CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
340 km from Saint-Émilion to Saint-Émilion, about 6 h 54 of riding. On the way it passes Bordeaux, La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B, Cordouan Lighthouse and back through La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Saint-Émilion is a wine village that looks like a stage set, with steep, cobbled lanes tumbling down a limestone hillside, golden stone houses, and a bell tower rising above the rooftops. The UNESCO listing covers not just the village but its whole jurisdiction, eight parishes of vineyards around it, recognising a landscape in which vines have been cultivated since Roman times. The village grew around the hermitage of Émilion, a Breton monk who lived in a cave here in the eighth century, and its most remarkable monument is the monolithic church, carved out of the rock beneath the bell tower.
Read the complete Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion is where the day begins. Next is Bordeaux.
Bordeaux makes a confident start or finish to a ride, and you feel it the moment you come along the left bank of the Garonne: a curved river front of honey-coloured eighteenth-century facades that runs for kilometres, the Place de la Bourse at its centre, and the shallow Miroir d'eau in front of it reflecting the whole thing back at the sky. The crescent bend of the river gave the city its old nickname, the Port of the Moon.
Read the complete Bordeaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bordeaux comes up 59 km in. Next is La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B.
The Gironde estuary is wide enough here to feel like an inland sea, and Vauban saw it as the gateway to Bordeaux that needed a lock. His answer, at the end of the seventeenth century, was a triangle of fortifications: the citadel at Blaye on the right bank, Fort Médoc on the left bank at Cussac, and between them Fort Paté, a squat stone tower built on an island in the middle of the river. Together they could cross their fire over the shipping channel, and today they share a place on the UNESCO list of Vauban's works. The citadel of Blaye is the most impressive of the three, a fortified town in its own right, with ramparts, gates and old barracks set high on a bluff above the water.
Read the complete La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
118 km in you reach La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B. Next is Cordouan Lighthouse.
Cordouan is a lighthouse standing alone on a rock bank in the mouth of the Gironde estuary, seven kilometres or so out to sea, and you cannot ride to it. The lighthouse is a boat trip away from Royan or from the Médoc side at Le Verdon-sur-Mer, and only in season and when the tide and swell permit.
Read the complete Cordouan Lighthouse write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cordouan Lighthouse, about halfway. Next is back through La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B sits at 235 km, about halfway. Next is back through Bordeaux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bordeaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Bordeaux comes up 294 km in. Next is Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion closes the day.
Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion → Bordeaux is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bordeaux → La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B → Cordouan Lighthouse is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cordouan Lighthouse → back through La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B → back through Bordeaux is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bordeaux → Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.