I awoke to find to find Dulcinea del Toboso furiously typing away on her iPad, not to be outdone I picked up my iPhone and started to type. Curiosity got the better of me; 'What are you doing?' 'I'm doing my blog.' 'A blog? What about?' It's about the new bag my friends gave me for my birthday and the trip I've taken it on.' 'What are you doing?' 'I'm doing a blog?' 'Are you? Really? What about?' 'It's about this trip on my bike down through Spain to the MotoGP and back'. What's the chances of that? Neither of us have ever done a blog before, nor had we even talked about doing one. After a day it was enough of that rest stuff, I was off to the MotoGP at Jerez. Three whole days of it. The noise, the smell, the action. The ground shaking blurs rounding bends at impossible angles of lean. It's just a shame they stopped putting Redex in the fuel, it used to smell great. Robert Duvall as Colonel Kilgore said 'I love the smell of Napalm in the morning'. I love the sound of Termignoni's in the morning. If could get an alarm clock with full 'on song' Termi's as the wake up noise, I'd buy two...one for each ear. Power and freedom wrapped up in rolling thunder. When I pull on a helmet it makes me smile, I fire up the Termi's and I turn into a Cheshire cat. Bring on the noise. Pedro and I fired up and the whole valley must have heard us rumble off towards Velez Malaga. It's 12 miles of twisties downhill all the way on shiny tarmac. You take this very easy on cold tyres and watch out for the odd bit of road deformation. The whole road surface just drops away 3 to 6 inches. The resulting patchwork ridges can run almost in the same direction as your tyres and can have you off in no time. A friend of ours had recently hit one and gone into a tank slapper, she must have been moving. Instead of turning on the power she braked, result, broken leg. Heading up the hill two days previously we'd rounded a rock face on a blind bend to find a French woman standing a metre or two out into the road taking a photo of wild flowers on the rock face. She was completely oblivious to the danger, we swerved around her one after the other, she didn't move, was she nuts? Had we been a coach she would be flat. Had we been 'giving it some' she'd be in a mess and so would we. Insane. I presumed she was French because she'd abandoned her car in the middle of the road just a few yards further up, it had French plates. I didn't get chance to practice my French on her. Shortly afterwards rounding another blind bend an Alsatian dog flew out of nowhere and tried to attack my front wheel, then it tried to savage my right foot. It happened so quickly, it scared the shit out of me. I tried to kick it in the chops as I accelerated out of it. You're on the bike, all is normal then within a split second there's a lunatic dog barking like crazy, trying to get its teeth into your front fork like it was a bone. No initial barking, no running up, no prep time. For a moment I thought the front wheel was gone and I was going down. Then I'd need my body armour, not just for the thud as I hit the road but to stop me from being turned into Pedigree Chum. All I could do was watch in the mirror as the same thing happened to Pedro. Notes and language were compared when we got to to top. All went well on the way down and we cruised through Algarrobo onto the A-7 and did the short distance to Velez Malaga. Then onto the A-356 towards Jerez, a great road and a great ride. Bring it on.
The country roads were smooth and empty, it was a pleasure to ride them in the fine weather. We headed past Colmenar and Antequera and I noticed more and more bikes on the road. This is all part of the enjoyment, pairs of bikes then small groups of bikes. We stopped at Campillos, I'd been looking forward to this, not just for the coffee but to just sit and watch the bikes go by. This was the Thursday before the race, Friday practice, Saturday qualifying, Sunday race day. Just imagine how many bikes would be rolling through on those days. It really is part of the event and part of the pleasure. More and more bikes pulled in, we finished our coffees, admired other bikes and one guys leathers. A really nice looking one piece, it would be even better when he grew into it. It was mahousive! I'd realised that on the way down I hadn't taken enough photos. My phone was mounted inside a waterproof case and I used it as my shatnav too. It was all clipped into place and it just made it a bit more of a pallava to take a photo. I'd have to make an extra effort. Maybe on the next trip I need to bring a camera too.
Jerez and the MotoGP It was an easy ride so we took our time and stopped for lunch in Zahara, a beautiful white village just off the A-384. That same dog was there again, the pisser, the standard fitment of every village, sniffing everything. I kept a good eye out this time, once was enough. In the early evening we dropped in on Sandie who'd recommended the N502 and wound up at our hotel in Rota. It was past the track but it's an easy ride back and it was good to be by the sea. The race days fell into a pattern; Get up, eat, ride bikes, watch faster bikes, ride bikes back, eat, drink, sleep. Nice days, I could do more of that. The circuit at Jerez has the biggest bike park I've ever seen but as we had seats on the inside of the track we peeled off and were waved through a different entrance. With pre printed parking tickets stuffed into the screen, the people that just wave did a good job and we went straight through. There was a tunnel under the track, the inside was ribbed and looked just like an old tin Nissen hut. Going through was a joy as it had the best bike acoustics I've ever heard. You could take a moped through there and it would sound good. Pedestrians were also walking through and the Termi's were enough to make one women put her fingers in her ears, I was just ticking over at 5mph! This is MotoGP, you expect lots of noise, that's what you come for. If you can't make noise at a race track where can you do it. It's a bit like saying no farting in a toilet. If you can't do it there, where can you do it? Next it was great to burble along a road right next to race bikes doing 180mph in the opposite direction. You knew you were in the right place, 'The duel carriageway of Joy'. We parked the bikes right at the back of the stand, perfect. Stewards were there the whole time so my fears about the security of the Pornygirly were unfounded. I chained my leather jacket and lid to to bike, put the disc lock with the screamer on, changed into shorts and stuffed everything else into Pedro's very useful panniers. Glad he's got them, glad I haven't. Out with the sun hats and sunscreen, on with flip flops and we were set. Nothing to carry, everything to enjoy. We'd booked seats on the last bend before the start finish straight. It's almost but not quite a hairpin, more of a V. The bikes come down a fast section, brake heavily, slide the rear out, before sweeping round and opening up for the final straight. You can also see quite a lot of the rest of the track too. When the pack first comes down the back straight the ground seems to shake, faaantastic. Most of the action seemed to happen here, the final lap of the GP3 was terrific. The only downside was, it was a struggle to read the numbers on on the screen on the far side of the track. Next time take binoculars. The GP3 and GP2 were the most interesting races. The MotoGP was still enjoyable but Lorenzo was on such good form he just left the rest. You could see in practice and qualifying he was riding with more confidence than the others. It was a master class. On race day the crowd was massive. We'd decided to leave our gear at the hotel and pick it up afterwards. The leather jeans were too bulky to fit in Pedro's panniers so we wore denim jeans and took it easy on the short ride. Going into the track became busy and slow. The Italian Tart wasn't built for queueing and neither was I. It heated up, I had to stand up on the pegs a couple of times before the backs of my legs got 'Panifried', albeit briefly. On Sunday on the way out they closed the dual carriageway eastwards to passing traffic and 100,000 bikes flowed like a river on all four lanes westwards, in the direction of Jerez. That in itself was a great experience.
Pedro and the bikes. The sun hat was essential gear at 30 degrees. Amazing what comes out of a top box.
Awesome read brings back memories. We were in stand X1 and saw Lorenzo's nearly dive, and Lorenzo nearly drop his bike on sighting lap......great weekend. Chipiona great place to stay and only 30min drive.
