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.
A 228 km round trip from Lavelanet - roughly 4 h 25 in the saddle. The stops in between: Château de Puilaurens, Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc and back through Château de Puilaurens. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
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 Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc.
The Corbières are a rugged knot of hills between Carcassonne and the Pyrenees, covered in garrigue, vineyards and dark oak woods, and dotted with castles that seem to grow out of the rock. After the crusade against the Cathars in the thirteenth century, the French crown took over the region and rebuilt a string of fortresses to guard the border with Aragon: Peyrepertuse, Quéribus, Puilaurens, Termes, Aguilar and the walled city of Carcassonne itself, often called the five sons of Carcassonne.
Read the complete Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 114 km into the recorded legs you reach Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc. 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 → Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc → back through Château de Puilaurens is 52 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.