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 246 km round trip from Mazingarbe - roughly 4 h 14 in the saddle. It goes by way of Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain, Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes and back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Terril 49 rises above the fields between Vermelles, Mazingarbe and Noyelles-lès-Vermelles, one of the dozens of spoil heaps that punctuate the landscape of the Gohelle. Like many of them, it has gone green, with trees and scrub covering slopes once black and bare, and it has become a refuge for wildlife in a landscape of intensive farming and urban sprawl. Lizards, rare insects and birds of prey thrive on the warm, dry slopes of the terrils, which retain heat like stone.
Read the complete Terril 49 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 49 is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes.
Beneath the fields south-east of Mons lies a honeycomb of shafts and galleries dug by Neolithic farmers more than six thousand years ago. They were after flint, the essential raw material for axes and tools, and they dug shafts up to fifteen metres deep through the chalk to reach the best seams, using antler picks and stone hammers. The mines at Spiennes, covering more than a hundred hectares, are the largest and earliest in north-western Europe, and they were inscribed by UNESCO in 2000. An interpretation centre allows visitors to descend into one of the shafts, and on the surface the ground is still scattered with flint flakes.
Read the complete Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 123 km into the recorded legs you reach Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes. 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, late in the day. Next is Terril 49.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 49 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Terril 49. That is the ride.
Terril 49 → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain → Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Escaudain → Terril 49 is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.