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.
A 309 km round trip from Aire-sur-la-Lys - roughly 5 h 20 in the saddle. On the way it passes Paysage et ensemble miniers de Barlin, 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.
A terril is a coal slag heap, and in the old Artois coalfield they punctuate the horizon like unfinished pyramids. This one, numbered 31 in the local inventory of the mining basin, lies on the southern fringe of the field, near Norrent-Fontes and Mametz, where the plain of the Lys starts to tilt against the low hills of Artois. Heaps like this were built up over decades from the waste rock hauled out of the pits, and many are conical, a few are flat-topped and some stretch in long ridges. Left alone, they have turned into oddities of nature, with warm black soil that suits unusual plants, birch scrub, and in summer a surprising number of butterflies.
Read the complete Terril 31 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 31 is where the day begins. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers de Barlin.
Barlin is where the coalfield starts to run into hills. To the west, the land rises gently into the Artois uplands, and the mining town sits at the transition, its slag heaps, workers' houses and pit buildings now part of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site. It is a quieter corner than Lens or Douai, and the mix of industrial history and rolling countryside makes it a pleasant place to pause.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Barlin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Barlin comes up about 34 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 69 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 155 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 204 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 241 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Terrils 87 et 92. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Barlin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers de Barlin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Barlin, late in the day. Next is Terril 31.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 31 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 309 km.
Terril 31 → Paysage et ensemble miniers de Barlin is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers de Barlin → 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 Paysage et ensemble miniers de Barlin is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers de Barlin → Terril 31 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.