Terry Arnold
After the success of the Brittany Ferries Tour package in 2017, we decided to keep a good thing going and booked their Pyrenees and Rioja tour.
8 of us on this one, Will, Colin, John, Paul, Adrian, Terry, Clappo & Gary
This tour was different in that we stayed at just 5 places, 3 for 2 nights and we were able to ride out for a day without luggage and return to the same rooms.
Clappo arranged surprise Clappo&Herbert tour T-shirts, defining our tour logo and co-incidentally so had John, introducing the fantastic BTBM logo- see Tour Tee Shirts
- We arrived in Santander late afternoon and had a short run down to Limpias, arriving near to dusk
- Drinks taken on the terrace before a fine dinner
- Day2 – we set off along the north coast motorway – which is about as good as a motorway can get. Fast, surprisingly sharp curves, very enjoyable
- Turned southeast just before the French border and down into the foothills of the Pyrenees, then south to SOS del Rey Catholico
- A hilltop village, nearly fully restored with another lovely hotel and a super terrace for evening drinks in the setting sun
- Paul retired early as he felt ill and had a high temperature
- Next morning, Adrian and I had a stroll around the village and visited it’s ancient church and was shown around by a proud cleric.
- Today we rode north up and over the Pyrenees and then turned south and came up and over another pass
- Coming down a mountain road, Paul passed Clappo shouting “I can’t stop!!“, his ZZR clutch was apparently failing.
- However he had to stop when a herd of sheep blocked the road. Terry gave him a push/bump start once the sheep had cleared the road and he continued on back to the parador.
- The final road back to the hotel is possibly the bumpiest tarmac road I’ve ever used. However, Will’s RT apparently just sailed over the rough surface
- On day 5, Paul was feeling a bit better, but he opted to take his bike in to a dealer at Pamplona for a repair – and to catch us up at the hotel later
- We moved on towards Bielsa. We travelled further southeast until turning up another major pass route and high into the mountain range
- As these cross-range passes are important crossings Spain-France they are wide and smooth but curving, following the hills and the ravines, great roads
- Bielsa is up a 10km side road – sitting at the end of the navigable part of the valley. A large wooden ski-chalet style building
- Paul rejoined us having had the clutch master cylinder/handlebar control replaced
- Unfortunately John became poorly towards the end of the day – Paul stressed vehemently that it definitely wasn’t the illness that he’d been experiencing and that it was pure co-incidence that his room-mate had identical symptoms.
- John decided not to ride the next day and instead went for a very enjoyable walk up the valley
- Day6, we did a loop in the southern foothills, over the top and along the northern heights of the range
- Unfortunately, Terry got a wasp sting under his eye and John kindly provided emergency anti-histamines.
- Lunch was taken in a supermarket car-park, sandwiches and pop.
- One sting was not in itself, a problem. However, early afternoon another wasp then went up his sleeve and stung him on the arm. Bugger.
- Knowing that this was likely to require a hospital visit to deal with the reaction, we pulled in for some coffee whilst I figured out what to do. A google search identified a hospital 10km up the road and on our route.
- Tour Medic -Will very kindly accompanied Terry into a small modern hospital and with a wave of an E111 card a doctor triaged and accepted Terry’s description of how it is normally handled in the UK and prescribed Steroids, Anti-biotics and anti-histamines. A pharmacy in the high street dispensed all the drugs (whole boxes) for 7euros! Unused tablets were used on the 2022 tour.
- The guys had kindly waited the 90 mins or so it took, we had another coffee and set off back to Bielsa in the setting sun.
- As we were on the northwest of the mountains the shade developed quickly but we still had many miles of challenging roads to cover needing headlights on the hairpins and making things difficult.
- We got separated by the traffic lights at the longish Bielsa tunnel and when reunited 10 mins later we rode the last downhill section and up the 10km road to the parador.
- John had recovered well, and joined us for another great dinner.
- The next day we rode down from the Pyrenees for the last time and across the Rioja wine region, which was predictably flatter and covered in vineyards – very pleasant all the same.
- We turned southwest just short of Pamplona and past Logrono into Santo Domingo de la Calzado. This was another spectacular medieval parador and town with ancient buildings to visit. The architecture of the lobby and lounge with it’s high stone arches was breathtaking.
- We wandered round and paid to enter a tall bell-tower on the corner beside the hotel. There were about 100 steps to the top and fantastic views over the town and the local area. Clappo got chatting with an american lady tourist, like he does.
- The next days ride-out took us in a 200 mile loop to the south and west. The hills were not as high, but these were still beautiful roads to be experiencing.
- We had a lovely lunch of bocadillos in a place called ‘Irene’s’ (Terry’s wife’s name) – always bocadillos because they were like baguettes/ sandwiches and the locals understood what we were asking for. (mostly)
- As it was a fairly short distance to Santander, instead we did 220 miles in a looping run into the port – through the northeast corner of the Picos de Europa.
- Boarding the ferry was trouble-free as usual and we settled in to our new routine of a 24-hour ferry passage.
- Our second self-organised tour had sadly come to an end, but we still needed more………
Paul later had the clutch SLAVE cylinder replaced, thieving spanish mechanics! At least the bleed they gave it kept it running for the trip.
