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.
From Vieux-Condé it runs 164 km to Vieux-Condé; allow about 2 h 38 of riding. The stops in between: Fosse Mathilde, Cités de la Solitude, Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e and back through Cités de la Solitude. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 Fosse Mathilde.
Denain is remembered in French history for an afternoon in July 1712, when Marshal Villars crossed the Scheldt and smashed an allied army under Prince Eugene of Savoy, a victory that rescued France in the closing years of the War of the Spanish Succession and is still marked in the town. The Fosse Mathilde belongs to a later and quieter story. A fosse is the northern word for a pit, and these shafts were named for company directors and their families, so Mathilde was a lady before she was a hole in the ground.
Read the complete Fosse Mathilde write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fosse Mathilde comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cités de la Solitude.
On the edge of Waziers, near Douai, the cités de la Solitude are rows of brick houses built by a mining company for its workers, laid out in neat streets with small gardens. Such company towns, the cités minières, were the backbone of life in the coal basin of northern France, providing housing, schools, churches and shops for miners and their families, and they are among the most important elements of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, listed by UNESCO in 2012. The name Solitude seems almost ironic for a place built to house so many people close together.
Read the complete Cités de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 58 km into the recorded legs you reach Cités de la Solitude. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e.
Estevelles is a small town where the mining basin meets the waterways of the Deûle, between Pont-à-Vendin and Carvin. The label points to one of the mining ensembles of the area, part of the UNESCO-listed basin: a pit, a cité, perhaps a spoil heap, all together telling the story of how coal shaped every aspect of local life. The mining companies built not only houses but churches, schools, health centres and gardens, controlling their workers' lives from cradle to grave. The cités around here, with their neat rows of brick houses and small vegetable gardens, still house many descendants of miners.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e, about halfway. Next is back through Cités de la Solitude.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de la Solitude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cités de la Solitude sits at 100 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fosse Mathilde.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fosse Mathilde write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fosse Mathilde comes up about 130 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau closes the day.
Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau → Fosse Mathilde is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fosse Mathilde → Cités de la Solitude is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Solitude → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e → back through Cités de la Solitude is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités de la Solitude → back through Fosse Mathilde is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fosse Mathilde → Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.