2001 Spring Roundup Espana
Somehow it's always around Easter when I do my first big bike-journey of the year. Normally the weather is good, the long weeks of rain have ended and the sun starts to come through regularly. It didn't work out that way last year, when we traveled to the Côte d'Azur in April, riding through weather around the freezing point and it wouldn't work out this year either.
The idea was to go with a bunch of pre-80s bikes around Spain, down the mediterranean coast and up through the inner country. While we had beautyful weather and sun, we also had hail and slush.... Spain is one major tourist destination in the world (I think it's ranked #3). All the coast is crowded by northern Europeans, Germans, Brittons and Scandinavians in particular. Most restaurnts offer the menu in several different languages, the gas-stations accept payment in foreign currencies and it's one big tourist circus from February to November. We knew all that and wanted to discover the inner country.
The first problems apeared less than a week before departure, when a friend's Shovel was "unserviceable" because he forgot about the technical control TÜV (which is mandatory in Germany). He still owns a 1999 Road King, and it's the better touring bike anyway, but so much for the "pre-80s" tour. It was finally only three bikes, Friedel's TwinCam Road King, my brother Martin's 1978 BMW R100CS and my 1973 Shovelhead 1200 FLH that hit the road down south.
The first day was just rotten. We started at 0945 in the morning in Estrun where I live and crossed France from north to south. About 1000km through rain and heavy sidewinds and only the last 150 km were dry and partly sunny. So at 1930 we found a small hotel around Beziers and made the first night's rest. Our second day brought us to Tarragona, some 120 km south of Barcelona, and all of a sudden we had holiday feelings. Sunny, warm, the coast to the left and the mountains to the right, heading south and getting a nice suntan. We followed the national roads, only taking the motorway around Barcelona (to avoid a town crossing in the afternoon traffic) and immediately found a hotel directly at the beach some minutes north of Tarragona. Friedel on his Roadking misjudged a 180° curve in the mountains and started "gardening" the soft shoulder, but he pulled the thing off and no harm was done. Getting off the bikes was followed by a beach walk in short trousers. What a change after yesterday's rain and wind.
The next day brought even warmer weather, more sun and 550 km of ocean to the left, mountains to the right until we reached Alicante in the early evening. We crossed our first four-figure mountain pass of 1047m altitude (which was always a highlight for my brother Martin on his BMW) and things went south .... Maybe it was a bit optimistic to go to a tourist destination like Alicante without having booked a hotel room during Easter, so it took us until 2300 (and two engine failures due to overheating) to find some rooms (in a 4-star place, the most expensive one in town). We enjoyed the comfort and view for two days, sleeping 200 meters from the beach and 20 meters from the yacht-port and dining in the restaurants on the waterfront....
We left Alicante on Easter-saturday, heading west via Murcia into Spain's heart Andalusia. The first 120 km seemed like one endless climb uphill and we reached a high altitude plateau where we stopped for lunch. Easy enough: one complete chicken with a lemon and four garlic nuts inside.... per person. That or nothing. They don't overdo their choice of meals. Two more passes (1100 and 1300 meters) and we reached the Extremadura, a remote "desert" where it rains for minutes every few years. I imagine riding through New Mexico or the Baja California like that. Temepatures went up to 34°C, long, straight roads with a bit of agriculture to the left and right and more donkey-carts than cars on the roads. If your sled breaks down there, you start caring for water befor checking the engine. It was the perfect riding day, and when we reached Ciudad Real, we immediately found a hotel with a shower and unlimited quanities of beer.
Easter sunday in the Extremadura. Even less traffic than yesterday. The landscape didn't change a bit. Some hills, long, straight roads and a burning sun. We reached a trucker hotel on a mountain pass short of Plasencia at about 1800 and stayed outside drinking just until midnight, when the temperature was still around 25°C. The odd thing was the view of snow covered mountains to the left and right. It is those rocks who nourish the desertic land with water for agriculture. Now this was mid April.... imagine what it must be like in August and you know why it's called Extremadura! I will remember that day as the most impressive one of our journey. It's more than a week ago as I write this, but I have not left that lonely country yet. Impressive!
The Spaniards work on Easter monday and the roads were crowded when we headed north for Santander, a rather long leg of 550 km leading us into the heart of the "Pais Vasco". We were stopped by two Motorcycle Police officers on BMWs who were concerned about the size of my numberplate and our direction (the ETA, a Bask terror organisation (they call themselves "independence fighters") discouraged all tourists from travelling to Spain and northern Spain in particular), but it all ended in good friendship and laughter when the officers wanted to know about our bikes, their ages and the trip we already had behind us. The weather got colder as we came closer to the Atlantic coast and the Pyrennees mountain chain, and we crossed another three passes that day (1100, 1300 and 950 meters), the latter one in fog, rain and temperatures close to freezing. But again we were lucky and got rooms in Santander's best place, having a beautyful view on the bay and port. Just when we hit our rooms, a ferry from England arrived, full of cars and bikes, and we joked how the English come over here to get bombed by terrorists... as if they haven't enough of that in Northern Ireland? It doesn't affect you, but there is something about black humor in a country at war. You try to forget, but you never really do.
We left Santander the next morning and "wandered" along the coast of the Biscay Bay up to Biarritz. They do have a nice country there, the rocks drop vertically into the water. Just 250 km in 15°C and sun, but I never had more curves and bends in one day. The road is glued to the shoreline and follows every bow the rocks make. We arrived in Biarritz by mid afternoon, got a hotel on the waterfront (Biarritz is rather posh and expensive!) and discussed how to go on. We had two more days. Either start tomorrow and do another stop in mid France, expecting two days of riding in rain and bad weather or give it another break and do the "last few Ks" in one big go on thursday. We had to take the trip back via Beziers on the mediterranean coast, so the Pyrenees from west to east and and France from south to north were waiting for us. Alltogether 1600 km, a classical long Ironbutt. We chose the wrong option and stayed in Biarritz for another (wild!) night, making it our second "no riding" day of the holiday.
Our last evening started with a superb dinner in the old harbour at a place named "Chez Albert", one of THE fish-restaurants in France or Europe and ended in a bar 50 meters away from our hotel, where we just wanted to drink a couple of beers before we fell in bed (next day the long distance ride!). Well, things don't work out like we plan it all the time, and we found ourselves in the middle of a Karaoke contest. That's something that seems to attract girls by the way. We had a couple of beers more and immediately formed "CAPTAIN CLIT AND THE PUSSY TEASERS" because not having a name ain't cool at all if you're drunk! Karaoke in France means 99% of French songs, a lot being of American or English origin, but only known in a version with French lyrics, sung by a French artist (I can sing Bob Segers' "Old time Rock n Roll" the version he released it in 76 on Stranger in Town, but I don't know the lyrics for "Bon vieux Rock n Roll" by Jonny Halliday. It's a common problem, even the other way around; Sinatra's "MY WAY" is an original French song for a change ("Comme d'habitude" by Claude Francois), but the rest of the world thinks it's American...). The choice of original English language music is restricted, so we performed "I got U babe" (the Beavis and Butthead version), "Let it Be" (well, we should have left that one alone) and Queen's "We are the champions". The third song didn't really happen. We were shure that the girls would throw their panties on the stage by the time we performed that one, but in fact they just pulled the plug and closed the bar! I can't get things real straight there because I wasn't all that sober anymore.
While the last and longest trip of 1600 km should be the one I shall tell most about, I have to admit that I can't. We started on thrursday at 0900 in the morning and arrived at my place on friday at 0300, roughly 18 hours later. We got 400 km of icy rain in the mountains, mild climate along the mediterranean and didn't talk anymore at the gas and coffee stops. We just went on. It's days like that when you start thinking how you can call this your hobby! We made it, and that's what counts.
Big Mama performed quite well on the trip. The oil consumption was around 1.75 liters on 1000 km (roughly 1 quart on 300 miles) and the bike behaved well through all the slopes, climate changes and conditions. My old Shovel burnt the least petrol, averaging 5 liters on 100 km, beating the Roadking (about 5.3) and the BMW (5.5l of petrol, but not a single drop of oil here!) by some fractions. They had to adept their speed to my bike, meaning that we were cruising between 95 and 110 km/h all the time, topping out at 120 km/h downhill or in cold conditions. Even if it's just an old Shovel with a tendency to do road markings, it's also an Electra Glide and that means it has been made for the long trip, for cruising day after day.
I will have to change the oil filter and splash out a new rear tyre (that fuckin' Avon doesn't last long at all! I'm gonna go back to Dunlop or try a Continental). A general cleaning may be a good idea and checking the sparkplugs is on the list, but those standard maintenance jobs aside, she's a perfect tourer, even after 28 years.
updated 27-April-2001