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 78 km round trip from Aniche - roughly 1 h 40 in the saddle. On the way it passes Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are, Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm and back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are. The line favours views over speed.
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 Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are.
Anyone who follows cycling knows the Trouée d'Arenberg, the arrow-straight cobbled lane through the forest near Wallers where Paris-Roubaix often breaks apart. What fewer know is that the lane passes the gate of a colliery, and that the colliery is one of the jewels of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage Site. Fosse Arenberg, with its three steel headframes and brick engine houses, closed in 1989, and a few years later Claude Berri filmed his version of Zola's Germinal here, using the pithead and the cités around it as a ready-made nineteenth-century mining town.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are comes up about 19 km into the recorded legs. Next is Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm.
In 1757, a group of aristocrats and entrepreneurs founded the Compagnie des Mines d'Anzin to work the coal seams found under the plains near Valenciennes. It grew into one of the largest industrial companies in France, owning dozens of pits, thousands of workers' houses and its own schools, churches and shops. The ensemble here at Fresnes-sur-Escaut, close to the Belgian border, includes buildings connected with the company's long history, and it is part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
Read the complete Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 40 km into the recorded legs you reach Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are, late in the day. 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.
Back at Terril 125a. That is the ride.
Terril 125a → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are → Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Compagnie des Mines d’Anzin: Ensemble comm → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Wallers-Are → Terril 125a is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.