short notice pico's and pyrenees spare place

well im back

what an amazing 10 days

Stu is still in france visiting relatives i will post some pictures and video when i get a chance to go through them all

size=16]Well here I will Create a Blog of our amazing Trip to the Picos in spain, the Pyrenees both sides , Andorra, and the south of france[/size]


Day -1

Sees me leaving home on Saturday the 22nd May 2010 , i decided to go the long way down to Danny Boy's house in Stone ( danny kindly put me up overnight )
the route takes me down some classy roads
A6 to kendal and the 684 to hawes then down to ribblehead and across to Settle , taking in some fantastic roads en route.


Hawes Cafe was a little Busy



I carried onto the Cat And Fiddle , somewhere i haven't ridden since 2004, the *******s have kitted it out with rear facing average speed camera's :finger
where I was met by "danny boy", we then went on a nice little ride down to Danny's where i was treated like royalty
Video of the cat and fiddle click the picture



even the bike got a bed for the night.



And the Bar B Que was lit where a feast was prepared by Jo and Megan



After the feast came the Cake (well Trifle really) which was excellent (cheers Danny and Jo, not forgetting Megan (chief Bar B Que Assistant))

Day 1

This time i decide i have not got the benefit of too much time so i hit the boring Slab down to junction 27, where I meet up with these very nice chaps :grin

Sidestand



Dapleb



After a little Chinwag and a restaurant meal (well a Mc D really) we have to say our farewells to Dappers , Mick's rear pads on the niner are kinda low (mot notices and gave an advisory) with dappers help we had located a possible source in Exeter on a sunday, so off we trot in the hope they are the correct ones.

arrive Exeter shop to find they are FJR pads not TDM ones (they are the same shape but thicker and will not fit the TDM) so onward we travel (a slightly quick pace) to arrive just in time for the ferry.



here we meet up with the other members of the gang Gordon and Suart

on the ferry we have a sublime calm crossing to Santander more like a cruise than a ferry




In Fact Stuart Decides to take in some rays



after the meal comes the cake's (who had what ?)





here's a clue to one



So then all off to bed for some ZZZZ's

Day 2

I Awake fairly early and have a wander round the Ferry




here's where we are at 7am on mon the 24th



After a hearty "full english"



we Arrive at Santander



after all the clobber is collected and we paddle down into the bowels of the ship, we notice a lot more bikes in the loading bay




more to add here laters now im tired again

Day 2 Continued

After a considerable delay getting off the ferry (seemingly the bow door was an issue) we then hit Very warm Tarmac and made our way out of Santander towards the pico's

stopping off along the way on the northern coast road to get a bite to eat (Via San Vincente)






Nice Beach and Scenery



After our short but pleasant stop we head for some really quick roads namely the as114 to cabrales WOW now we are talking, tight twisty and perfectly surfaced.

[s]A Short video clip of the roads in the picos (more to come when all edited nicely )[/s]



after the run to cabrales and back towards Potes we decide to go check in the hotel (in cosgaya a lovely little village indeed )



view from my window of the pico's mountains









then its time for a debrief about the roads over a few beers and a tapas meal, we also discovered there were around 20 or so bikes across the road in another hotel, all from an internet website bikers oracle.

so we had a chat with a few of them and discovered one lads bmw k1200 had broken down , he had fitted an aftermarket hugger and what with 2 up and luggage it had managed to wear a hole in his oil tank dumping the contents of the tank onto his back wheel !!! Luckily they were going slow over th sumit of a pass at the time , however his bike then sounded like a bag of spanners BMW came to collect the bike the next day and took it away to see what could be done, we heard the next night that they were going to replace the oil tank as soon as it arrived from the suppliers .

Day 3

The beginning of day 3 is bright and sunny so its off to the mountains for a jolly up a cablecar. the roads up to fuente de are just sublime and quiet (fnarr fnarr)
there is a cablecar here somewhere, its a single span run up with no pilons.



The view up



and the angle of attack



at the top is the bravery platform !! have you the bottle to stand on a rusty shelf with 800 metres straight down beneath you ??




But the views are stunning






Stuart Cooling off in the Snow



Which way next chaps



Sidey and Gordon on the amazing updraft platform eat your heart out miss munroe



The road up there somewhere in the distance



going down



after this we head anticlockwise on some more fantastic roads leading us around to lake riano, but before we get there we fortify with some more food at a lovely little cafe




this is just to bolster us up for an fantastic section of road leading to the lake, i must add here that this section was damp but drying and we were still loving every minute of it touching down occasionally in the bends.

VIDEO TO ADD LATER

then we arrive at lake riano (looking a bit grey)



if you look closely you can see the rain coming in



so at this point we beat a hasty retreat back towards Potes but via another mountain road LOL it was wet but very enjoyable in the heat even up that height, and when we dropped down into Potes it was fairing up nicely.

another stop for coffee and Tea to replenish, a very nice picturesque little town







then it was off on some more Fantastic roads (Am I Rubbing it in enough yet ) to the hotel. we decided this night to invade the other hotel and have a chinwag to the brits over there and a very nice meal indeed



then a good nights sleep as its a 400 mile stint tomorrow ZZZZZ

P.S. I forgot Daisy

A great read so far. Is there the last couple of days still to come?

im jealous looks like a great trip

[Stu]

Originally Posted by Tim in Belgium

A great read so far. Is there the last couple of days still to come?

Yup! a great read, & yes about last 8 days to come as so far that's only the Picos De Europa in Northern Spain near Santander, still got the Pyrenees write up to come! Hurry up Amarko! I'm home now & want to relive it all again

well i ahve another 12 hour shift at work then im off for a couple of days

hopefully i will get more written on monday and a bit of video edited.

another 7 days in total to come but 2 will be kinda boring as in the ride home LOL well it wasn't that boring apart from a bit o rain.

Glad to see your home safe Stu, really was a memorable trip indeed our own european open racetrack

BTW this has been my first smoke free day