Espana, France and the Pyrenees

21 Jun 2011

The Lonely Motorcyclist

On the 29th of May, 2011 I boarded the ferry to Santander from a very grey and miserable Plymouth. I'd arrived far too early at the port, only to realise that I actually had an extra hour to kill, so I tagged along with Mark and Steve (two Scottish bikers, Suzuki Hayabusa and Honda VFR800 respectively) left the queue of mainly cruisers and adventure tourers in search of coffee, favouring chancing our luck in the wilds of Plymouth over standing in the English drizzle waiting to embark. About 40 minutes later, after an awful coffee and a brief discussion about how lucky we all were not to live in Plymouth, boarding began.

The ferry crossing was uneventful, but I had a twin cabin to myself, and after a hot shower and something to eat, I set about marking out my route on the map of Espana I'd purchased from the onboard shop. I turned in for an early night, and fell asleep quickly, helped by the gentle movements of the Atlantic Ocean.

The next morning I had my first glimpse of the coast of Spain, and my first look at the continent. The scratchy throat I'd hoped was just a product of air conditioning was by this stage threatening to turn into a full blown cold, but that didn't dampen my spirits: I was more concerned with just how I'd go driving on the other side of the road. After 33 years of driving on the left side, I had my misgivings, but after the second round-a-bout I was in the swing of it, especially when I'd realised that I'd failed to look for and give way to traffic on the left. Luckily for me there were no competitions for tarmac with other vehicles in those instances. I headed for A8, and immediately opened the taps, as I had a lot of kilometres to cover before nightfall.

I passed both Rizzla Suzuki trucks on the A8 (which I had seen on the quay at Plymouth) well aware that I would join up with them again at the MotoGP in Catalunya.

My first taste of the Pyrenees was wet, cold, gloomy, and full of traction issues as I tackled the N121A and N121B in the driving rain. Unfortunately, at this part of my tour I simply could not wait around, I had to make my targets each day as I had to make it to Canet de Mar for the MotoGP, so I had to press on.

Much of the following days followed a similar format, it tended to rain and whilst the scenery was stunning and the roads were amazing, I was really hanging for my first stretch of nicely surfaced, dry twisties to get stuck into. Spain did not disappoint, offering a simply fabulous stretch of tarmac, the A137 from Isaba to Jaca, a fast, slalom style road, recently resurfaced, that I used to wipe off my remaining chicken strips. This was the first real opportunity I'd had to start to crank the bike over, and this road was just what I needed. I camped at Camping Victoria in Jaca that night, looking forward to more of the same the following day.

The following day was a 300km leg from Jaca to Ainsa, or at least that's what I had planned. I spent quite a bit of time playing on the N141 and D618A (Portillon de Burbe), after which I stopped for morning tea. I found a small French pastry shop to get coffee and pastry from, however it turned out to be a cake shop, but I bought something before I was rushed out of the shop: "I am sorry, but I am very busy, you must take this cake and go", which I did. A group of bikers that I'd passed coming down the mountain pulled in for a break, and I offered them my morning tea, as there was simply no way I was going to eat the entire thing by myself. I don't speak any Spanish, and they didn't speak any English, but I ended up joining their group and riding with them for the rest of the day. They bought me lunch (which was fantastic), and let me use the spare bed in the room in the 3 star hotel at Vielha that they'd booked. There were 7 of them, and 1 of me, so there was always going to be one bed left over anyway. It had been a massive day, with many kilometres covered, and three of them had binned their machines, so we went out on the booze that night, and I was given Salsa and table soccer lessons. The next day they went back to Bilboa to work, and I went on my way, towards La Seu d'Urgell.

By this stage I'd been waking up nightly with insane pains in my clutch hand. It's been in a constant state of pins and needles, but now I would wake up in the middle of the night and it would feel as though it was on fire. Extremely painful, and seemingly nothing I could do about it! Regardless, the stand out roads from today's ride were the N230 from Bossost to el Pont de Suert, and the N260 from el Pont de Suert to Adrall. I met up with a group of Dutch bikers who bought me lunch (noticing a pattern here?) and I rode with them to Andorra before peeling off to continue on my route. I stopped and had dinner watching McLeod's Daughters dubbed in Spanish, and starting pulling photos off the Canon onto the A5. All the hardware was working well together at this stage which pleased me greatly.

The following day I sprinted for La Seu d'Urgell to Canet de Mar. The N152 (Collada de Toses) from Puigcerda to Ripoll is definitely worth checking out if you're in the area. Canet de Mar is gorgeous, and I was very much looking forward to a proper bed and shower in preparation for MotoGP action.

On the 4th of June I went to MotoGP qualifying in Catalunya. I was quite nervous about raising the Australian flag I'd packed for some reason, but I gaffa taped it up to the front of our grandstand, and was quite proud to see it there. Qualifying itself was amazing, with Simoncelli coming away with the chocolates in the final 2 minutes. The following day, Stoner simply smashed the competition. People were walking out with many laps still remaining, I think I was the only happy person in my stand!

MotoGP in Spain is completely different to Australia. It's more of a family event, and has a carnival atmosphere. I couldn't help but notice how many families and couples filled the stands, and what a refreshing lack of bike snobbery prevailed; MotoGP in Europe simply does not seem to be the booze-fuelled, bogan debacle that it is in Australia.

After settling up in Canet de Mar, I loaded the bike up and headed for Quillan, farewelling Espana and the fantastic introduction to Europe it had provided me with. The people, the food, the roads, the scenery, all had been fantastic, and all had given me a small taste of what lay ahead for me in days to come.