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 Bellver de Cerdanya it runs 345 km to Bellver de Cerdanya; allow about 6 h 49 of riding. It goes by way of Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley, L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis, L’enceinte and back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses Spain, Andorra and France - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
The Cerdanya is a high, wide, sunny valley in the eastern Pyrenees, shared between Catalonia and France, and its southern wall is the long limestone barrier of the Serra del Cadí. The Vall d'Ingla cuts into that wall just above Bellver de Cerdanya and the neighbouring village of Éller, and the rock shelter there is one of the archaeological traces of people who used these valleys long before towns and borders. You are inside the Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park, a protected area of pine forest, cliffs and high pasture.
Read the complete Abric de la Vall d'Ingla write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abric de la Vall d'Ingla is where the day begins. Next is Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley.
Andorra is famous for shopping and ski lifts, which makes the Madriu-Perafita-Claror valley a surprise. A glacial valley that runs up into the mountains from the edge of the capital's built-up area, it is a landscape of granite peaks, lakes, pastures and stone shepherd huts, almost untouched by roads. UNESCO listed it in 2004 as a cultural landscape because it shows, in one place, how people have lived in the high Pyrenees for thousands of years, with pastoral farming, iron forges and mountain paths shaping the land together.
Read the complete Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis.
At around sixteen hundred metres, Mont-Louis is often described as the highest fortified town in France, and it feels like a frontier outpost even today. Vauban designed it in 1679 to guard the newly drawn border after the Treaty of the Pyrenees, placing it on a strategic shelf at the meeting of three valleys: the Têt dropping towards Perpignan, the Aude running north, and the wide basin of the Cerdanya opening to the west. The citadel is still used by the French army, home to a commando training centre, so parts of it are closed to visitors, but the walls and the small grid of streets inside them are free to wander.
Read the complete L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 144 km into the recorded legs you reach L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis. Next is L’enceinte.
Villefranche-de-Conflent is a whole town inside a wall. Squeezed into the narrow valley of the Têt where it meets a side stream, it was founded in the eleventh century as a stronghold of the Counts of Cerdanya, and after the Treaty of the Pyrenees turned this area French in 1659 it was refortified by Vauban to hold the valley against Spain. The ramparts that give the place its label, l'enceinte, are part of the UNESCO listing of Vauban's fortifications, and you can walk along the covered galleries inside the walls. High above the town on the mountainside sits Fort Liberia, linked to the village by a long underground stairway.
Read the complete L’enceinte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
L’enceinte, about halfway. Next is back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis sits at 159 km, about halfway. Next is back through Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley comes up about 285 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abric de la Vall d'Ingla.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abric de la Vall d'Ingla write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abric de la Vall d'Ingla closes the day.
Abric de la Vall d'Ingla → Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley → L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis → L’enceinte is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
L’enceinte → back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis → back through Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley → Abric de la Vall d'Ingla is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.