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.
356 km from Rivesaltes to Rivesaltes, about 6 h 31 of riding. On the way it passes L’enceinte, Château de Montségur and back through L’enceinte. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,550 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Aguilar is the castle people overlook, and that is its best feature. While coaches crawl up to Peyrepertuse and Quéribus, this one sits quietly on a low hill above vineyards just outside Tuchan, at the eastern edge of the Corbières, with a squat keep inside a hexagonal outer wall studded with small round towers. It is a modest fortress compared with its famous siblings, but you can walk around it in peace and the views over vines towards Mont Tauch are lovely, especially in the evening.
Read the complete Château d’Aguilar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château d’Aguilar is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 71 km into the recorded legs. Next is Château de Montségur.
The castle of Montségur sits on a steep limestone peak, the pog, at about twelve hundred metres above the valleys of the Ariège, and even from the road below it looks impossible. In the thirteenth century it was the last great refuge of the Cathars, the dualist Christians condemned as heretics by the Church and crushed by the Albigensian Crusade. In 1243 a royal army laid siege to the summit, and after ten months the defenders surrendered in March 1244. Those who refused to renounce their faith, more than two hundred people, were burned at the foot of the mountain, in a place still called the Field of the Burned. A simple stone memorial stands there today.
Read the complete Château de Montségur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 178 km into the recorded legs you reach Château de Montségur. Next is back through L’enceinte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete L’enceinte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through L’enceinte, late in the day. Next is Château d’Aguilar.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château d’Aguilar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Château d’Aguilar. That is the ride.
Château d’Aguilar → L’enceinte is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
L’enceinte → Château de Montségur is 107 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Château de Montségur → back through L’enceinte is 107 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through L’enceinte → Château d’Aguilar is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.