FRANCE, SPAIN & PORTUGAL – 3000MILES, THROUGH FOREST FIRES & 40C+ TEMPERATURES!!!
I’ve made a 10 min video of the trip which includes on-bike footage of me riding through a wild fire, video clips of helicopters fighting wild fires and some great drone footage filmed and donated by Gary; here’s a clip to whet your appetite!!
Full video link is at the end of this post!
After returning from the Balkans adventure at the end of June I had 2 weeks to get the bike serviced and change tyres to be ready for this trip, leaving on 7th July 2022. I had booked the service date with BMW Northampton well in advance; my 6 year old R1200GS had covered 56,000 miles trouble free, apart from a faulty water pump early on which was replaced under warranty. When I picked the bike up they mentioned that there was only one space left in the user manual service record for the next service at 61,000! Apparently they very rarely see bikes with this amount of miles as the average British only does 3K miles per year..I’ve been doing just over 9k..3 times the average. This is my 3rd GS and in total I will have covered 120,000 so far on them..absolutely great bike the GS !! 🙂
So on 7th July I rode down to Portsmouth to meet up with Bernard, Stuart, Mike, Rob & Gary for our overnight ferry to Cherbourg, France on Brittany Ferries.
This will be the 4th big trip I’ve done with these guys, always to the Pyrenees (the roads are great) these trips are planned and booked by Bernard. This year we called the trip BLAST 22..(Bernard’s, Long, Arduous, Stupendous, Tour ).
Having planned many trips myself I know that a great deal of effort, organisation & planning goes into making these trips happen, especially when there is a group of 6 involved. The roads Bernard plans are always great, good hotels booked and even suggested coffee & lunch stops are included on the route plan..the rest of us just turn up!
On this trip there should have been 7 of us, but poor Steve came down with a nasty case of Covid just a few days before we were due to leave and had to pull out. To make matters worse he had just bought a new Triumph Tiger 1200 2 weeks before!! The fact we were going in July, rather than September, was due to the July dates being the only dates Steve could make. Shame he missed the 43c heat that we had to ride through on some days!! 🙂
The ship sailed at 23:00 for arrival in Cherbourg at 08:00 French time. We had a couple of beers and then to bed, 3 to a cabin. We arrived on time and pushed our way past the queue of cars to the French border passport control; soon were were riding on small D roads in rural France on our way to Amboise, a nice town on the Loire river, our first hotel. 240 miles.
All was going well, until 150 miles in Rob suffered a rear tyre puncture on his BMW K1200S. The team set about trying to repair the tyre by plugging the rather jagged hole..3 plugs later things were not looking good. So I did some Googling and found there was a reasonable looking motorcycle dealer that sold tyres about half mile away..I rode off to check them out. Good news; the place looked good..the bad news: they were shut for their 2 hr lunch break..don’t you just love the French!!
We managed to get enough air into the tyre for Rob to ride the bike to the motorcycle dealer and we waited outside for the 14:00 afternoon opening. As luck would have it they had the right tyre and were prepared to fit it immediately. This was a real result, otherwise Rob’s trip could have been over on day one!! 🙂
We made it to Amboise on some great rural roads and after several cold beers we walked into town for good dinner.
On the morning of 9th July we set off riding South for Condat in the Massif Central region of France, 250 miles; from here on in we are having fun on the really good roads 🙂 As shown in the video at the end!
Our hotel that night was Le Lac des Moines (lake of the monks), in a really nice position beside a lake. It was warm so we ate dinner outside next to the lake. Check out the video..you will note that I’m not present yet at the pre-dinner beer drinking..I’m still in the shower, or applying the moisturiser 🙂
The next day our destination was a small town near the famous Gorge du Tarn, a ride of 200 miles. The following day we did a loop through and around the Gorge riding through rock arches as the roads followed the gorge ..check out the video. We stopped for coffee in a small village, which I realised I had stayed at during my first ever riding trip to France way back in the early 1990s! We rode further south on more great roads and spent our final night in France at a rather posh (for us) hotel.
Its now day 6 and we enter Spain, skirting Andorra and pick up the fantastic N260 into the Pyrenees. As you will see from the video, the roads in the Pyrenees are fantastic; great road surface, twisty and seem to go on for ever. Motorbiking heaven 🙂
On 13th July we set off West for our one of our favourite overnight stops in the town of Anisa. More great roads. During the journey Stuart’s Triumph 1050 Super Sport somehow fell over and broke one of the riders foot pegs (well it was the 13th!!)..the service team soon had it fixed by replacing it with the pillion footrest.
The temperature was rising as we rode through the Pyrenees, we are now getting afternoon temperatures up to 36C, which is certainly hot enough!!! After a great day’s ride arrived at Anisa; a shower and several beers later we climbed the 1000 steps up to the Old Town and headed for the pizza restaurant.
For the next two days we rode south west across Spain on more great roads, heading for Portugal and the famous Parque Natural da Serra da Estrela. The temperature was rising every day, we saw our first 40C..which is 104 Fahrenheit!! With the sun and the heat it was not a surprise when we saw smoke on the horizon where we were headed. We stopped to decide it it was on our route..it was! We had a coffee stop planned in a town very near the fire; as we had our coffee helicopters were flying low overhead to water bomb the flames! As we left the town the road was closed so we did a quick diversion and carried on into Portugal.
Make sure to watch my video which shows the helicopters coming in dropping their water bombs..
We had a great day riding in Parque Natural da Serra da Estrela before heading north through Portugal aiming for Potes in the Spanish Picos de Europa. The temperature was rising even more and mid afternoon it hit 43C..109.4 degs F!!
I can tell you that riding in that temperature is like having a hot hairdryer blowing in your face! You have to close your visor and your jacket to keep the heat out. At 15:00 there is not a sole to be seen on the roads..all the locals are tucked up behind their shutters and don’t come out until later in the evening. Only people on the road was us crazy Brits on a mission to get to our next hotel for cold beer!!
As we rode north through Portugal the roads were great, but soon we could see smoke again on the horizon. We stopped and looked across the valley at a raging wild fire, with our road running straight through it!!
We carried on and thankfully the road took us through parts which the fire had already ripped through..it was an eyrie scene with burnt trees; white ash everywhere and heavy smell of smoke in the air. Only at one point did we actually pass within feet of the flames, which had just sprung up in a new area. Time to get out of there ASAP!
Check out the video, which shows us riding through the fire!!
We carried on and soon crossed the border back into Spain and into the fantastic Picos de Europa and our final night at our favourite hotel in Potes. We stopped on the way at the top of the Picos by the famous statue of the stag and looked out across the mountains.
We were greeted by the hotel staff as long lost friends ( we must have stayed 6 or more times over the years). Our dinner was steak, with lots of red wine to wash down the pre-dinner beers. 🙂
The next morning we set off for the port of Bilbao to catch our 14:00 departure, overnight ferry back to the UK. The arrival time the next day was 20:45 ..so 30+ hours at sea!!
In the end we didn’t dock until 21:30 and then the great British passport control staff made all the bikers take their helmets off to check faces against passport photos! What a total waste of time..how many illegal immigrants arrive on expensive motorcycles, having paid to catch a ferry to the UK??? !!!!
It rained on the way home, but luckily my route missed it.. arrived home around midnight.
What a great trip..3000 miles, 3 countries, great roads, great scenery, good company and lots of adventure. Thank you Bernard for all the planning and organisation ( can we go in September next year?); thank you Gary for allowing use of the great drone footage!!
Thank you for reading..here is the video..make sure to watch and bring this adventure to life 🙂
And finally, I’ll leave you with a couple of thoughts 🙂
Can’t wait for for my next advenutre..2000 miles riding in California during October 2022..stay tuned folks!