You’re all bastards and I hate you! Look what you have made me do! I had a perfectly good BMW S1000R and you made me swap it for this! And now you’ve forced me to go to Spain, just so that I can write bollox every day on here for your delectation. I hate you! And I am going to miss Brenda’s party! I really, really hate you!
Maybe I was a little tipsy when I posted last night. Today I am writing this as I am sitting on the top deck of the ferry as it passes Brittany. The sun is shining and life is good! I have had the streetfighter for ten days now. The beemer had to go. It was a mk2 S1000R. I previously had a mk1 and it was excellent. The 1 was Euro4, the 2 was Euro5. I tried and failed to dial in the suspension on the 2. What ever I did, it still bounced me out of the seat over the bumps. The streetfighter is plush by comparison. The 2 was silenced within an inch of its life, apart from an annoying resonance in the exhaust at about 5k rpm when it sounded like there was an angry bluebottle down there. Shock! Horror! The mirrors on the streetfighter work! Surely a Ducati first! The fighter is the nakedest bike I have ever owned. The lights are small and low, so much so that you really cannot see them whilst riding. The S1000R lights were higher and offered a modicum of protection. So far I have put a set of Rizoma levers onto the bike that I had left over from 1299 ownership, and I have fitted a comfort seat. Thank-you Claudio for changing the seat design so that a comfort seat from a Panni V4S does not fit a Streetfighter V4S! The rack is Hepco and Becker C-bow and allows a set of small softish panniers to be carried. The tank range seems to be less than on the Panni V4. Perhaps the Streetfighter tank is a bit smaller. The fighter needs rearsets. I have small feet but I want a larger distance between the gear lever and peg. Gilles Racing will probably be fitted when I get back. I had the Rizoma on the Panni V4 and whilst I liked the position I was not impressed by the quality of the engineering on them, or the cost. Still you live and learn. There are three of us on the boat, and we are meeting two others in Spain. The plan is to head over to Ponferrada in NW Spain and play around in the hills that surround the town, with plenty of coffee stops in order to allow time to put the world to rights and talk bollox about bikes. The boat is very busy. I’ve never seen it so full.
The boat arrived on time but it took ages to get off and through passport control. We headed west to Torrelavega and found the hotel where rider #4 was waiting for us. After a leisurely breakfast there we finally set off at about 1030. First road of note is the N611 south to Aguilar de Campoo. Its the old main road south before they built a dual carriageway parallel to it. It has seen better days, but the layout is ace, the surface is not too bad and best of all it is quiet. Very quiet. It climbs up onto the plateau past windmills and the occasional sheep. We then headed west along the southern edge of the mountains via Guardo and Cistierna and La Robla. This is industrial ex-mining country (coal, iron etc) and the landscape still bears the scars. The industry at La Robla still appears to be operating. After La Robla it was a few km to Rioseco de Tapia where we picked up the second road of interst, the LE460. This road looks non-descript on the map but Streetview showed that it had promise and boy did it deliver. Its about 30 miles long, has three or four hamlets and the rest is just a wiggly uppy-downy playground. Number of overtakes? One or two! It was pretty much deserted. We saw the occasional vehicle come the other way. After that it was a quick blatt down the N6 (another road superseded by a motorway) and into Ponferrada. Rider #5 arrived from France on a new S1000R quite late having played for too long in the Pyrenees on the way over.
Just come back from that area, this is the old fashioned map we used with the ‘best biking roads’ for the NW marked up. Don’t trust the reviews for ‘Nameste’ Indian restaurant in Ponferrada, it was shockingly bad, upstairs in the market and seriously lacking in choice.
Today could have gone one of two ways. It dawned cloudy and overcast, with the clouds sitting on the hills. We set off on a tiny road that heads south from Ponferrada. It wasn’t long before we were in the clouds. Will it, or won’t it? Answer - yay! Climbed out over the top of the cloud into bright sunshine! Result! A steady descent into Trouchas was followed by a spirited run west to O Barco. This is quarry land; they are everywhere and the land has really been raped. It looked like they were quarrying slate, so think of N Wales but on a much larger scale. Not pretty to look at, but great roads. You just had to watch out on the corners for quarry lorries. There weren’t many but better safe than sorry! Lunch in Quiroga, then NE towards Pedrafita. This is strange road. It starts off really well with a great ascent with wide corners up to Alto do Boi. After that the road was blocked by a massive landslide, so a diversion was in place. Tiny, twisty, steep, gravel on the corners. Taxing! Once back on the ‘main road’ it too had become small and bumpy. then it opened out for a few km of relatively smooth and well surfaced tarmac before deteriorating again. Once at Pedrafita we had another coffee (we like to stop for coffee and banter) before heading back to Ponferrada on the N6. This is the old main road before the motorway next to it was built. Its very quiet and great for hooning. Photos are at the top of Alto el Morredero at 1960 metres.
Pah. Not bad. Posted from somewhere in Germany after several beers, some red wine and a lot of Conti Road attack 3 melting on the two mother ships. Das izt not half bad, yah?
This morning the outlook was grim. The weather-girl (se se se scorchio!) said that there would be heavy rain in NW spain in the afternoon. Bugger! So we set off to try and do a loop before it set in. The first hour was ‘interesting’ due to the number of G&Ts that were consumed the previous evening. The back road from Ponferrada to O Barco is a fine road, ruined by the procession of heavy lorries and the appalling driving. Its very twisty and there are not many legal overtaking opportunities. Ho hum. (smiley face). We jumped onto the N120 to bypass the town and A Rua and then headed south on the OU533 towards the border with Portugal. Now this road is rather good! In fact its VERY good. Back to almost no traffic, immaculate surface and BIG fast turns. It certainly blew the cobwebs away. Coffee in A Gudina, then east along the N525, or what is left of it. The A52 motorway has been forced through. The old road survives for most of the way, apart from one section where you get shunted onto the old-old road. (They do this in Spain a lot. The Franco road gets replaced by something better, then they replace the replacement!). Just east of Puebla de Sanabria we took the ZA125 NE towards La Baneza. I have ridden most of these roads before and this is one of my favourites. I don’t know why, but this road just talks to you. It is twisty as hell! The spanish do roadsigns better than we do. They have yes-overtaking signs as a corner opens up. You can use these to anticipate and get on the throttle early. They also have recommended max speed signs at the start of many sections of curves. For bikers they go like this: 70kph = you wont need brakes at 80 mph. 60kph = you might need brakes at 80mph. 40kph = come down a gear or two and slow down to 60mph. 30kph = will contain at least one tight bend at 40mph. After nipping up to Astorga we finally took the LE142 back over the hills to Ponferrada. You have to chill and ride slow on this road. Its narrow, twisty and the surface is good but it is on or next to the southerly Camino del Rey pilgrim route. There are lots of walkers and cyclists and it wouldn’t be good for you or them if you interfaced. And what of the promised rain? Well it drizzled a bit on the top of one of the passes on the OU533 and we were on damp roads in places on the N525 but that was it! Tomorrow the BMW S1000R has to have its first service over in Leon, so we will be a man down. (Its owner got it the weekend before last expecting to do the 600 miles and have the first service done at home before this trip, but it broke down after 14 miles and had to be recovered back to the dealer. Sorting it out took two days leaving insufficient time to do the necessary. It has been fine ever since. Apparently there was a software update that it needed.) I was so busy having fun today that I didn’t take many pictures. So you’ll have to make do with a picturesque view of the final village on the way bak into Ponferrada. Great coffee as usual.
Yesterday was wet. Very wet. Extremely wet. The S1000R went off to Leon for its service. It stayed dry until it met us for lunch at Cangas del Narcea. We went up the N6 to Lugo. It started raining about half way there. It very quickly became torrential. It rained as we rode the road from Lugo NE to A Fonsagrada and Grandas de Salme. I have now ridden that road three times, and every time it has been raining. Sooner or later I am going to score it on a dry day! After lunch we rode back down the Sil valley to Ponferrada. The sun came out for the last 20 miles and I dried my gloves and jacket in the sun whilst drinking coffee at the last stop. Today we transferred to Las Arenas de Cabrales which is a small town between Panes and Cangas de Onis just north of the Picos de Europa. We got wet again in the morning, despite opting to stay on the south side of the mountains until the last minute. It dried up in the afternoon for a jaunt around the lake at Riano and then across the Puerto de San Gloria, down to Potes, down the Desfiladero de la Hermida (gorge) to Panes and along the AS114 to Las Arenas. My front tyre is now shot. It is a Pirelli Rosso Corsa II and was new at the start of the trip. It has steps on each shoulder and is horrible in the wet. When the roads are dry it understeers on bumpy roads and fights you through each corner. Normally you counter-steer on the entry to a corner and are then neutral until exit. Now I have to maintain pressure on the inner bar throughout the corner. I hate it in this state but will put up with it for the last two days. The same tyre on the S1000R has done the same mileage on the same roads and is fine. It must be something about my riding style, or the damping in my forks. I am running the bike using the Sport map and the dynamic suspension mode. Here are a couple of pictures from Riano and the top of the Gloria.
(Panes seems to be rammed with British bikers just off the boat from Santander. Lots of bikes on the roads around Riano may attract the attention of the local Plod, so we may go somewhere else tomorrow. There was no sign of them today, but I have seen them in the past on the bends around the lake and on the bends below the dam. Whilst on holiday some of our party have decided that to speak Spanish all you need to do is add ‘o’ to the end of each word. So dam becomes a damo. Oh what fun we have on our trips!)
Pico de Tres Mares near Reinosa today. This is a main road that leads to a dead end. There is a small ski resort there in winter, but at this time of year you have the road to yourself. Except for the cows, horses and donkeys that graze the pastures on either side. What goes in one end comes out the other, often all over the road. Still a great piece of tarmac, though.
On the last full day of riding we started out from Las Arenas with low cloud and drizzle and headed west to Cangas de Onis. From there, south through the Desfiladero de Beyos and up over the Puerto de Ponton pass towards Riano, stopping off at a view point that was noted earlier in the week. By then the sun had come out. Down towards Riano, but then taking a right turn onto the CL635 towards Oviedo. By now there were thundery showers everywhere and inevitably the heavens opened on the descent off the Puerto de Tarna. Torrential rain, rivers of muddy water over the roads. A knackered front tyre. Nice! Lunch in Langreo then back down the main road towards Cangas. The bottom of the road up to the Mirador de Fitu was clear of cloud so we decided to try the ascent, but the top was shrouded in cloud so the normal coastal view was not to be had. Damp, foggy descent. Knackered front tyre. Yada, yada. At the final coffee stop I managed to find somebody who was sympathetic to my plight (see photo). The V4S Streetfighter is an absolute hoot to ride on roads in Spain. I find it very comfortable and the wind blast doesn’t bother me very much. It is a torque monster that reminds me of my 1299. It seems to have more low end grunt than my Panni V4 does. Brakes are a bit wooden, lacking initial bite, so it will get some new pads when I get home. Tank range is ok. The best I risked was 140 miles (with 35 of those with the reserve light on), which resulted in just over 14 litres at the next fill-up. I have no idea if the stated 16 litre capacity is accurate. H & B soft panniers are fine for a week and are small enough to prevent you from bringing too much stuff. The lack of a screen means that there is almost nowhere to balance a helmet when stopped. I don’t like the helmet on a mirror approach that some riders adopt. Ducati seems to have finally solved the clutch bleed problem. The lever is as firm after a week as it was when I got the bike. Contrast this with the 748R, 1098S, 1299S and Panni V4S that have all had bleed problems. The 11mm spanner that I now carry to allow bleeds during a ride was not needed. So that is it for Spain for this year, or is it? Next trip is to the Nurburg Ring in July on the patched up Panni V4S (see my trip report from last year). I expect to have demons to settle scores with through the Hatzenbach section, especially if it is wet again. I have a week free in October but I haven’t decided yet on whether to ride my pushbike in Portugal or my motorbike in Spain or Italy. Decisions, decisions…
