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.
409 km from Liévin to Liévin, about 7 h 03 of riding. It goes by way of Fosse n°2 de Flines, Château Dampierre, Beffroi de Mons and Petit Béguinage de Gent. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Liévin is a town that knows grief. On 27 December 1974, a firedamp explosion at the Saint-Amé pit killed forty-two miners, one of the last great mining disasters in France, and it is still remembered every year. The town sits on the southern edge of the coal basin, next to Lens, and its landscape is still marked by the industry: Terril 80, a spoil heap from one of the pits, and the Cité des Garennes, a settlement of miners' houses, are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
Read the complete Terril 80 et cité des Garennes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 80 et cité des Garennes is where the day begins. Next is Fosse n°2 de Flines.
The headframe is the giveaway. In the low, watery country between Lallaing, Anhiers and Flines-lez-Raches, the steel or concrete winding towers of old coal pits still stand as markers, and Fosse n°2 de Flines is one of the sites that recall the industry that shaped this corner of the Douai area. A fosse in the local vocabulary is a pit with its shafts, buildings and spoil heap, and around each one a small world grew: rows of brick housing, a church, a school, and the company offices that ran the lives of everyone underground and above it.
Read the complete Fosse n°2 de Flines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fosse n°2 de Flines comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Château Dampierre.
Anzin, on the northern edge of Valenciennes, is where coal mining in northern France began on an industrial scale. In the eighteenth century, the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin became one of the largest companies in France, and its mines, workers' housing, slag heaps and buildings shaped the landscape of the region. Château Dampierre is one of the buildings linked to that history, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, inscribed in 2012, which preserves more than a hundred sites across a vast area: pits, headframes, miners' cités, churches, schools and the great black spoil heaps known as terrils. The big miners' strike at Anzin in 1884 helped inspire Émile Zola's novel Germinal.
Read the complete Château Dampierre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 69 km into the recorded legs you reach Château Dampierre. Next is Beffroi de Mons.
Belgium has many belfries, but only one in the baroque style, and it rises above Mons on the hill where the medieval castle stood. Built in the seventeenth century, it is about eighty-seven metres tall, with a carillon of forty-nine bells, and it was listed by UNESCO with the other belfries of Belgium and France. A lift takes visitors to the top, where the view stretches across the Borinage, the old coal-mining country around the city, and over the rooftops of the old town. Inside, an interpretation centre tells the story of the tower.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Mons, about halfway. Next is Petit Béguinage de Gent.
Push open a gate off a busy Ghent street and the noise drops away. The Klein Begijnhof, the Small Béguinage, is a walled enclave of whitewashed and brick houses with stepped gables around a green courtyard and a Baroque church. Béguines were lay women who lived in community, devoted to prayer and work but without taking permanent vows, and this béguinage was founded in the thirteenth century. Most of the present buildings date from the seventeenth century. Together with other Flemish béguinages, it is on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and it remains one of the calmest places in the city.
Read the complete Petit Béguinage de Gent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Petit Béguinage de Gent sits at 205 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de Mons.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Mons write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de Mons comes up about 295 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Château Dampierre.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château Dampierre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 339 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Château Dampierre. Next is back through Fosse n°2 de Flines.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fosse n°2 de Flines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fosse n°2 de Flines, late in the day. Next is Terril 80 et cité des Garennes.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 80 et cité des Garennes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 409 km.
Terril 80 et cité des Garennes → Fosse n°2 de Flines is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fosse n°2 de Flines → Château Dampierre is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château Dampierre → Beffroi de Mons is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Mons → Petit Béguinage de Gent is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Petit Béguinage de Gent → back through Beffroi de Mons is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Beffroi de Mons → back through Château Dampierre is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Château Dampierre → back through Fosse n°2 de Flines is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fosse n°2 de Flines → Terril 80 et cité des Garennes is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.