The wind takes its toll
We had a long but fairly uneventful day today. We woke up to a decent morning, weather wise and began loading the bike. I wanted to get fuel and be on the road by 9. Today we were making a big push in towards Barcelona so tomorrow we have a very easy couple of days break. I rode off to the gate and the steering wouldn’t turn. It was too late and I was too tired to catch it so the bike fell over. None of the people around offered any assistance even though we were clearly in trouble.
It turned out to be the tank bag fouling on the headstock so I kept my eye on that. Luckily it happened pulling away and not later down the line at a decent speed.
We gassed up and hit the road. We found the motorway with no trouble and the signs were mostly pretty straight forward. We had a few tricky moments but nothing to worry about. We made a few stops but were making very good time. We took a coffee break just after the Lyon turnoff and I pulled away with the lock on and again, we dropped the bike. Again nobody helped or even seemed to care. I guess these are the French that people make jokes about because up to now I thought they were the nicest people we had met on our trip.
After Montpellier we got into trouble. The side winds were just awful. At one point we were being battered so hard I could barely make 35mph and still the bike was being thrown from line to lone on the road. At one point a truck rocked dangerously in front of us and caravans were weaving. This didn’t make anyone drive any better. French drivers still poured aimlessly out of motorway junctions without looking, spilling out like a drunk blonde at her best mate’s wedding. A few notable drivers were playing it really stupid, cutting right up to my rear. I have a temper and a few times today I came close to losing it. We were actually stuck in traffic today for several miles so we filtered and cut to the front to find the aftermath of an accident. We’ve seen several now but I’m shocked we’ve not seen many more. The French drive with total disregard and the Italians with enthusiasm far in excess of their abilities. Almost every car you see has some kind of damage.
Of course with this kind of battering we had to take fairly frequent breaks, usually every 50 miles or so. This slowed us down a lot and i worried what we were going to find up ahead as the map showed us only getting closer to the coast line and it remaining flat to the Pyrenees. Talking of the Pyrenees, they were looming up ahead, grim, dark and imposing and threatening a painful crossing.
At one of our stops a guy turned up on a BMW. We said hello and chatted in broken French/English. He assured us the wind drops ahead in the mountains which was a relief. His bike looked like an R1150 but was only an 800 although he assured us he was well rested and his arse was not as sore as ours. It is nice to make new friends.
The Pyrenees crossing was nothing to write home about. The weather was calmer, the border control was non-existent and we finally got some speed up and cracked on. On the Spanish side things were cheaper and fuel, even on the motorway was the same price as at home, at last. In the end though it was the tolls that annoyed us most. We ended up paying more today in road tolls than it cost us in fuel. The tolls here are insane. You ride out of one and you’re straight into another one. You can’t avoid them and there doesn’t seem to be any warning. If you’re trying to cover any distance then you have no choice anyway. Everything along the way is massively expensive too, hot-dogs were 4 euros and cans of drinks were 3. There would be riots in London if someone tried that although from what I hear on the news, maybe someone did?
Finally we entered Gerona to find that we did have a slight problem to deal with. My partner (for now....) had booked us a hotel but she had not saved the address, a map or even made a note of the name. We tried to find wi-fi but couldn’t and even when she did pick up some kind of signal she found nothing in her email box so we weren’t even sure if she had made a booking. Everything had gone ok up to then but we spent a long hour riding around using what tiny information we had to hunt down this hotel and eventually, against all the odds we got settled in.
Gerona is an amazing little town. It’s clean and tidy and the design is just friendly somehow. We went out for something to eat and it was just the best place so far. I hope spain has the scenery to match France because so far it’s ahead on points....
In other exciting news I saw 2 bikes like mine, BMW G650X-countries. They were riding together, one black and one yellow, both stock and both extremely clean. Nice to see a familiar face