Two blokes, Si and Dan to take two Cagiva Eefants and lots of tools to France on the Roscoff ferry and then ride down to the South of Spain. Meet up with the girls for a week at a villa. With a bit of luck ride back via the Santander ferry.

Day 0
Four hours before we're due to leave and I've got a problem. The disk lock has jammed. It might be because it's a cheap one, but I always buy cheap locks because I've been here before. Getting an expensive lock off is harder than getting a cheap one off, well I hope it is. Twenty minutes later and I've got a pile of metal dust and the lock is in two halves. I love my angle grinder.

Both bikes had been prepped, serviced, test-run and completely sorted. Loaded up, ready to go and all that's left is the 'leaving' photos. I turn the ignition on and nothing. Nada. Not a flicker. ****.



I've got an hour in hand, any more than that and we miss the boat. Ten minutes later the fairing is off. Twenty minutes and the main power connector is identified as the culprit. Forty minutes later and the connector is gone and the wires soldered together. Sixty minutes later and we're off!

We make the port. Almost. The entrance to the Plymouth ferry port is up a side-street, a back-alley, and it's blocked. An artic is wedged against a car, the traffic is tailed back 100 yards and no-one can get past, not unless they use the pavement...

We ride straight on to the ferry and get our heads down for six hours. Tomorrow France.

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Day 1
The ferry is in at 6:00, so it's an early start, and it's raining. It's flat. The roads are straight. It's dull. By 9:00 we need breakfast and the Golden Arches beckon. Yeah I know, McDonolds in France? But you try and find somewhere to eat on the road at 9:00AM.

Eat, drink, shit. Never miss an opportunity for a shit. And it's back on the bikes. I turn the ignition on and nothing. Nada. Not a flicker. ****.

Right... it can't be the same thing can it? A quick look at the wires suggests they're still all connected. A fuse? Yep. Blown fuse. Stick a new one in and we're off... or not. No starter motor. A bump start works though.

More straight roads, stop for fuel, bump start again then stop for lunch.

Dan takes the opportunity to sleep, I strip the fairing off (I'm getting quick at it). The problem is nothing more than a loose wire. Thirty minutes later and the bikes back in action. An hour later and we're fed and back on the road.



By 4:00 we're around Rochefort and settled into a campsite. It's nothing special, nestled against a dual-carriageway but we find a pizza place in the nearby village. A pizza and and we're set for sleep. It's nearly 8:00 after all...

It's not a great nights sleep though. The tent is a big three-man tent which goes up in seconds thanks to a cunning inflatable rib design that replaces conventional poles. Now you might think that the problem with an inflatable tent is punctures. You'd be right. Some para-cord bodging with the help of nearby trees and re-inflation every couple of hours gets us through the night.

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Day 2
We need to find a tent. France is a lot like anywhere else but you notice the little differences. Signs. The have bloody great big advertising signs near the roads. We don't have them at home. The first one I saw was for a sports superstore, just the kind of place that sells tents. The first one Dan saw was the one for McDonalds. Interestingly they give distances in minutes. Ten minutes to the sports superstore. Ten minutes at 60mph. So that's ten miles. I always new kilometers were a crap idea.

Ten minutes later we're outside the sports superstore which is next door to MacDonald's. It's a win-win. We get a couple of 19 euro tents and a slap-up MacBastard breakfast. We finish up with a trip to the supermarket for some pan-au-chocolate, coke, bread and cheese. I tuck the coke under a bungee on the back of my bike.

"That won't stay there" reckons Dan.

Pah.

It almost hit him as it span down the road like a sugary catherine wheel.

More rain, more flat roads, dull, dull, dull.



By the end of the day salvation is in site. We can see the Pyrenees.



Finding a campsite is hard work.

First stop is Pailhac, our planned stop. The campsite is quiet. No-ones at home. Bugger. Back to Arreau.

Same story at the municipal campsite at Arreau. Bugger.

Backtracking to a site just outside of Arreau. It's a ghost-town.

Sod it. Back to the municipal campsite. We setup and head into town looking for a restaurant. We find a proper french restaurant. They don't speak English obviously but, hey, all menus are in French. I'm restaurant bi-lingual. Sort-of.





Dan goes for mushrooms followed by pizza and ice-cream. All goes to plan.

My salad, duck and pastry seem simple enough. Except the salad was a surprise. It looked like a huge pile of button mushrooms on a bed of salad. But the mushrooms had legs. Tentacles in fact. A huge pile of baby octopus! Good job I was hungry.

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Day 3
It's cold at 6:00AM at 2,500' even in June but it's going to get colder. We pack up and follow the signs to the ski slopes. The roads twist and turn as they gain altitude, great biking roads. Great cycling roads too apparently. There's a cycle race on, that or 2,000 Frenchmen all take their cycles out at the same time in the morning. They're everywhere, in packs. They're coming the other way though and they do a pretty good job of keeping out of our way.



Twenty miles and a few thousand more feet and we get to a ski resort. It's a ghost-town, shut for the season. We head off off-road and find a runway on the side of the mountain, like something out of Air-America, riding down it is steep, I have no idea what landing on it must feel like. Beyond that and along a few trails we find a spot for photos. It's cold! But no snow. There are patches on the mountain above us but none nearby.





Back on the bikes and back the way we came. We're riding the same way as the cyclists this time. In fact we're riding with them, in the pack. Weird. Cyclists are mentalists. They seem quite happy with us amongst them though.

We have to go back through Arreau to get on the road to Spain. Same story as before twisting and turning we gain a few-thousand feet making the snow line, just, as we come to the tunnel to Spain. "It's further than it looks." I warned Dan. He wanted to go up to the snow. Full leathers, waterproof and, what, 6,000' of altitude? They don't make for easy hiking. I did warn him. We do the obligatory snow photo. It snows on the way back down, not heavy, but it's snow.





The tunnel is 3km long. Impressive and hypnotic. The regularly spaced lights and the echos of the big Ducati twins set up a dual rythym. After 3 minutes we're out of France and into Spain. France was grey, cold and snowing. Spain is blue, bright and hot. It's another country. Weird.



Wide, fast, swepping corners give way to straight smooth tarmac. Mountains give way to rivers. It gets hot. After a couple of hours we're into scrub land. Almost desert. The smooth tarmac comes to an end. If we come back next year it'll be smooth tarmac but now it's road closed signs and compress gravel. Oh-yeah! 80mph on a loose surface, bikes squirming and sending up a dust cloud for miles. The elefants are in their element. I swear they feel better at speed on the loose than on tarmac.





The smooth tarmac is punctuated by miles of unfinished roads for miles and miles until it all stops. EU budget ran out I guess. No smooth tarmac, no compacted gravel, it's all rough cart tracks now. Rain cut ruts and stretches of fist sized rocks bring the speeds down but not the fun. Elefants are no enduro bikes but they're much better than you'd imagine, even fully loaded.

Lunch is a bagette bought in the supermarket the day before and some cheese and salami. All washed down with water and Ibruprofen to sort the aches and pains.

The dirt roads of the north eventually pick up a layer of tarmac. They didn't grade them first so while you can do 60 it's not a comofrtable 60. The roads are straight but you can't count on it. Every few miles they through in a switchback just to wake you up again.



Rivers, lakes, castles, hairpins, small sleepy towns and trips up one-way-streets becomes a routine blur. Hardly any cars though. We seem to have Spain to ourselves. A few ours later and we're on the coast.



The coast doesn't compare favourably with the rest of spain. Nasty, scruffy towns a few miles in from the sea. Tower block hotels on the beach. It's shit. I can smell the sweaty tattoo'd brits a mile away. All fags and all-day-breakfasts.



We find a campsite on the beach. It's full of brits. The last thing you want is to mix with other brits in Spain. Odd that. Our pitch looks out over the med and the bar has cold . Maybe it's not that bad.

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Day 4
I'm woken by a fog horn. No, it's not a fog horn. I'm glad I'm not sharing a tent with Dan. It's a perfect morning. The sun rising over the still sea. It's a short day today too. 150 miles to the villa.



Moving the bikes to pack them we spot a problem. Dan's bike is clunking. The chain is riding up over the rear sprocket, failing to engage, then with a clunk the chain drops back into the teeth. The chain isn't worn, the sprocket is fine. After lots of inspecting and fiddling the problem becomes apparent. One of the links is knackered. The rollers have collapsed allowing them to get pushed wider than they should be guiding the chain ontop of the teeth. I've never seen that before. I guess he picked up a stone? Adding some slack to the chain is the quick fix.

It turns out 150 miles of coastal roads and coastal towns is a long way. Pretty dull too. The riding through Valencia was a highlight. It's like riding through London in slow-motion. Maybe they're all on E? I don't know what it is but it's chaotic but relaxed. It's a laugh.

We hit more unbuilt roads but it seems to urban to use them so we battle with the GPS to stay on 'real' roads and eventually we see our destination on the hillside. Monte Pego, a 'town' of white villas clinging to a hillside. Infront of us is car at a cross-roads. Stopped. Stopped for too long. Lost. We pull up behind and peer through the rear window. Sure enough, two women. Sure enough a familiar arms extends through the window and I'm waived alongside. It's the girls. Lost. "Follow me!".



I take them through the no-entry sign and up the one-way-street the wrong way into Monte Pego. I'm used to it. They're not so impressed. We're there. Monte Pego, a gated ex-pat community, a world apart from Spain. It's not exactly adventure material but it's nice enough. Well it would be if it wasn't feckin' freezing and raining! How the hell can we be almost in sight of Africa and it feels like a winter day in England?

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Day 5 - 10
We spend the week by the pool, beach, and visiting friends. The weather clears up after a couple of days. It's good.

We fit in a visit to a local bike shop in Pego. Amazing these small Spannish towns. Pego is a similar size to my home town which has nothing. Well, it has 70 antique shops, but nothing useful. Pego has several car showrooms, two bike shops, a few supermarkets and hundreds of shops.

One of the bike shops has a manager who speaks english, not 'bike' english, but some pointing and prodding of chains and sprockets with the mechanic and the manager translating and we get a new chain fitted.

We're set for the ride home.

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Some onboard video footage from the trip on Youtube:

Pyrenees cyclists

North Spain road

The tunnel

Off-road

On-road

More off-road

Mountains above Santander

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Nice story...

As Ted Simon says the interruptions are the journey.

brilliant, had me laughing most of the way through.
if you wouldnt mind listing the tents you buy on here it'd be a great resource for others to avoid

Chances are an elephant is not even going to notice a snake moving through the grass or brush, mainly due to their size. Kinda how you can take a walk through the forest and walk right past a million and one different animals and never even notice them.

As far as taking down an elephant. There are several species of snakes out there that could kill a full grown bull elephant with only a few drops of venom... the problem is that the snake would not be able to puncture the thick hide of an elephant. That is not to say that it could not happen, it is just extremely difficult and near impossible.

If anything I would say the snakes avoid the elephants more than the elephants avoid the snakes. Mainly out of fear of being crushed.

I did wonder why we didn't have any snake problems.

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