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 Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet it runs 431 km to Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet; allow about 7 h 32 of riding. It goes by way of L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis, Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros and back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from France into Spain - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
You see it long before you understand it. From the road below Duilhac, Peyrepertuse looks like part of the mountain: a grey ridge of limestone with walls grown along its spine, so long and thin that people compare it to a stone ship. Up close it is two castles in one. The lower fortress on the eastern end is older, and at the western summit stands the keep of Sant Jordi, added by the French crown after Louis IX took control of the Corbières in the mid-thirteenth century. The site sits around 800 metres up, and the climb from the car park is short but steep, on a rocky path that is no fun in stiff motorcycle boots, so bring trainers if you can.
Read the complete Château de Peyrepertuse write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château de Peyrepertuse is where the day begins. 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.
L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis comes up about 103 km into the recorded legs. Next is Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros.
Where the Segre comes down from the Pyrenees towards the plains of Lleida, it squeezes through a gap at Oliana, held back by a dam and a reservoir that fills the valley above. On the slopes nearby, Roc del Rumbau, also called the Roca dels Moros, the Moors' rock, is a shelter with prehistoric paintings, one of the Catalan sites of the World Heritage Site of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin. The name is a common one in Catalonia and Spain: local people often attributed anything ancient and mysterious to the Moors.
Read the complete Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 215 km into the recorded legs you reach Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros. 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, late in the day. Next is Château de Peyrepertuse.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château de Peyrepertuse write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Château de Peyrepertuse. That is the ride.
Château de Peyrepertuse → L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis is 103 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis → Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros is 112 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros → back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis is 113 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis → Château de Peyrepertuse is 103 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.