen itself, about twenty kilometres from Ypres, sits right on the French border, on the river Leie, which the French call the Lys, and its town hall and belfry, standing on the market square, are part of the UNESCO listing of the belfries of Belgium and France. The belfry, like much of the town, was damaged in the war and rebuilt, and it remains the proud symbol of the town's civic history.
Read the complete Belfort en Stadhuis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Belfort en Stadhuis, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille sits at 99 km, about halfway. Next is back through Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image comes up about 125 km into the recorded legs. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi closes the day.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi → Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille → Belfort en Stadhuis is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfort en Stadhuis → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille → back through Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ancienne Fosse n°2 et mine-image → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.