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.
A 163 km round trip from Nœux-les-Mines - roughly 3 h 01 in the saddle. On the way it passes Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt, La citadella d’Arras, Cités de la Justice et du Moulin and back through La citadella d’Arras. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt.
Drocourt lies in the middle of the basin, between Lens and Douai, and its landscape tells the story of coal on a human scale. The pit-head frames and brick buildings of the old shafts, the spoil heaps sprouting trees and the long rows of miners' houses lie almost within sight of one another, and together they are listed as part of the UNESCO Mining Basin. Nearby is the old pumping house at the Sarteau shaft, a reminder that water was always the miners' enemy, and that huge machines had to keep the workings dry day and night.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 50 km into the recorded legs you reach La citadella d’Arras. Next is Cités de la Justice et du Moulin.
For almost three centuries, coal shaped the land between Valenciennes and Béthune in northern France, creating a landscape of pits, slag heaps, railway lines and miners' housing estates. The Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2012, and the Cités de la Justice et du Moulin in Auby are part of it: rows of brick houses built by the mining companies to house their workers, with gardens, churches, schools and shops, all organised around the pit. The cités are still inhabited, so treat them as neighbourhoods rather than museums.
Read the complete Cités de la Justice et du Moulin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de la Justice et du Moulin, 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 sits at 111 km, about halfway. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt comes up about 137 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Noeux-les- closes the day.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Noeux-les- → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt → La citadella d’Arras is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La citadella d’Arras → Cités de la Justice et du Moulin is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Justice et du Moulin → back through La citadella d’Arras is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La citadella d’Arras → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Noeux-les- is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.