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 403 km round trip from Grenay - roughly 6 h 57 in the saddle. On the way it passes Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai, Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple, Major Mining Sites of Wallonia and Petit Béguinage de Gent. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai.
The belfry of Douai rises above the town hall like a stone exclamation mark, a tall, square tower with a corner turret and a gilded lion at the top. Belfries were the symbols of medieval towns in Flanders and northern France, built to show that a town had won its freedoms, and to hold the bell that called citizens to meet, fight or put out fires. Douai's was begun in the fourteenth century and finished in the fifteenth, and it is one of the group of belfries of Belgium and France that UNESCO lists together.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple.
A steel tower with a big wheel at the top: once you have seen one headframe, you start to spot them all across the north of France, but each one marks a place where men went down into the dark. The headframe of the Fosse Dutemple, between Valenciennes and Petite-Forêt, is one of the survivors, kept as part of the UNESCO-listed Nord-Pas de Calais mining basin. Under it, cages once dropped miners hundreds of metres to the coal seams; now it stands as a monument, its pulleys still against the sky.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 73 km into the recorded legs you reach Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple. Next is Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Grand-Hornu, on the edge of the Borinage coalfield west of Mons, looks less like a coal mine than a neoclassical palace. In the early nineteenth century the industrialist Henri De Gorge built it as a model colliery, with workshops, offices and stables arranged around a vast oval courtyard of brick arches, and hundreds of houses for workers, each with its own garden, laid out in streets around it. It was a revolutionary idea at the time, combining industry and housing in one planned complex. Mining ended in the mid-twentieth century, and after years of neglect the site was restored. Today it houses a museum of contemporary art and a design centre, and it is one of the four Major Mining Sites of Wallonia listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia, about halfway. Next is Petit Béguinage de Gent.
Push open a gate off a busy Ghent street and the noise drops away. The Klein Begijnhof, the Small Béguinage, is a walled enclave of whitewashed and brick houses with stepped gables around a green courtyard and a Baroque church. Béguines were lay women who lived in community, devoted to prayer and work but without taking permanent vows, and this béguinage was founded in the thirteenth century. Most of the present buildings date from the seventeenth century. Together with other Flemish béguinages, it is on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and it remains one of the calmest places in the city.
Read the complete Petit Béguinage de Gent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Petit Béguinage de Gent sits at 202 km, about halfway. Next is back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia comes up about 293 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 329 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 403 km.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai → Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → Petit Béguinage de Gent is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Petit Béguinage de Gent → back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Douai → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Grenay-Mazi is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.