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 465 km round trip from Blaye - roughly 6 h 58 in the saddle. The stops in between: Bordeaux, Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion, Roc de Saint-Cirq and back through Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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.
La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B 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 about 53 km into the recorded legs. Next is Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion.
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.
about 94 km into the recorded legs you reach Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion. Next is Roc de Saint-Cirq.
The Vézère is the river of prehistory, and the valley around Les Eyzies is so crowded with caves, shelters and decorated walls that archaeologists have been working here since the nineteenth century. The limestone cliffs form a long, golden wall above the water, full of overhangs where people lived and painted for tens of thousands of years, and the whole group of sites is on the UNESCO list. The Roc de Saint-Cirq is one of those places, a cliff and shelter close to the small village of Saint-Cirq, set on a bend of the river.
Read the complete Roc de Saint-Cirq write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roc de Saint-Cirq, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion sits at 278 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 about 413 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B closes the day.
La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B → Bordeaux is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bordeaux → Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion → Roc de Saint-Cirq is 138 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Roc de Saint-Cirq → back through Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion is 138 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion → back through Bordeaux is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bordeaux → La citadelle et le fort Paté et Médoc de B is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.