What's not to like? Bazzer persuaded me to go to the MotoGP in Jerez again. I wasn't going to go this year but I'm really glad he did as I've been looking forward to it for some time. So we're on our way. He turned up at my gaff without his back pack. This time he's got a massive tail bag and a neat Ducati tank bag. Miraculously we avoided rain on the way to Portsmouth and took the slow boat as he'd long since booked it. We were originally going to meet in Segovia and had a hotel booked on Wednesday evening, so we had to hot foot it from Bilbao. It was wet and miserable over the mountains so we missed nothing by having to take the motorway, except it cost €21!....each! I thought it was a mistake as my motorway card had gone in and out of the machine several times before coming up with a number but it was correct. That's the same price the hotel cost us. Yup, booked yonks ago, it was 40 Quid for two of us to share a room including breakfast. Really nice hotel too. You live and learn. At least we got to Segovia in good time though and visited the Tapas bar we liked. We watched Real Madrid tonk Beyern Munich and soaked up all things Spanish. Wine and Tapas for two all evening €20, so we got a result as well as Real.
Road Dreams Over time we've got to know some great bits of road on the way down but the N502 from Avila to Talavera de la Reina is supreme. We just had to do it again. I finally seem to have got to grips with the TomTom so I put in the waypoints and plotted our route. The sun was shining, there were going to be no motorway tolls for us today. We went up over the mountain on the CL 601 just outside Segovia and it was the best I've ever experienced it. I'm going to have to teach him about framing and composition. Thomas and Thomas came into their own by easily stitching together the great bits of road. In fact it routed us up a fantastic N road parallel to the motorway, getting us from the bottom of said mountain to Avila. I've tried routing through this area a few times now and today we definitely found the best route so far. In fact we'd done this N road in the opposite direction last year on one of our many visits to Segovia, thanks to Bazz. I remember passing the slow moving Harley on one of the bends and the speed camera at the top. The sun shone, the layers came off and the tyre's got stinking hot. I'll check with Bazz when he stops snoring but I think it's the hottest I've ever felt the tyre's. I wanted to stay in Guadalupe but as the road surface had been ruined on the western part of the loop we stayed on the N502 down to La Nava de Ricomalillo. I'd never done that section before, it was good but the real deal was the EX102 from La Nava to Guadalupe. The exact section we'd had to miss out last year. It was on this road that we stopped off at Vulture Point, to watch the massive birds soaring on the hot rising air. That's where we laid hands on hot tyre's. After all those bends I swear you could fry an egg on them. It wouldn't taste too clever but it would be cooked. I'll check on my clocks but I think it's around 40+ kilometres of great road with 3 cars and a bus on the whole stretch. It was so much fun we're going to go back up it in the morning. I don't know if Bazz knows that yet but I'm sure he won't object. This was the point where I regretted not having my Ghost action camera. It was a casualty in the packing process. I'd broken the charging connection on it and couldn't find the separate charging cradle I'd bought. Besides, the batteries were nearly had it, so it wasn't going to work. It got jettisoned. Plan B is to tape my iPhone to my arm, leg or somewhere and do the bendy bendy tarmac again. If it works, I'll post it. I have to say, the ride from Segovia down to Guadalupe was one of my best ever. Good company, good roads, good weather, good speed, great bike. This bike needs roads like this to appreciate it. You just can't do that in the UK.
As we sat at lunch I decided I liked the tree. Besides, it had a bin in front of it, albeit a small one.
Into the night. It's 6am and I've given up. It's not insomnia, although I do often wake at night and think of creative things. It's the three Cafe con leche's. I don't usually drink coffee any more but I enjoy it so much in Spain I just have to do it. This morning Bazz and I vetoed breakfast and just had a coffee each. It was so tasty I just had to have another. I knew I shouldn't but don't you just love doing the things you shouldn't. Anyroadup, this gave Bazz the opportunity to find out he was going back up the same road we came down yesterday, by reading it on the forum! I hadn't got round to telling him that whilst I was fighting with the 'Shatnav'. He was happy about it and the post gave him more laughs than I thought was possible. In a shocking turn of events the weather was grey and overcast, meaning the tarmac was colder. By the time we'd packed and loaded I realised I'd left the sticky tape in the bottom of a pannier and wasn't for going there again. So the video didn't get done I'm afraid. They'll be other chances though. It wouldn't look any good in that light anyway. It was just as well because I felt I didn't ride the route as well in the cool morning as I had the hot previous afternoon. I was really in the groove by the afternoon and the heat in the tyre's glued that bike to the road like it was a trip on a fairground Waltzer. Up down round and round but you just know you’re not going to come off. Thank you Mr Metzeler. It turned out to be 56 kilometres of empty road. Well, not actually empty, it was very busy in the morning. I counted meticulously 10 cars, 2 vans and a truck with a trailer full of tree trunks along the whole 56k! And that was far busier than the afternoon before. By the time I got to the far end the sun had come out and I was riding better. Weird because most of it was uphill on the way back and usually it's easier to ride uphill than downhill. I've done a Police ' Roadsafe' course a couple of times. Great tuition from officers with great road skills. The bit I particularly loved was when the tutoring officer said; 'They've built the roads, you've paid your road tax, it's your duty to use up the tarmac'. I just loved it. 'Use the width of the road'. He said. So I do, I always have done. I love to take it from the white line, see the exit point, do the late apex and use up the road all the way to the edge. Although today I was millimetres away from the edge of the tarmac so I resolved to give myself a bit more leeway. Bazz is probably smoother than me and doesn't seem to use up the width like I do, or so it seems from my mirrors. Today I think I'll follow him a bit, I like following. It's good to watch a bike or bikes in front and I always figure, if they can get round I can get round, so I'm safe. Also, you learn when following. You can always learn. I checked with Bazz and of course he reckoned the tyre's were probably hotter on the track day we did. Fair enough but yesterday they were the hottest I've felt on the road, which is good. We don't cane it, we don't push it to the limit on a tour, it's too tiring but we do like to get some heat into the tyre's. (And if there are any Americans reading, that's the way you should be spelling tyre's. I tire of reading it. If you get what I mean). I knew saying the 'Shatnav' was working well yesterday was a mistake. Today it was a pain in the arse. Indicating loops and turn off's that were just plain wrong. Then a road that was all pot holes that I didn't want to be on. We covered a fair distance today but not many pics I'm afraid. Starting on pretty full tanks we still gassed up three times. At the third stop an old fella struck up a conversation about bikes. He talked at us rapidly in Spanish, we didn't understand much but I did decipher he had a 1050cc of some kind round the back. He was keen to show us which was odd because somehow he didn't seem to be a biker. He was so keen he wheeled it round the front....and....... it turned out to be a 50cc moped of some kind. Now this machine was clearly something special, it had lightweight cast wheels and a top box. Clearly a reliable machine with a fair amount of kilometres behind it and dust to prove it. I thought that check shirt he was wearing was I bit of a 'fashionista biker look'. So I offered him a straight swap for my Panigale. He wasn't for having it so I offered him the Panigale and the 999.....'R'! Mustn't forget the 'R', makes all the difference. He still wasn't for having it but it gave us all a good laugh. Another old codger came over and realising the deal he said we were mad in the head. I don't know who he meant, us or the mopedista. More laughter. I should have got a picture, it's a real shame I didn't, cast lightweight wheels and all. We tried to book a hotel in Córdoba but it was so expensive we decided to carry on. You're damned if you do and your damned if you don't book a hotel. If you book and it's lousy weather and you don't want to do it, or you leave a bag and have to go back for it, (for example) you forfeit the booking. If you make it up as you go along, usually you're ok but sometimes it turns out expensive but then you just move on. So here we are in Hospideria del Monasterio, Osuna. A converted Monastery. Terrible isn't it? They even let us bring our bikes inside the Monastery gates so they were safe overnight. They like bikes in Spain.
Bikes inside the gates of the monist tree. Un-predictive text! Don't you just love it. I'm sure it was a Monastery.
