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.
193 km from Lavelanet to Lavelanet, about 3 h 47 of riding. It goes by way of Château de Puilaurens, Château de Quéribus and back through Château de Puilaurens. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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.
Château de Montségur is where the day begins. Next is Château de Puilaurens.
Perched on a rocky spur above a forest of firs and beeches, at around seven hundred metres, the castle of Puilaurens looks like something drawn by a child who loves castles: battlements, towers, walls following every edge of the rock. It is one of the so-called Cathar castles of the Languedoc, a group of fortresses linked to the crusade launched against the Cathar heretics in the thirteenth century. After the region came under French control, the castle was rebuilt as a royal fortress guarding the frontier with the Kingdom of Aragon, which lay just to the south until the seventeenth century. The climb up from the car park is steep but short, and the views from the top over the Fenouillèdes and the Pyrenean foothills are superb.
Read the complete Château de Puilaurens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château de Puilaurens comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Château de Quéribus.
Quéribus clings to the top of a limestone pinnacle like a crown, so improbably perched that it is hard to believe people ever built it, let alone held it under siege. It is often described as the last Cathar stronghold: when Montségur fell in 1244, the remaining Cathar refugees and their supporters found shelter here, and the castle held out until 1255, when it finally surrendered to the forces of the French king. It then became a royal fortress guarding the border with Aragon, until the frontier moved south in 1659 and its usefulness ended.
Read the complete Château de Quéribus write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 97 km into the recorded legs you reach Château de Quéribus. Next is back through Château de Puilaurens.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château de Puilaurens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Château de Puilaurens, late in the day. Next is Château de Montségur.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château de Montségur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Château de Montségur. That is the ride.
Château de Montségur → Château de Puilaurens is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château de Puilaurens → Château de Quéribus is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château de Quéribus → back through Château de Puilaurens is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Château de Puilaurens → Château de Montségur is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.