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 Aire-sur-la-Lys it runs 313 km to Aire-sur-la-Lys; allow about 5 h 24 of riding. It goes by way of Cité des Soeurs, Terrils 87 et 92, Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain and Major Mining Sites of Wallonia. 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.
Way out at the western tip of the coalfield, near the villages of Mametz and Norrent-Fontes, Terril 244 marks the place where coal mining reached its limit. Beyond it, the land belongs to farmers, and the next towns, Aire-sur-la-Lys and Saint-Omer, have more to do with canals, marshes and markets than with mines. The heap stands as a solitary landmark in the fields, smaller than the giants further east, and its green-covered slopes blend into the landscape. It is one of the outlying components of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin listed by UNESCO, a reminder that the coalfield stretched for over a hundred kilometres from the Belgian border to here.
Read the complete Terril 244 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 244 is where the day begins. Next is Cité des Soeurs.
At the western edge of the coalfield, where the plain of the mining basin starts to buckle into the chalk hills of Artois, the town of Barlin grew up around its pits. The Cité des Soeurs is one of its housing estates, rows of brick miners' houses with gardens, and Terril 244, a slag heap now furred with trees, stands nearby like a man-made hill. Both belong to the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage Site, which covers more than a hundred kilometres of coal country from the Belgian border westwards.
Read the complete Cité des Soeurs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cité des Soeurs comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Terrils 87 et 92.
From a distance they look like hills, which in this flat country is reason enough to stare. The terrils numbered 87 and 92, on the edge of Noyelles-Godault and Dourges next to Hénin-Beaumont, are spoil heaps from the coal mines of the Nord-Pas de Calais basin, made of the shale and rock that came up with the coal over a century and more of mining. They are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2012 as a whole cultural landscape: pits, headframes, miners' housing, schools, churches and these artificial black mountains, more than a hundred of which are protected.
Read the complete Terrils 87 et 92 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Terrils 87 et 92. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain.
Escaudain sits in the old heartland of the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin, the oldest and once the most powerful of the coal companies in northern France, and the landscape around it is pure mining country: rows of brick terraces, spoil heaps, old railway embankments and the occasional headframe standing like a monument. This is the Valenciennes end of the coalfield, close to the Belgian border, and it was here that coal mining in the north began in the eighteenth century. The town and its surroundings form one of the many components of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, which UNESCO inscribed in 2012 as an evolving cultural landscape.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain, about halfway. Next is Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
Grand-Hornu, on the edge of the Borinage coalfield west of Mons, looks less like a coal mine than a neoclassical palace. In the early nineteenth century the industrialist Henri De Gorge built it as a model colliery, with workshops, offices and stables arranged around a vast oval courtyard of brick arches, and hundreds of houses for workers, each with its own garden, laid out in streets around it. It was a revolutionary idea at the time, combining industry and housing in one planned complex. Mining ended in the mid-twentieth century, and after years of neglect the site was restored. Today it houses a museum of contemporary art and a design centre, and it is one of the four Major Mining Sites of Wallonia listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Major Mining Sites of Wallonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia sits at 157 km, about halfway. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain comes up about 206 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Terrils 87 et 92.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terrils 87 et 92 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 243 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Terrils 87 et 92. Next is back through Cité des Soeurs.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité des Soeurs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cité des Soeurs, late in the day. Next is Terril 244.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 244 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 313 km.
Terril 244 → Cité des Soeurs is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité des Soeurs → Terrils 87 et 92 is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terrils 87 et 92 → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain → Major Mining Sites of Wallonia is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain → back through Terrils 87 et 92 is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terrils 87 et 92 → back through Cité des Soeurs is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité des Soeurs → Terril 244 is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.