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 one-way ride of 254 km, Portbou to Sort - roughly 4 h 14 in the saddle. On the way it passes Besalu and Ripoll. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Portbou is a border town in the most literal sense. It is wedged into a steep, rocky cove at the very end of the Costa Brava, a few hundred metres from France, with houses stacked up the hillside and a railway station so oversized that it looks like a cathedral beached by mistake. The station once handled all the rail traffic between Spain and France, where the track gauge changed, and passengers and goods were transferred between trains. Today the town has just fourteen hundred people and feels half-asleep, hushed by the wind and the sea.
Read the complete Portbou write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Portbou is where the day begins. Next is Besalu.
Besalú arrives suddenly. You come round a bend on the N260 and there it is, a fortified stone bridge with a tower in the middle, seven arches crossing the Fluvià river, and behind it a cluster of tawny roofs and church towers that has hardly changed since the twelfth century. It is one of the best-preserved medieval towns in Catalonia and it is small enough, with only a couple of thousand residents, that you can walk across it in ten minutes. The bridge itself is for walkers only, so you leave the bike on the edge of town and cross on foot, which is how you should see it.
Read the complete Besalu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Besalu comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ripoll.
The Catalan nation, if you believe the story, begins at Ripoll. In the year 879 Count Wilfred the Hairy, called Guifré el Pelós, founded a monastery here at the meeting of two rivers, the Ter and the Freser, and later it became the burial place of the counts of Barcelona. The monastery of Santa Maria still stands in the middle of town, and what draws visitors is its west portal, a huge Romanesque doorway covered in carved stone scenes from the Bible, so detailed that it is often compared to a stone book. Inside the cloister there is a quiet courtyard with two storeys of columns, each with its own carved capital, and you can walk around it in about half an hour.
Read the complete Ripoll write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 114 km into the recorded legs you reach Ripoll. Next is Sort.
Sort sits in the heart of the Catalan Pyrenees, in the Pallars Sobirà valley, where the Noguera Pallaresa river runs fast and green between steep mountains. It is a small town of about two thousand people, with a few streets of old stone houses, a tidy square and a surprising claim to fame: the lottery. A shop here has sold so many winning tickets over the years that Spaniards drive for hours to buy a ticket from it, and the name, which means luck in Catalan, adds to the legend.
Read the complete Sort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sort closes the day.
Portbou → Besalu is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Besalu → Ripoll is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ripoll → Sort is 140 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.