CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
A 257 km round trip from Bordeaux - roughly 5 h 25 in the saddle. On the way it passes La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B, Cordouan Lighthouse and back through La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B. The line favours views over speed.
Bordeaux makes a confident start or finish to a ride, and you feel it the moment you come along the left bank of the Garonne: a curved river front of honey-coloured eighteenth-century facades that runs for kilometres, the Place de la Bourse at its centre, and the shallow Miroir d'eau in front of it reflecting the whole thing back at the sky. The crescent bend of the river gave the city its old nickname, the Port of the Moon.
Read the complete Bordeaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bordeaux is where the day begins. Next is La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B.
The Gironde estuary is wide enough here to feel like an inland sea, and Vauban saw it as the gateway to Bordeaux that needed a lock. His answer, at the end of the seventeenth century, was a triangle of fortifications: the citadel at Blaye on the right bank, Fort Médoc on the left bank at Cussac, and between them Fort Paté, a squat stone tower built on an island in the middle of the river. Together they could cross their fire over the shipping channel, and today they share a place on the UNESCO list of Vauban's works. The citadel of Blaye is the most impressive of the three, a fortified town in its own right, with ramparts, gates and old barracks set high on a bluff above the water.
Read the complete La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B comes up 66 km in. Next is Cordouan Lighthouse.
Cordouan is a lighthouse standing alone on a rock bank in the mouth of the Gironde estuary, seven kilometres or so out to sea, and you cannot ride to it. The lighthouse is a boat trip away from Royan or from the Médoc side at Le Verdon-sur-Mer, and only in season and when the tide and swell permit.
Read the complete Cordouan Lighthouse write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
131 km in you reach Cordouan Lighthouse. Next is back through La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B, late in the day. Next is Bordeaux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bordeaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Bordeaux. That is the ride.
Bordeaux → La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B → Cordouan Lighthouse is 87 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cordouan Lighthouse → back through La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B is 87 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B → Bordeaux is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.