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.
430 km from Villegailhenc to Villegailhenc, about 5 h of riding. It goes by way of Château de Peyrepertuse, L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis and back through Château de Peyrepertuse. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Four castles perch on a narrow rock ridge above the village of Lastours, in the Montagne Noire north of Carcassonne, and they look so improbable from the viewpoint across the valley that most people stop talking when they see them. The two streams, the Orbiel and the Grésilhou, wrap around the ridge, and the castles, Cabaret, Tour Régine, Surdespine and Quertinheux, stand along its length like beads on a string.
Read the complete Châteaux de Lastours write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Châteaux de Lastours is where the day begins. Next is Château de Peyrepertuse.
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 comes up about 112 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 216 km into the recorded legs you reach L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis. Next is back through 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 through Château de Peyrepertuse, late in the day. Next is Châteaux de Lastours.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Châteaux de Lastours write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Châteaux de Lastours. That is the ride.
Châteaux de Lastours → Château de Peyrepertuse is 112 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Château de Peyrepertuse → L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis is 104 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis → back through Château de Peyrepertuse is 103 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Château de Peyrepertuse → Châteaux de Lastours is 111 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.