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.
508 km from Portbou to Biescas, about 8 h 20 of riding. It goes by way of Besalu, Ripoll, Sort and Ainsa. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 37 km this is Pyrenees N260 Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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, about halfway. Next is Ainsa.
Aínsa sits on a hilltop above the meeting of two Pyrenean rivers, the Cinca and the Ara, and the old village on top is one of those places where the medieval layout has simply been left to get on with itself. You enter through a gate into a great sloping square of rough cobbles surrounded by stone arcades, with a castle and a Romanesque church on the high side and views out over the valley. It was once the capital of the little Kingdom of Sobrarbe, whose rulers, according to legend, rallied here against the Moors, and the town still stages a spectacular festival recalling that story every few years.
Read the complete Ainsa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ainsa sits at 473 km, about halfway. Next is Jaca.
Jaca is the old capital of the Pyrenees, a mountain town of thirteen thousand people at the foot of the Peña Oroel, with a cathedral, a fortress and a long history. In the eleventh century it was the first capital of the Kingdom of Aragon, and its cathedral, begun at that time, is one of the earliest Romanesque cathedrals in Spain, with a graceful apse and a cloister, and carved capitals that influenced churches along the pilgrim road.
Read the complete Jaca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jaca comes up about 471 km into the recorded legs. Next is Biescas.
Biescas sits in the Aragonese Pyrenees at the lower end of the Tena valley, where the Gállego river cuts through the foothills and the mountains close in. It is a small mountain town with stone houses and slate roofs, set among meadows and pine woods, and with the high peaks of the Tendeñera range standing behind it. The sense is of a place at the doorstep of the high Pyrenees, a base for skiers in winter and walkers and riders in summer.
Read the complete Biescas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Biescas 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.
Sort → Ainsa is 143 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Ainsa → Jaca is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Jaca → Biescas is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.