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.
From Nœux-les-Mines it runs 279 km to Nœux-les-Mines; allow about 4 h 49 of riding. The stops in between: Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault, Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu, Château de l’Hermitage and Beffroi de Mons. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Noeux-les-Mines stands between Béthune and Lens, and its skyline is dominated by two things: tall slag heaps, the terrils, and the old pithead structures that survive from the coal years. It is the surviving heart of a mine, with its headframe, winding house, baths and offices, plus the housing, school and church that went with it. The UNESCO listing of 2012 includes the Noeux-les-Mines area among its many components, for the sake of the whole landscape rather than any one building.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Noeux-les- write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Noeux-les- is where the day begins. Next is Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault.
The flat country between Douai and Lens does not look like much from a motorway, but it holds one of the great industrial landscapes of Europe. For more than two centuries coal was dug from under these fields, and the mining basin of the Nord-Pas de Calais was listed by UNESCO in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape of pits, slag heaps, railway lines and workers' housing. The Fosse Cornuault at Évin-Malmaison is one piece of that vast mosaic, a former colliery site with its associated buildings, set among the brick villages of the eastern part of the basin.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu.
Lourches is a small mining town in the Nord department, on the banks of the Escaut river, between Denain and Valenciennes, in the heart of the old coal mining basin that stretched across northern France. The memorial named after Charles Mathieu is one of the elements listed as part of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin UNESCO site, alongside pitheads, slag heaps, miners' housing and the buildings of the mining companies.
Read the complete Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu. Next is Château de l’Hermitage.
On the Franco-Belgian border, in a forest that has never much cared which country it is in, a pale classical château stands in a clearing. The Château de l'Hermitage was built in the eighteenth century for the dukes of Croÿ, one of the great aristocratic families of the region, as a refined country retreat, and it sits just inside France, near Condé-sur-l'Escaut, at the edge of the forest of Bon-Secours. The family's title went back centuries, and their estates spread across both sides of what is now the border.
Read the complete Château de l’Hermitage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château de l’Hermitage, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de Mons.
Belgium has many belfries, but only one in the baroque style, and it rises above Mons on the hill where the medieval castle stood. Built in the seventeenth century, it is about eighty-seven metres tall, with a carillon of forty-nine bells, and it was listed by UNESCO with the other belfries of Belgium and France. A lift takes visitors to the top, where the view stretches across the Borinage, the old coal-mining country around the city, and over the rooftops of the old town. Inside, an interpretation centre tells the story of the tower.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Mons sits at 140 km, about halfway. Next is back through Château de l’Hermitage.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château de l’Hermitage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Château de l’Hermitage comes up about 174 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 209 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu. Next is back through Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault, late in the day. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers de Noeux-les-.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Noeux-les- write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 279 km.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Noeux-les- → Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault → Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu → Château de l’Hermitage is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château de l’Hermitage → Beffroi de Mons is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Mons → back through Château de l’Hermitage is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Château de l’Hermitage → back through Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monument commémoratif Charles Mathieu → back through Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Noeux-les- is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.