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 Aire-sur-la-Lys it runs 271 km to Aire-sur-la-Lys; allow about 3 h 48 of riding. The stops in between: Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières, Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin and back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières.
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 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- comes up about 58 km into the recorded legs. Next is Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin.
Black hills on a flat land. That is the image most people keep of the Nord-Pas de Calais coal basin, a band of former mining country stretching about 120 kilometres from the Belgian border westward towards Béthune, where for nearly three centuries coal was dug from deep underground. The slag heaps, the terrils, rise like pyramids above the towns, and the mining villages, the cités, line the streets in rows of brick houses. In 2012 the basin was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognised as a living cultural landscape, with over three hundred elements protected.
Read the complete Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 136 km into the recorded legs you reach Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières-.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières-, 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.
Back at Terril 244. That is the ride.
Terril 244 → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- → Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Fouquières- → Terril 244 is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.