Eight of the rest of us left the venue at 8am after some confusion by the hotel about paying the bills. Initially we were just asked to pay our bar bill (which were rather high as we drank the hotel dry of beer) and all the rooms and meals were on the organisers account? We took the rather wonderful D996, a snaking road with fabulous tarmac surface. French road builders really deserve medals, apart from when they resurface with the dreaded Gravillons. The temperature rose higher and higher as we descended into the Rhone valley, from a bearable 32 to a horrible 40. The side wind coming up the valley was incredibly hot as it gusted past us. As we started to climb into the Vecours it dropped a little but we got stuck in slow moving traffic through the gorges. The hotel had a nice garden and the clouds had built up, combined with a decent breeze it was an enjoyable post ride beer and meal. Today we will do a loop of the gorges before splitting up to head home.
Final leg today, by the time we get back it’ll be over 4000km in 10 days. I can’t tell how much life the rear tyre has left in it but there’s a fair bit. Have to say the Dunlop Sportsmart IV’s have been really good but in the temperatures that we’ve had I’m sure the harder wearing Roadsmart IV’s would have been super sticky too. Out of curiosity I bought my temperature sensing gun with me, the rears have been up to 58 degrees while the fronts have been 60 degrees. I should have tested the tarmac temperature but as I’ve said before in France it was melting although not so much in Spain.
We stayed in Albacete and I’m glad we did. 10 am is 29°. 11 am is 31°. Then in the afternoon you have to cut your way through it with a knife, the air is that thick you definitely have to keep your visor down.
And 4,040 Kilometres later we’re back. When I got back Dulcenea del Toboso said straight off; “In this heat you must be in desperate need of a cold beer”. Then she went to the freezer and pulled out two ice cold glasses, which completely surprised me. I knew I’d married her for a good reason. More updates about the trip later, including the way there. Riding in the heat and being with other people i found I just didn’t have the time or the steam to do updates.
We had a great days riding in the gorges and balcony roads of the Vecours, a great region to visit. I highly recommend this hotel, very accommodating and great food https://www.le-vernay.com/en/
Hot as hell Yesterday we rode north through the Jura. The temperature was over 40 Degrees, just horrible! Both Tony and I had issues with the petrol tanks swelling and not venting correctly. It distorted the tank cover. Our hotel for the night was full of quirky artworks but it would have been better if it had A/C or even a fan as our rooms were at boiling point.
Moved north again to Luxembourg and Belgium, some nice roads in Luxembourg but the Belgian roads are pretty crap surface (as bad as UK roads). Nice hotel to finish the trip before the run to the shuttle tomorrow.
Quick 3hr run back to the shuttle and then home. Belgium has even worse drivers than the UK (to go with their appalling road surfaces). Managed to beat my Motoskivies into submission and got them into the washing machine with only a few flesh wounds!
Rollerball On day 2 Pedro the Cruel headed south and Laughing Boy and myself headed north. We hoped we’d put the teething problems of day 1 behind us but the Shat nav decided it had come over all Spanish and needed a mid afternoon Siesta. SamNav had to take over and we headed for the N420 which runs along a gorge beside a winding river. I’d done it last year and it was so good it deserved another go. En route we stopped off for coffee or in Jorg’s case Agua con gas…fizzy water. I asked for a decaf which I was assured it was but on resuming I pretty quickly knew it wasn’t. It was a strong one and all of a sudden I was riding fast. If I have a full on coffee before playing tennis I go mad and blast the ball out the back of the court every time and I run around like a demented cat trying not to be converted into Tennis racket stringing. I can’t help it. It wasn’t the fact that I was I was creaming around the lovely sweeping bends, it wasn’t the fact that I overtook a Lamborghini that convinced me it wasn’t a decaf. It was the speed I came around a tight bend and approached the murderous looking spikes on the trailer of said Lamborghini. They looked like something out of rollerball. It was of course a slow moving tractor but non the less it amused me to flick it to the left and leave a Lamborghini in the dust without getting impaled. Yeah, definitely not decaf, I’d better ease off. We carried on up the gorge but we’d already decided to stop in a small village 45 mins or so south of Teruel. It was slightly off the route but only a few minutes. It was a small B&B and the parking from motorbikes was absolutely ideal under a nice covered little porch. We could walk down through the village to the only restaurant which was by a waterfall. It seemed that the entire village gathered there in the evenings which was great to see and be amongst only Spanish people. Aanother cold beer and a little bite to eat rounded off a more successful day. The question was would I sleep after the coffee but in the exhaustion of the heat I did and that is why the updates stopped.
