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 Aniche it runs 159 km to Aniche; allow about 2 h 44 of riding. On the way it passes Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos, Belfort en Stadhuis and back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
On the southern edge of the coal basin, where Auberchicourt, Écaillon and Aniche run into one another, a long spoil heap rises above the brick roofs and the fields. Terril 125a is one of the many numbered heaps that the Nord-Pas de Calais inventory catalogues, and it belongs to the old concession of the Compagnie des mines d'Aniche, one of the historic coal companies of the region. Aniche itself is a reminder that the north was not only about coal: the town had a long glassmaking tradition, and the combination of fuel, sand and labour made the area an industrial hub well before the twentieth century.
Read the complete Terril 125a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 125a 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 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos.
Loos is a town on the southwestern edge of Lille, and its town hall belfry is part of the same UNESCO family as the medieval towers of Bruges and Ghent, though it is a much more modern member. In this corner of Europe a belfry was the symbol of a town's independence from lord and church, and when the industrial towns of the Nord built new town halls in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they gave them belfries too, as a statement that they had grown up. Loos's tower, in brick and stone, does exactly that.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 51 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos. Next is Belfort en Stadhuis.
British soldiers marching to the front in the First World War left Ypres by the road that led east towards Menen, and the gate they passed through became the Menin Gate, now a memorial bearing the names of more than fifty thousand soldiers with no known grave. Menen itself, about twenty kilometres from Ypres, sits right on the French border, on the river Leie, which the French call the Lys, and its town hall and belfry, standing on the market square, are part of the UNESCO listing of the belfries of Belgium and France. The belfry, like much of the town, was damaged in the war and rebuilt, and it remains the proud symbol of the town's civic history.
Read the complete Belfort en Stadhuis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Belfort en Stadhuis, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos sits at 106 km, about halfway. 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 comes up about 135 km into the recorded legs. Next is Terril 125a.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 125a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 125a closes the day.
Terril 125a → Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos → Belfort en Stadhuis is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfort en Stadhuis → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Loos → back through Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ensemble minier de la fosse Cornuault → Terril 125a is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.