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.
269 km from Vieux-Condé to Vieux-Condé, about 3 h 51 of riding. On the way it passes Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la and back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt. The line favours views over speed.
Coal was first found in France not far from here. In 1720, prospectors working near Fresnes-sur-Escaut struck a seam, and within a few years the Anzin company was sinking shafts all along the valley of the Escaut, the river the Dutch and Belgians call the Scheldt. The Pompe à feu, the fire pump, is the old steam engine house at the Sarteau pit in Vieux-Condé, and its name comes from the early engines, which burned coal to make steam and pumped water out of the workings. Inside the red brick building the beam engine would have towered over the floor with its great rocking arm. The whole mining basin of Nord-Pas-de-Calais was listed by UNESCO in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape, and the pit at Sarteau is one of the pieces of it.
Read the complete Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau 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 75 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la-.
Aire-sur-la-Lys is the kind of small French town that rewards a slow walk with no plan. Its belfry rises from the eighteenth-century town hall on the Grand Place, an elegant classical building topped by a tall tower with a lantern and a carillon, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France. Across the square stands the Bailliage, a richly decorated Renaissance building from around 1600, with arches, carved figures and a little loggia, which once housed the guard and the town's officials. A few streets away, the great collegiate church of Saint-Pierre, built in a flamboyant Gothic style, rises above the rooftops.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la- write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 134 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la-. 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, late in the day. Next is Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau. That is the ride.
Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la- is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Aire-sur-la- → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Drocourt → Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.