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 Boulogne-Billancourt it runs 248 km to Boulogne-Billancourt; allow about 4 h 06 of riding. It goes by way of Palace and Park of Fontainebleau, Provins and back through Palace and Park of Fontainebleau. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
This part of the ride is 69 km of Maisons La Roche et Jeanneret → Palace and Park of Fontainebleau.
In the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris, tucked into a quiet cul-de-sac off the Square du Docteur-Blanche, stand two white houses that changed how people thought about living. The Maisons La Roche et Jeanneret were designed by Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret in the mid 1920s, one for a Swiss banker and art collector, Raoul La Roche, and one for Jeanneret's brother, a musician. Today the building houses the Fondation Le Corbusier, and the interiors, with their ramps, flat roofs, ribbon windows and rather austere palette, are open to visitors on certain days, so check the schedule before you go.
Read the complete Maisons La Roche et Jeanneret write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Maisons La Roche et Jeanneret is where the day begins. Next is Palace and Park of Fontainebleau.
Fontainebleau is the palace French kings actually lived in, as opposed to the one they built to impress, and for that reason it feels more human than Versailles. Almost every monarch from the Middle Ages to Napoleon III added a wing, a staircase or a garden, so the place is a jumble of styles, held together by its forest and its long ponds. Napoleon called it the true home of kings, and in April 1814 he said goodbye to his Old Guard in the courtyard that is still known as the Cour des Adieux, at the foot of the horseshoe staircase.
Read the complete Palace and Park of Fontainebleau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Palace and Park of Fontainebleau comes up about 69 km into the recorded legs. Next is Provins.
Provins rises out of the wheat fields of the Brie like something from a film set, and the odd thing is that it is almost entirely real. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries this was one of the four great fair towns of the counts of Champagne, where merchants from Flanders, Italy and beyond met to trade cloth, spices and money. When the fairs declined, Provins simply stopped growing, and so its ramparts, its gates and its medieval upper town survived the centuries more or less intact. UNESCO listed it in 2001 as a rare surviving example of a medieval fair town.
Read the complete Provins write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 124 km into the recorded legs you reach Provins. Next is back through Palace and Park of Fontainebleau.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palace and Park of Fontainebleau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Palace and Park of Fontainebleau, late in the day. Next is Maisons La Roche et Jeanneret.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Maisons La Roche et Jeanneret write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Maisons La Roche et Jeanneret. That is the ride.
Maisons La Roche et Jeanneret → Palace and Park of Fontainebleau is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Palace and Park of Fontainebleau → Provins is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Provins → back through Palace and Park of Fontainebleau is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Palace and Park of Fontainebleau → Maisons La Roche et Jeanneret is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.