CHRONICLES OF A TRIP

Perpetrado por Mr. John Thompson.

Where do I start if not at the beginning? But where does a trip begin? In a restaurant talking about summer holidays, or when you reserve a hotel or a flight? Does it start with a route, a plan, a list of ‘must see’ places? Or perhaps when you close the door to your house knowing you won’t be back for a certain time?

Our trip certainly didn’t comply with many of the above. We never made a single reservation. We didn’t even, in the end, visit the few places we had singled out on this or that web page as somewhere interesting or beautiful or odd.

We had an idea... Visit Slovenia, no rush, taking it easy, taking in the scenery along the way. We had the dates... the last 12 days of June 2009. We had transport... John’s two bikes: Not the best option for a long trip, neither of them, but they were available, paid for and up to it, so that was that.

I’ll skip the last minute headaches, the broken rear axle threads, the brake pads, the seat pan, the wheel bearings and say that, when push came to shove, both bikes were gleaming in the garage the night before, the bags were packed (thanks guys for lending us the extras) and Stuart was waiting for us, in Girona, 675km away for some first night beers.



DAY 1. Madrid – Girona 675km (675km)

We set off in good time, with good weather, and fingers crossed that nothing was going to break, no one was going to get hurt and that it wasn’t going to piss it down for 10 of the 12 days. Thankfully I’m not superstitious, because before even 10 km were under our wheels a cat ran out in front of me and for all I braked I hit it square and by the way it ran off into the bushes it was seriously injured. I felt terrible, but knew that there was absolutely nothing I could do so I got my thoughts back on the traffic, negotiated the two remaining roundabouts and took the slip road onto the motorway out to Barcelona.

Whereas motorways are a superb idea for getting from A to B, if what you’re interested is the bit in between they are as appealing as John Wayne in a mankini. At the same time, Edu wasn’t charmed with the idea of wending our way across country on a million different back roads (he hadn’t ridden a bike in more than a decade, and never one as ‘big’ as the Spondon) so we took a compromise and turned off the A2 at Alcolea onto the A211 which would take us south, past Zaragoza and as far as Lleida before returning to the motorway. In the end it was a superb choice as the road is a pleasure, with little traffic, some spectacular scenery and requires zero navigation skills.

Even after 13 years here the place names still make me smile, the river Pancrudo (Rawbread), or the Guadalopillo, and towns like Cosa (Thing) or Martín del Río (Martin of the River). So many little villages, woods, hills and fields.

There are two towns of note, Molina de Aragón with its spectacular fortifications and Alañiz with its castle, both worth a visit in the future.

The road from Caspe to Mequinenza is especially memorable for its sweeping curves and views of the reservoir. From Lleida to Cervera we had to return to bum numbing two lane lorry dodging, but from there we took another long A-road, this time the C25 which again saved on nav. skills and took us almost to Stuart’s door. We’d done maybe 600km when the first big fat drops fell, but we decided to continue rather than getting geared up for rain, as it didn’t look as if it were going last long and to a certain extent we were right, as what we’d caught was the end of a very very heavy summer storm that had just blown itself out. The humidity was oppressive, and the roads were soaked so we took it easy, enjoyed watching giant lightning strikes hitting the trees in the distance and played at wiping the grime off our visors that the passing lorries were kicking up.



We got to Santa Coloma de Farners two hours early, with Stuart still at work and nothing for us to do but go to the town square and have, respectively, a beer for Edu and a big rum and coke for me. It was only when we stopped that Edu discovered that his arse was soaked, from his waist down to his knees at the back, and it took one look at the bike to work out why... all the water kicked up by the back tyre was going through two ‘vents’ in the tail unit and pooling where the seat was. That was sorted out later that night at Stuart’s with some 1000mph tape they use on aircraft wings!

DAY 2: GIRONA – BEZIERS 330km (1005km)

As we had no fixed plan and no agenda, we took Stuart’s advice on a route to France and headed for the sea. His recommendation was a little coastal road that wound its way from just north of where Picasso spent his summers all the way across the border taking in some nice views on the way.

Before we got there though we had to cover some kms, and as we started late it was soon time for lunch, so, as we pulled into a little village and saw the sign for a restaurant we didn’t hang about. It turned out to be a beautiful Masia, more than 500 years old and wonderfully maintained. The food wasn¬’t bad either, trout for me and butifara for Edu.
It was the first time we left the bikes unattended with the luggage on board, and we were worried, but by the end of the trip we were doing it with little regard at all. People, on the whole, aren’t a bunch of thieves after all.

Once on our way again the road soon got twisty, with beautiful views of the Med on the right, Mediterranean forest on the left and little traffic. On the downside there was little chance of overtaking the little traffic there was. It was good practice for Edu to relearn how to take corners on a bike, and very pretty indeed, but it brought home to me how uncomfortable my bike would be throughout the journey at anything less than 100km/h.




The border crossing was an event, not because of the border-guards (the checkpoint is run down and unmanned) but because of the wind. It was howling in from the NE and we were both finding it hard to make the bikes go where we wanted them... to the extent that on one occasion Edu nearly had an accident as he’d got the bars turned as far as the steering lock and the bike still wouldn’t go round the corner. We were going slow, as the turns were almost hairpins, but dropping a 215kg on your leg at any speed isn’t a clever idea. He was on a collision course with the outside curb on a left hand turn because the wind really was pushing that hard... and he only made it round with a lurch as the gust lulled just long enough for him to tip it in.



Just after that we rode into a little French seaside village which looked liked something out of a disaster movie, leaves and litter all over the road, the wind winning the battle against the local street cleaners. We stopped for an ice-cream, and ‘enjoyed’ our first encounter with the language barrier. Just how few French people speak any language other than French was brought home repeated throughout our trip, and at times it was even pronounced with pride and a Napoleonic tilt of the head. This was a constant irritant to Edu, who remarked that they didn’t deserve any effort on his part. He spoke three languages and they spoke one. ‘Why should I make the effort to learn a fourth, if they won’t even try to speak a second?’ There were exceptions of course, and the petrol station the following day was a wonderful example.

From then the road straightened out and it was pretty, reminding me of home and the rides around Southcoats in places, lots of tall tress, most of them poplars, lots of dykes and everything very green. We followed the coast, avoiding the A9 (E15) and the worst of the wind. Even then there were stretches where it was howling across open fields and twice the Yamaha was almost lifted off its wheels and tossed away like a kite with a broken string, albeit a 350kg kite. The sensation was dreadful, and if I never live it again I won’t grumble. Edu’s naked Spondon didn’t suffer that effect, so it must have something to do with the design of the fairing. Even so, he was getting well blown about. It was a pretty road though and we both considered stopping at one of the many local wine sellers and buying half a crate, though common sense won the day.




We’d decided to stay that night on the coast, but when we got to Beziers we were beguiled. It’s a decadent, decaying old fortress town on a big hill, with a beautiful river below, a cathedral that was obviously a castle in a former life overlooking everything, all surrounded by fields and tall trees. We stayed in a charming little hotel called ‘Hotel des Poets’ that was run by a lady who reminded us of an ex-girlfriend. She was French, but spoke English and German excellently, Spanish well and a smattering of Italian. Breakfast was served downstairs with the full length windows open onto the park of the same name, sun-dappled and beautiful... we could have stayed there the full 12 days and ridden around the SE of France each day and it wouldn’t have been a bad trip.



That breakfast made up for the ‘dinner’ we ‘enjoyed’ the night before, in a Kebab place, the worst Donnar kebab I’ve ever eaten. God-awful. Truly. Still, the town was in festive spirit, in fact the whole country was enjoying a week of music with stages put up in nearly every town of any size, so we wandered the streets, enjoyed some Pinot Noir and listened to live music for free!






DAY 3: BEZIERS – SAINT-RAPHAËL 380km (1385km)

We knew how lucky we’d been choosing to stay in Beziers one hour after leaving. The coast from Agde to Montpellier was horrible, made more so by holiday homes, caravan parks, camping sites and ‘people’, especially around Sete, with its one lane, seafront road lined by motor homes or cars parked on the sand, the traffic bottlenecked into a convoy, 40km/h for one hour . That said it could well be a dream for 15 year old boys. Naturally unattractive, it was adapted skilfully into small scale complexes of inland waterski hire for use on adapted dykes, quad tracks, supermotard tracks all with hire included. I would have loved it!

Just before Montpellier we stopped for petrol and a map. The guy in the petrol station looked like Lewis Hamilton and came out to admire our ‘new’ bikes. We made some comment about them not being exactly ‘new’ and he told us, in perfect English, how he rode a Royal Enfield Bullet from the very north of India to the south, and then slapped it in the back of a van and drove it back to France. He now regrets having resorted to the van, and is planning on riding the same bike back to India to ‘complete’ the trip. We chin-wagged about how the gears and back brake are switched, which makes riding a ‘normal’ bike and then jumping on a Bullet almost impossible, and then he got back to cleaning the windows and we set to planning the next day’s route.

I joked with Edu about how the French don’t eat as late as the Spanish and how we’d have to keep it in mind or we’d end up eating in a McDonald’s as I’d done a couple of years previously riding down from England. Made no difference mind as that’s exactly what happened by the time we got to Salon-de-Provence. It’s funny how the two girls working in that MaccyDees reminded us of ex-girlfriends too! Changing the subject, I think that it was in that particular McDonalds where I realised the Bob Sinclair was going to accompany us all the way, singing his Ladedadelaaaaadedada at every stop, no matter where we ended up.



Somewhere along there Edu ran out of petrol.









France is funny like that. In Spain you’ve got what seems to be a very sensible spread of petrol stations all around the country. In Italy there’s a petrol station every 100m and in France you have to go hunting them like lions or rhinos or something. The Spondon has a significantly bigger tank than the EXUP so if we expected a bike to run out of gas it was my EXUP, but Edu hadn’t been filling up to the brim and after some 225km he ground to a halt and it was up to me to face the language barrier again just to find a petrol station. Seems simple enough asking where I can find a petrol station, doesn’t it? Well I was treated as if I wanted them to give me petrol for free (and they weren’t willing) and then I was offered it in a jerry can for twice the normal price. Finally I made myself understood and after finding said oasis and looting a couple of empty mineral water bottles from a dustbin got back to Edu and got us moving again.




From there the road was uneventful but just as windy as the previous day and by the time we got to Saint Raphaël we were knackered. SR is a town between Saint Tropez and Cannes, and keeping to our plan of avoiding cities seemed the best bet for the night. The urban plan is typically Mediterranean, and could have been a town on the Costa Brava, but for the lack of people shouting over the dinner table, the lack of cigarette smoke in your face, the lack of noisy 50cc scooters batting past, and the lack of high rise buildings right on the beach... so it was nice, in a beach-resorty kind of nice. We went for a curry that night, in a restaurant that had its own Indian event newspaper... so while we waited we read about the Ladies Elephant Polo Championship and how popular it was in Britain!!!!! That night I enjoyed a full-on MSG nightmare picture show, with mega-sweat included and serious dehydration thrown in for breakfast. The only saving grace was knowing just what had caused it and knowing I’d never go back there again. I think Edu’s lasting memory of SR will be the road system (as he was navigating) as to get the seafront you have to follow the flight pattern of some exotic bird, in mating season, and ride in ever decreasing circles for half an hour before you get there.

DAY 4: SAINT-RAPHAËL – PADOVA 495km (1880km)

We were both excited at the prospect of the next day’s riding; Edu as he’d be back in his much beloved Italy and me ‘cos I wanted to get away from the coast and taste some mountain blacktop.




We set off along the Côté Bleu past Nice, Monte Carlo and into Italy, along one of the most surprising motorways I’ve ever travelled. It’s one incredibly high bridge followed by a tunnel, often curved, followed by another crazy bridge and another tunnel and on and on for something like 30 or 40km, or at least all the way to Genova. Pau would have loved the port there, because on one side were two or three kilometres of historic 5 storey buildings with painted façades, in the middle a two level highway (we were riding on the top) and then the docks on the right, some renovated, some modern, an enormous 15th century pirate type ship with kids and parents climbing all over it... and I took all of this in while manic scooters and car drivers jumped at the chance to instantly fill any kind of braking space I was stupid enough to leave in front of me. In the end I had to gas it (and we’re talking 150hp superbike gas it here) to get back in behind Edu without giving anyone else the chance to nail me before we turned off and headed north. Heehee!




I learned the word for ‘patience’ in Italian that day: ‘Piacenza’. Piacenza was the name of the next town we aimed for, at the other end of 100km of curves following the S45 road north criss-crossing the Trebia river and managing to keep me infatuated for well over two hours. Edu compared the road to a scene out of ‘The Truman Show’ where Truman decides to go to the airport, and is prevented from doing so by a succession of vehicles (in our case lorries) getting in his way, as one pulls off another pulls out as if choreographed. Thankfully this only happened at the beginning and the end, leaving the middle section free for us to enjoy. I think it was the Trebbia that made me go soft on Italian rivers, as I loved them all, from the Adige to the Dora Baltea to the Piave.

By the end of this little spin we were tired, so we stopped for a coke, answered the customary questions about the Spondon from a guy on a Ducati Monster and then pushed on, each with his own ‘Whoopee’ cushion, souvenirs from two packets of Italian crisps.

By now the rear tyre on the Yamaha was very nearly bald so we started keeping a look-out for tyre service centres and were told we could get it changed at Cremona. Unfortunately by the time we got there they’d closed, so we got out the map and decided to keep going a little longer and spend the night in Mantova.



Edu knew a guy from Mantova who said it was a dump, but you never know, so we hoped for the best and rode into town, me behind Edu watching the tail unit on the Spondon bounce as the bike went over the cobbles. I was really tired by then and would have slept anywhere, but the first place cost a fortune so we kept looking and with the help of a leaflet they gave us in the first place found a dive that ‘only’ cost 90€ for the two of us with parking for the bikes.

A quick shower and we went to have a look around. The town was deserted, literally nobody about and we were starting to think Edu’s workmate was right when we stumbled on a square with restaurants and a stage set up for some kind of show.

We ate well, shared a bottle of wine, felt better and by then the show had started. It was wonderful. We watched, spell-bound, as a small troop of actors on stilts with the most fabulous wardrobe imaginable acted out a tragedy (looked more like a fertility dance to me, but I’m a heathen) backed up by hundreds of euros worth of fireworks and a quality sound system, with heartfelt passion and determination. One of the actresses, on stilts, on cobbles, fell to the ground, and must have hurt herself quite badly, but with help from her crew got back on her ‘feet’ and finished the play as if nothing had happened.

What a wonderful way to finish the day!

By the way, I got the impression that in the end they mated!

DAY 5: PADOVA – LJUBLJANA 435km (2315km)

In the end Padova really was a bit of a dump, entertainment aside, and it had the look of a place that’d been bombed to bits and rebuilt in a hurry, as cheaply as possible. By the next morning Edu had remembered his Spanish history and told me that Padua (in Spanish) was the banking centre of 15th and 16th century Europe, and where most of the money the Spanish Kings borrowed had come from. It must have been very grand in it’s day, but that day had past and now it’s just a provincial town in rural Italy that possibly got bombed to bits in the Wars and put back together with a lack of taste or design.



I’d spotted a tyre place on the way in the night before, and although the guy didn’t do bikes he recommended a place that did, in a town just a few kilometres out of our way called Goito.

The guy in Goito was a crack, he didn’t deal with Michelin so I went Italian and put a Pirelli on the back in place of the Frenchie that’d been there, tyre change after tyre change since I bought the bike. New tyre, fitted, in a jiffy, and balanced too all for the giveaway price of 130€.
The same in Madrid would’ve cost nearly 200€ so I was happy as Larry. The guy was into touring, and had made many trips to the Alps on his BMW tourer, you could tell as soon as he swung a leg over the bike to ride it onto the ramp. Confidence inspiring.

From there on it was Edu in front, as always, the map reader par-excellence, R10 to Este, Padova and on to Venice (where we became separated for a while) and a reunion in an Agip petrol station on the E70 ready for the final leg of the outward journey.

Ps. Don’t ask Edu what he thinks about Italian road signs, the road network around Venice, (or anywhere for that matter) or the state of Italian roads in general. You really wouldn’t like the answer!



The drops of rain that had been taunting us since Venice had turned into drizzle by then, so we togged up in our one piece rain suits and hit the road to Trieste, the last major town before the border. The rain got heavier, and by the time the road signs went weird and we couldn’t pronounce what we were reading it was a downpour. My new Pirelli touring tyre was clearing the water like a truck tyre, and I couldn’t work out why Edu was going so bloody slow. Turns out his half worn Michelin sports tyre didn’t shift as much water as my new tourer (surprising that!) and was slip sliding all over the place, on the verge of aquaplaning, at anything more than 100km/h. Still, the road, contrary to everything we’d read about Slovenian roads, was good and we made Ljubljana without incident. We drove right into the centre, parked up in front of pretty much the first hotel we saw just off the river, and checked in.

Edu’s crotch was soaked, mine wasn’t... shows how much air/water the screen deflects, but both of us had boots full of water, all out luggage was damp, and we were frankly fed up with riding so we made plans to hire a car for the next day and went out for a beer or five.


DAY 6: SLOVENIA

Hangover, throbbing, felt like crap warmed up, desperate for a paracetamol and a full English breakfast and what do Slovenians eat for breakfast??? Cold semi-veggie lasagne and yoghurt, with Robinsons Orange Barley Water from a machine. Dear God. Why did I have five pints of bitter on an empty stomach after getting cold and wet? Some people never learn.



We hired a car, me driving (bad move) and went drive-about. The country is tiny, you could probably cover the whole place in a week on a bicycle if you were in to that. It’s rural, very rural, 1930s Britain rural, and charming. The Alps in the north, with the foothills resembling the Lake District, to the south the Med, and in between the whole place covered in fields with little villages scattered around, with a big motorway running north south to link it all together. The majority of the roads are shiny, polished, worn smooth by the years and heavy traffic, the majority not broken nor dirty, which means that taking it easy in a car, or riding in the dry on a motorbike is nice, but I wouldn’t like to leave the motorway on a bike in the rain.






We ended up in Skofia Loka, a medieval town built either side of a river, with a castle on top of the hill. You really start to see cultural differences just walking around. Everyone was very, from my point of view at least, Austrian. Friendly but formal, clean, organised, paused. There are bars everywhere, with people chatting, not getting drunk. There was a bar under the bridge, built into the side of the gorge. There was a bar in the patio of the castle, with little high round tables for you to put your drink on while you chatted, standing up. It was a shame we couldn’t chat with anyone, because Slovenian really is something else. I must have taken up 5 minutes of the bargirl’s time, the night before, just trying to learn how to pronounce ‘thank you’ in Slovenian. That was after three pints. I gave up after that. Im-possible, in two words.



The capital city is a pleasure, a big river running through a beautiful city, all the buildings are historical, the architecture tasteful and well maintained, there’s plenty of open spaces and little traffic. Bicycles are parked all over the place, unlocked, pristine. There must be twenty bars per person, full of young people dressed up and chatting, no beery nonsense, no shouting, no litter. Surprisingly, you don’t see old people after dark, nor children, but those billions of bars are full so we guessed that the kids stay home with the old-folks after dinner, when the young people go out to see their friends. We found it hard to find a restaurant, despite the disproportionate number of bars, which backed up our idea about the family eating together at home beforehand.



I never did learn how to pronounce ‘thank you’!

DAY 7: LJUBLJANA – BERGAMO 510km (2825km)

Clothes now dry, bags packed, dressed for good weather we pushed the bikes backwards out of the summer beer garden they’d been in for thirty-six hours and hit the start buttons. The Spondon fired up as always, but the Yamaha backfired so hard I thought something must have broken in the engine. It took a while to get running after that too. A bit like twisting your knee, or breaking a bone, I did wonder if that wouldn’t come back to bother the bike as it gets older.

We got a little lost on the way out of the country, found the police helpful but slightly unapproachable, got to ride some heavily patch-worked country roads and finally we were crossing the border again, one day ahead of schedule.

We’d forgotten how bad riding in Italy is.

The best word to describe riding in Italy is... agony.

Imagine a road, two way, ‘A’ road, not dual carriageway, on the outskirts of town, with industrial units on both sides. Paint suppliers, garden equipment producers, stonemasons, a bar, a blacksmiths, a car service place, a tyre specialist, a waste water disposal company... for example. On this road there’s a load of traffic, I mean an endless stream of traffic, and that traffic is comprised of one heavy lorry for every one light van for every two cars. Evenly spread. We even stopped for petrol and I watched the convoy pass half mesmerized, half disheartened. One car, one lorry, two cars, one lorry, one mid-sized van, one light van, one 18 wheeler etc. We nearly took a photo but it wasn’t a nice image and with Edu’s camera on the blink and mine at home...

Now imagine that road, that scenario, and stretch it until it doesn’t just comprise the outskirts of town, but the whole stretch from one town till the next. Two towns, 36km apart, I saw the sign and thought “At last!” and I never got to see green. In the end we stuck at it, 60km/h, overtaking principally at traffic lights (and there were lots) for, read this well, two hundred kilometres. We didn’t overtake as you normally would because there was no point and because there was an equivalent stream of traffic coming the other way. That didn’t stop the Giancarlo Fisichella impersonators in their vans though, and as bikes are narrower than cars we were often regarded as fair game for braking space rather than as other road users. Finally we snapped, got the credit cards out and took the toll road.

The toll road from Verona to the west is nice. You can see the countryside, the beginnings of Tuscany. I saw a town, or better said a village, that looked so nice I remembered the name. Soave. I’ve just seen some photos on the internet and it does look nice so it wasn’t just a case of needy eyes playing tricks on me.

We were pretty fed up and burnt out by the time we next stopped for petrol, but looking at the map we couldn’t give up early because the next place on our way was Brescia, which is apparently the home town of the northern Italian National Front as well as an unattractive industrial pile so it just wasn’t going to happen. After that was Bergamo, which dates back to Roman times and looked worth a try so we bit the bullet and got back on the road.

My two lasting memories of that day, nice ones at least, were firstly crossing bridges over enormous river beds, up to half a mile wide some of them, made of boulder banks of beautiful white stone, washed down, I imagined, from the Alps. The river itself was little more than a stream, meandering between these banks of white stones. That, and our arrival in Bergamo.

What a place! A big, sprawling modern town sitting at the foot of a table top with the medieval town above, presiding over everything. The old town was stunning, beautiful, better preserved and bigger than Toledo, more stately too, more like Caceres but less formal at the same time. I loved it at first sight. We rode up, of course. Sod tiredness. Sod the Spondon overheating. Sod everything. We found a guest house after a few wrong turns, parked the bikes, got the luggage off, got inside, and the heavens opened. Really opened. It didn’t rain, it collapsed. The noise inside was deafening, thumbnail sized sweet corn shaped hailstones were hammering down, the rain was a deluge, and we were hungry, thirsty and there was a trattoria just on the other side of the road. 50 meters. 100m at most, and our landlord lent us two big brollys so what the hell? Yeah? We walked into the restaurant with everything below the thigh drenched, dripping, sopping wet. Hilarious.


DAY 8: BERGAMO – SESTRIERE 290km (3115km)

We were ahead of schedule and Bergamo looked just too good to pass by, so we set the alarm clock for seven am, had breakfast and went to have a look around on foot.

The town was beautiful, and we must have walked around for a good couple of hours without tiring of it’s streets. The views out over the new town from the funicular’s cafe are breathtaking, and we spent a good 15 minutes identifying the old from the new, trying to work out how the Romans, then the Milanese, then the Austrians had set it out over the centuries.



Still, this was supposed to be a road trip so we went back to the guest house and loaded up the bikes, waved goodbye to the gorgeous sisters who were still lolling around, and headed south. The Dolomites would have been the icing on the cake, and Tuscany beckoned, but we really weren’t sure we had the time and the Alps were already on the menu. So, one last look at that twisting road north before setting off, back down the hill, into the new town, through the traffic and past the fattest guy I’ve ever seen on a motorbike... he made the Ducati monster look like a minimoto (sounded big with the Termignoni though)

Remember what I said about main roads in Italy, how they’re one big convoy at best and a traffic jam at worst? The frigging four lane toll road does the same where it goes past Milan. Christ, what a mess! Kilometres and kilometres of traffic, steaming, boiling, burning heat, airless man made gorges between concrete and Perspex cliffs, constant lane changing trying to keep some kind of flow going. If I never ride in Italy again it’ll be too soon (mind, Tuscany and the Dolomites are still calling). Once past Milan things freed up somewhat, only to get heavy again at Turin. Actually, the Turin ring road wasn’t that bad but for the road signs that contradicted themselves and had Edu, navigating as always, in a fit.

Edu came good, and we turned off onto the A55 towards Pinerolo. A break for a drink in a little place to recharge batteries and then on to the mountain. I wanted to make it to Briançon (France) but Edu was worn out from navigating and the Spondon was starting to run badly due to worn out carbs (I knew before we left Spain but figured they’d last the distance) so it was looking like a tall order.



Then it started raining, really raining, not like in Bergamo but enough to make us stop at a bar despite our rainproofs, just to seek shelter. Edu was going on about how the road was unridable when a group of Austrian biker cruised past, determined not to let the weather get the better of them. I was looking at an enormous puddle that was forming on the apex of a left hander, thinking that it would be enough to have you off if you hit it when a teenager on a Vespa came past, absolutely flying, as if the sun were shining and everything in the world was good and trouble free, leant that scoot right over and off he went up the mountain! We are, indeed, a couple of oldies.

When the rain finally stopped we got back on the road, but it was wet, slippery, and the Spondon was really suffering the altitude, and Edu with it. We rode past those Austrians who’d buckled, and up and up to the top at 2035m above sea level.



The ski resort was open, for GOLF! We wondered why they were watering the pistes, especially after so much rain! I guess the water comes from a spring, and the sprinklers are automatic. Whatever. The rooms were big, hot and cheap, so when by a misunderstanding we ended up with one each we didn’t complain as all our kit was soaked again.






DAY 9: SESTRIERE – VALS-LES-BAINS 330km (3445km)

The day started fresh and clean after the previous day’s rain. The roads were to all accounts dry, and we had fun rolling down the mountain to Briançon, where we had breakfast.

The town is really nice, with an enormous fortress and pretty houses. Other than that I still didn’t get any ice in my Coke which was getting monotonous, that, and nobody spoke anything other than French again. Doh!

What was supposed to be one of the best bits of the whole ride was upon us, and I was excited. What I couldn’t understand was why all the bikes we saw were BMW trail bikes, BMW touring bikes, and very very few sports bikes. I mean, what better than a sports bike for alpine curves????

The answer was soon smacking me in the face, or more like in the forearms, wrists, shoulders, and back because the road is almost Italian. It’s just a convoy, with nowhere to overtake, dozens and dozens of kilometres of twists and turns, pointing downhill, loading your bodyweight forward, and traffic, always traffic stopping you from getting into the flow of it. Torture. What a shame.




Once the alpine slopes were behind us the road was nice, free of traffic, big sweeping curves and miles and miles of twisties interspersed with straights were we could open the bikes up a little. We went south-west, across a reservoir, and stopped in a town to watch the MotoGP race. They didn’t speak Spanish, Italian nor English of course, but we managed to make ourselves understood; We wanted to watch the race while we had our lunch. They agreed, gave us a table in front of the TV, and took our order. While we waited they turned the TV on, and by the time the food arrived they’d worked out that the race was on a pay channel and they hadn’t paid.... so we didn’t get to see the race despite all our efforts. As we left the town and hour later we passed a sports bar with a big TV...... Oh well!

The end of the day saw us tired of the heat, tired of riding, just tired and kind of fed-up suddenly. It was also one of those days where there was no ‘obvious’ end to the days riding, nowhere that called us, so we just kind of rode until we were fed up and near a big town, then we headed out of town on a mountain road and stopped when we saw a sign that said ‘restaurant, hotel and bar’. We’d arrived in Vals-les-Bains!

Vals-les-Bains is a sleepy little one horse town in the back end of nowhere, kind of like Cicely in Northern Exposure. It would have fallen off the map decades ago were it not for the fact that the MonteCarlo Classic Car Rally spends the night there, yearly. Hence, the town is dedicated to that rally, with signed posters in the hotel of drivers who’d stayed there, every hick in a van was doing burn-outs away from the lights, and most entertaining of all was the Sam Molone character (of Boston’s sports bar “Cheers”) who’d obviously been through an entertaining divorce because he’d very tastefully decorated his entire bar (I mean all the walls) with sign-written sexist jokes in script that made it look almost Arabic.




After one beer there we went for a walk and discovered the primary school’s summer BBQ, complete with whole hogs on a spit gently spinning over coals. We decamped to the Italian restaurant for dinner where the owner was a heavy-metal chick who spoke English beautifully and her husband was the cook. The food was great and the place had a good vibe... just in case you’re ever passing that way.


DAY 10: VALS-LES-BAINS - GRUISSAN 370km (3815km)

This was one of the days I’d most been looking forward too, the day we were to cross the Millau Bridge. The road out of Vals-les-Bains west is a treat, beautiful, memorable. Just writing this I’ve got video-clips running in my head, following the mountain river up, switching from one side of the river to the other over stone bridges, twisties with no traffic. This is where I want to go back next summer. Forget Italy. I want to revisit the South of France. I guess I’ll just have to learn how to order food in French then.

There comes a time where all roads lead to the motorway, and although it isn’t our style we didn’t mind. Looking at the map you can see why. The roads follow the valleys, and the valleys go east-west, not north-south. That, and to cross the bridge you need to be on the motorway anyway.

To say the bridge is impressive is to understate the fact. That said, it wasn’t nearly as long as I thought! Must be ‘cos I’m spoilt by the Humber Bridge!!! Still, the sheer height of it takes your breath away. The Eiffel tower fits underneath, and that’s 330m straight up. Recommended!

We’d kind of planned on going back to Beziers for the night, and that’s what we’d told some friends who’d left Madrid the day before on their own road trip, but we got there really early (motorway) and decided to keep going a little longer. As we were riding through town some other bikers overtook us, beeping their horns and gesticulating. It was Oscar and Abuelo, our mates from Madrid. We stopped and had a good chat for 40 minutes, about how terrible the roads were in Italy, how drivers cut the corners in the Alps, how France was the best for riding but for the language barrier...
It was a nice encounter, more so by it’s chance encounter.



From there we headed to the coast, despite knowing it wasn’t too attractive we hoped that we might get lucky a little farther south, and to some extent we were right. Gruissan is a village on the coast, with a pretty castle, nice bars, quaint houses and street life. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a hotel to its name... but 3km down the road we found an ugly little holiday resort that did so we checked in, had a shower and rode back sans luggage, sans leather jackets, but with our biker boots on of course!







It was a nice evening and we knew the trip was nearly over. We walked up to the castle, took some photos, walked around the town and went for dinner. I had a great French salad, and Edu something Italian (he was going cold turkey on Italy). We were also tired and a little touchy, 10 days living under each other’s noses was starting to tell and we ended up having a tiff, not helped by me turning the lights on in the middle of the night to find and murder the mosquito that was keeping me awake.



DAY 11: GRUISSAN – MADRID 875km (4690km)

We started off badly, still raw from the night before. We hardly talked over breakfast and once on the bikes we hit the motorway, straight down to Santa Coloma de Farners (Girona) where we’d planned on spending the night. As often happens, the motorway makes a big difference to how fast you get from A to B, and we were heading into town at a little before one o’clock when I signed for us to stop.
“How are feeling?”
“Fine”
“Feel up to trying for Madrid, today?”
“I’ve got stuff I could get done tomorrow, and an extra day would come in handy. Why not?”



We took the same route back as we’d taken on the way out, although it was better this time. We stopped just before the stretch of the NII past Lleida at a petrol station and downed some cold drinks. It was blindingly bright and stinking hot, sweaty and draining. I realised that we were going to have the sunset in our faces for at least a couple of hours on top, and made some comment about how it didn’t matter ‘cos we were charmed and the skies were going to cloud over.

Two hours later, against all the odds the skies clouded over and indeed we were spared the sun in our eyes until it was almost below the horizon altogether.

The magic was working for both of us as the next time we stopped we were best of mates again and everything was looking up, the bikes were working perfectly and we weren’t tired as our beloved A211 was traffic free and sweeping, allowing a steady 110km/h, the best cruising speed for both of us.

The light on the fields as the sun set was jaw-droppingly beautiful, we enjoyed a couple of light showers to keep the temperature down, and when the sun finally set it was cool rather than cold. The headlight on the Spondon is more decorative than functional, but by the time it was a problem there were only about 30km to the motorway and between me lighting the way with the EXUP and Edu taking it at his own pace it wasn’t a problem.

We got back to my place after the longest, smoothest, and probably even the most stunning day of the whole ride. Ironic that 759 of those 875km kilometres were in Spain!!!

Fin.




Edu John