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 Prades it runs 269 km to Prades; allow about 5 h 19 of riding. On the way it passes L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis, Abric de la Vall d'Ingla, Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley and back through Abric de la Vall d'Ingla. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses France, Spain and Andorra - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 44 km this is Ruta del Cares · N-260, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Villefranche-de-Conflent is a whole town inside a wall. Squeezed into the narrow valley of the Têt where it meets a side stream, it was founded in the eleventh century as a stronghold of the Counts of Cerdanya, and after the Treaty of the Pyrenees turned this area French in 1659 it was refortified by Vauban to hold the valley against Spain. The ramparts that give the place its label, l'enceinte, are part of the UNESCO listing of Vauban's fortifications, and you can walk along the covered galleries inside the walls. High above the town on the mountainside sits Fort Liberia, linked to the village by a long underground stairway.
Read the complete L’enceinte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
L’enceinte 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 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abric de la Vall d'Ingla.
The Cerdanya is a high, wide, sunny valley in the eastern Pyrenees, shared between Catalonia and France, and its southern wall is the long limestone barrier of the Serra del Cadí. The Vall d'Ingla cuts into that wall just above Bellver de Cerdanya and the neighbouring village of Éller, and the rock shelter there is one of the archaeological traces of people who used these valleys long before towns and borders. You are inside the Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park, a protected area of pine forest, cliffs and high pasture.
Read the complete Abric de la Vall d'Ingla write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 73 km into the recorded legs you reach Abric de la Vall d'Ingla. Next is Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley.
Andorra is famous for shopping and ski lifts, which makes the Madriu-Perafita-Claror valley a surprise. A glacial valley that runs up into the mountains from the edge of the capital's built-up area, it is a landscape of granite peaks, lakes, pastures and stone shepherd huts, almost untouched by roads. UNESCO listed it in 2004 as a cultural landscape because it shows, in one place, how people have lived in the high Pyrenees for thousands of years, with pastoral farming, iron forges and mountain paths shaping the land together.
Read the complete Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley, about halfway. Next is back through Abric de la Vall d'Ingla.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abric de la Vall d'Ingla write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abric de la Vall d'Ingla sits at 143 km, about halfway. 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 comes up about 240 km into the recorded legs. Next is L’enceinte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete L’enceinte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
L’enceinte closes the day.
L’enceinte → L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis → Abric de la Vall d'Ingla is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abric de la Vall d'Ingla → Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley → back through Abric de la Vall d'Ingla is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abric de la Vall d'Ingla → back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis → L’enceinte is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.