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 388 km round trip from Encamp - roughly 7 h 10 in the saddle. On the way it passes Château de Montségur, Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc and back through Château de Montségur. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Andorra into France - carry ID and check the toll rules. Rivers set the line for much of the day.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Château de Montségur.
The castle of Montségur sits on a steep limestone peak, the pog, at about twelve hundred metres above the valleys of the Ariège, and even from the road below it looks impossible. In the thirteenth century it was the last great refuge of the Cathars, the dualist Christians condemned as heretics by the Church and crushed by the Albigensian Crusade. In 1243 a royal army laid siege to the summit, and after ten months the defenders surrendered in March 1244. Those who refused to renounce their faith, more than two hundred people, were burned at the foot of the mountain, in a place still called the Field of the Burned. A simple stone memorial stands there today.
Read the complete Château de Montségur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château de Montségur comes up about 121 km into the recorded legs. Next is Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc.
The Corbières are a rugged knot of hills between Carcassonne and the Pyrenees, covered in garrigue, vineyards and dark oak woods, and dotted with castles that seem to grow out of the rock. After the crusade against the Cathars in the thirteenth century, the French crown took over the region and rebuilt a string of fortresses to guard the border with Aragon: Peyrepertuse, Quéribus, Puilaurens, Termes, Aguilar and the walled city of Carcassonne itself, often called the five sons of Carcassonne.
Read the complete Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 194 km into the recorded legs you reach Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc. Next is back through Château de Montségur.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château de Montségur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Château de Montségur, late in the day. Next is Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley. That is the ride.
Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley → Château de Montségur is 121 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château de Montségur → Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc → back through Château de Montségur is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Château de Montségur → Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley is 121 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.