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 290 km round trip from Vieux-Condé - roughly 4 h 24 in the saddle. The stops in between: Cités Sainte-Marie, Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e, Hôtel de ville and Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
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 Cités Sainte-Marie.
Pecquencourt sits on the edge of the Scarpe valley east of Douai, where the coal basin meets a land of marshes, ponds and forests, and the Cités Sainte-Marie are rows of miners' houses built for the workers of the nearby Sainte-Marie pit. Like many mining settlements, they follow a regular pattern, with brick houses in pairs or rows, gardens at the back and wide streets, designed by the company to house its workforce and keep them close to the pit. They are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
Read the complete Cités Sainte-Marie write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités Sainte-Marie comes up about 50 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 81 km into the recorded legs you reach Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e. Next is Hôtel de ville.
Bruay-la-Buissière is a mining town that grew from almost nothing into a busy industrial centre in less than a century, and its town hall, an imposing building in the heart of town, is a statement of that civic pride. The label points to the Hôtel de ville, one of the many urban and public buildings of the mining era that are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site. It sits on the western end of the coalfield, where the plain begins to rise towards the chalk hills of Artois.
Read the complete Hôtel de ville write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hôtel de ville, about halfway. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières-.
On 10 March 1906 a fire in a pit at Courrières, a few kilometres from here, set off a coal-dust explosion that ran through the galleries of three linked mines and killed 1,099 men and boys. It is the worst mining disaster in European history. Rescue teams came from Germany's Westphalian coalfield and worked alongside French crews, a rare moment of cooperation between two countries that would be at war within a decade. Twenty days after the explosion, thirteen survivors were found alive, which astonished the country. The disaster led to strikes and a national debate on safety and the role of the state, with the interior minister, Georges Clemenceau, sending troops to the area, and it changed mining law in France.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- sits at 136 km, about halfway. Next is back through Hôtel de ville.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hôtel de ville write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hôtel de ville comes up about 176 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
about 208 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e. Next is back through Cités Sainte-Marie.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités Sainte-Marie write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cités Sainte-Marie, 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.
The route ends here after 290 km.
Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau → Cités Sainte-Marie is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités Sainte-Marie → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e → Hôtel de ville is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hôtel de ville → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- → back through Hôtel de ville is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hôtel de ville → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Estevelles e → back through Cités Sainte-Marie is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités Sainte-Marie → Pompe à feu de la fosse du Sarteau is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.