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 Denain it runs 266 km to Denain; allow about 4 h 24 of riding. The stops in between: Cités de la Justice et du Moulin, Cité n°10, Terril 34 and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Climb the Renard slag heap near Denain and you are standing on two centuries of work. Terrils are the waste rock hauled out of a mine in wagons and tipped, one load after another, until the pile became a hill. This one, the Fox, lies barely a kilometre and a half from the middle of Denain, a town of twenty-one thousand people that grew fat on coal and steel. It is named after the Renard pit, and it was down the Renard pit in 1884 that Émile Zola was lowered while he researched Germinal, notebook in hand, listening to the men who worked the seam.
Read the complete Terril Renard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril Renard is where the day begins. Next is Cités de la Justice et du Moulin.
For almost three centuries, coal shaped the land between Valenciennes and Béthune in northern France, creating a landscape of pits, slag heaps, railway lines and miners' housing estates. The Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2012, and the Cités de la Justice et du Moulin in Auby are part of it: rows of brick houses built by the mining companies to house their workers, with gardens, churches, schools and shops, all organised around the pit. The cités are still inhabited, so treat them as neighbourhoods rather than museums.
Read the complete Cités de la Justice et du Moulin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de la Justice et du Moulin comes up about 31 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cité n°10.
Sains-en-Gohelle is a former coal town in the heart of the Nord-Pas de Calais mining basin, and Cité n°10 is one of its old mining estates, rows of brick houses built for miners and their families around a pithead. The basin, which stretches about 120 kilometres from the Belgian border towards the west, was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012, and the cités, the slag heaps and the headframes are its most visible remains.
Read the complete Cité n°10 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 62 km into the recorded legs you reach Cité n°10. Next is Terril 34.
A terril is a slag heap, a mountain of waste rock dumped beside a coal mine, and in the flat land of northern France these man-made hills are the closest thing to relief for miles around. Terril 34 is one of hundreds that dot the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, a UNESCO site since 2012, which recognises not only the heaps but also the pithead frames, miners' housing estates, schools, churches and railway lines that made up the landscape of coal mining in the region for nearly three centuries. This one sits near Norrent-Fontes and Lillers, at the western end of the basin, where it meets the chalk hills of Artois.
Read the complete Terril 34 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Terril 34, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin.
Hesdin is a small market town in the green valley of the Canche, in the Pas-de-Calais, and it owes its existence to an act of destruction. The original town, a few kilometres upstream, was razed in 1553 by the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and a new fortified town was built here the following year as a strongpoint on the frontier between France and the Habsburg Netherlands. The grid of streets and the large market square still follow that plan. On the square stands the town hall, a former palace of the Habsburg governors, with a beautifully carved Renaissance balcony from which proclamations were read, and its belfry is part of the UNESCO list of belfries in Belgium and France.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin sits at 146 km, about halfway. Next is back through Terril 34.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 34 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Terril 34 comes up about 168 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Cité n°10.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cité n°10 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 204 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Cité n°10. Next is back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de la Justice et du Moulin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin, late in the day. Next is Terril Renard.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril Renard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 266 km.
Terril Renard → Cités de la Justice et du Moulin is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cités de la Justice et du Moulin → Cité n°10 is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité n°10 → Terril 34 is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 34 → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin → back through Terril 34 is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril 34 → back through Cité n°10 is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cité n°10 → back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cités de la Justice et du Moulin → Terril Renard is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.