Stopped off at a little bar an a village en route. The noise! If I can I’ll post a short audio recording of it later. Hilarious.
Nice write up, Sam. Not sure you’re aware but it’s Feria week in Seville. Might be worth a visit if you haven’t already been.
Let The Sunshine Let the Sunshine In. When we got to the hotel on the first night everything was locked up and there was a sign on the door saying ring this number, great. It’s much more difficult to make someone understand over the phone and it took a while before the Spanish woman realised we were at the door of the hotel at that very moment. Several times I asked how long it would take her to get to the hotel whereupon the door opened and out she came, full of apologies. Once installed we showered and headed off to the local bar and local it was. It was great to sit at the bar and soak up the atmosphere. 3 rounds of drinks and 3 rounds of tapas, total 12 Euros. So we gave the barman/owner 15 and he was so surprised he gave us a top up. Everyone was happy and it was good Tapa good beer and and very good wine. For our efforts in the rain we were truly rewarded the following day. The lady that ran the hotel couldn’t have been more obliging, we had a good breakfast and she brought out cleaning gear for our filthy bikes. Everything was covered in road grime. After a good rinse she waved us off as we headed south easterly towards Portugal. The sun was shining, the road was smooth and entertaining with left and rights, rises and falls. In an hour and a half or so we saw 1 truck, 1 van and 1 motorbike going in the opposite direction. On our side of the road there was nothing except us. After doing a ‘factory reset’ of the Sena headset’s in the calm of the room, as well as turning off our phones, Baz myself and Messrs Thomas and Thomas were finally all communicating. As we went along we agreed that it doesn’t get better than this for riding and if it was like that all the way we’d be well happy. Occasionally we’d go over a rise and you could see the undulating road stretch out in front with absolutely nothing on it. Total-freedom, it was bliss. The downside of having such empty roads means there are no gas stations either. I zero the trip meter at every gas station and as we hit 150K since the last fill-up I began to get concerned. We stopped and plotted a route to the next nearest gas station, which turned out to be only 12k. As it turned out we made it there with ease, once again the constant cruising speeds had been good to us as opposed to stop starting reducing our range. We needed less than 9ltrs. Baz appears to be using fractionally less than me. We put it down to the fact that I’ve gone to 42 teeth on my rear sprocket but it’s only a fraction of a litre at each stop. We headed up along the winding road past a fantastic old castle built high up on on a rock outcrop, with sheer drops all around it. As Baz said, you wouldn’t have wanted to try and storm that place, so we didn’t. We headed along a tighter, twistier road that took us across the north eastern border of Portugal and onto Bragança. All morning we’d splattered a lot of bugs, there’d been none in the rain. Tic, tic, tic thump, splat! As we wound our way along the deserted roads high up hills, down into tight tree lined gorges and up mountains again into the north eastern tip of Portugal, we killed some more. It felt good to be alive.
Thursday evening ride from the track to the new Marc Marquez 93 restaurant. They’re revving the guts out of the in-line 4’s bouncing off the rev limiters while standing next to them, smiling. The madness has begun.
Possibly, two of them blew up. Blue/white smoke everywhere. It made me wonder how they were going to get to the track over the weekend.
It was madness, in fact it was bloody awful on these bikes. Probably a couple of thousand bikes headed slowly for Jerez in the heat. We were sweating in our stripped down gear, our nuts were frying from the heat of the engine and we decided to abandon it and peel off. We went one turn too early and got onto the motorway in the direction of Seville, which meant a 50-60 mile or more round trip to get back to the hotel. When we got back there was Sylvain Guintoli, Michael Lavertry and some more of the BT Sport crew. Later we bumped into Sylvain again. As we went by I said I liked his technical commentary on the programme’s. He was very polite and had a little chat with Baz.
Sylvain G does some brilliant track tutorial videos for a very reasonable price. He comes over really well. They keep going on about the record temperatures in Spain on telly at the moment. Keep hydrated and enjoy (as I know you will). All the best Sam and thanks for taking us with you.
Into the Night. 3.30 am and the local Ferria is still going strong. Lots of different loud music, horns blowing but over all the sound of lots and lots of people talking loudly, very loudly. Don’t they know some people have a race to go to in the morning? It’ll probably go on until 5 or 6 am. The mossies are eating me and the ‘Pimientos’ are repeating on me. No sound of bikes tearing around like there was all night last year. In fact the bikers seem to have deserted this hotel this year.
Today, we left the hotel just north of Jerez and headed down to Basil’s penthouse flat near Puerto Banús. The distance was more than a tank full so we decided to use up what we’d got and one refuelling stop would get us there. A simple plan but nothing is ever that simple in Spain. When Baz’s fuel light came on we pulled into a gas station only to be told there was no petrol. Oh, call me old fashioned. Diesel possibly but ‘gasolina, non’. By the looks of it all the bikes headed that way yesterday evening had drained the place dry and….it’s a bank holiday. Issa no gasolina. A quick Google maps search and the TomTom showed another station 5 mins up the road. Only to find on arrival their electric box was tripping and the pumps weren’t working at all., whaaaat? Notttthhhing is simple! ‘Gasalina….no’! ‘Mierda’! The station was on the opposite side of the road, we were about to pull out when the Guardia Civil showed up. Doh! Blue flashing lights, so we turned around and went back into the station. Don’t cross the road and don’t cross the Guardia. When we told them what the problem was they were a little surprised too. ‘Dos minutes señor’. They went into the gas station and there was much commotion, soft drinks were given to the Guardia and everyone tried all the breakers repeatedly, much discussion followed, arms were waved. We waited and waited, eventually señor Head Honcho Guardia came and said; ‘Gasalina, non’! Which of course we’d concluded before they showed up. It was a good job we weren’t in a hurry, never be in a hurry for anything in Spain, it just doesn’t happen. He explained we’d have to continue down the road to the next station, which of course, once again, was the plan before they showed up. Was it ok if we turn here where it says no U turns I asked because we are low on gas. ‘Siiiiiii, no problema’ and we were waved casually away, good but bonkers, rules can be ignored when the Guardia decide. He turned promptly and walked away so as not to witness us crossing the empty single lane and the instant I opened the throttle on comes my reserve light! ‘Mierda.’ I thought ‘Houston we have a problem’. ‘Copy that’. We didn’t know if the other stations en route had been drained dry by the many thousands of bikes headed from the track and we couldn’t take the gamble, so we veered off to a little village which had not just one but two two gas stations, resultado. A young lad came up and asked how big the engine was, how fast will it go. They love the sports bikes, the amount of smiles, thumbs up and revving hands we’ve had, After the biggest fill up of our tour we were thankfully on our way again. We headed into the heat and took another detour to Zahara de la Sierra for a well needed coffee. It’s a beautiful white village high up on a mountain with a castle, which I love to visit and waste away some time watching the world go by. You can safely park the bikes right next to the cafe’s which is ideal with all the luggage on. When we arrived we found newly installed bollards accross the road and various no parking signs. Cafe….non. ‘They obviously don’t want bikes here any more, let’s go’. Says my wing man through the headset. ‘Copy that’. Thoroughly disappointed, we slowly sweated our way off down steep narrow cobbled streets using the rear brake to keep the speed to a crawl while the TomTom tried to direct us back to the centre of the village. Which was fair enough because that was the waypoint I’d plotted. Ignoring the ‘WrongWrong’ as Baz has named it we wound our way off in the direction of Ronda. After following the zig zagging byway my wing man with his one eagle eye spotted a restaurant with shade and parking right in front, way down below us on the main road. It was the ideal place to sit outside, eat drink and relax while we watched the bikes go by. On departure Baz says to me, ‘I wouldn’t polish your helmet in front of those two gay guys if I were you’. I did. ‘I bet you don’t put that in your blog’. I did that too and I put my jacket, lid and gloves on before striding out into the sunshine. Fair enough, each to their own. We wondered if they were into leather, we are, each to their own. Zoooom.
We had a couple of days at Bazzer’s place, now winding our way back up the Fantastic N502. Now that’s a bin! Uncle Baz gives the bikes a well neeeded jet wash. Lunch at La Nava de Ricomolillo, just about to ride the magic carpet to Guadalupe.
