Back home

The the north of Spain is also wet and cold these days, just going to have a look at how the coast looks like around here.

Today I had again a surprise road to ride on the calculated track.

After touching the coast it's finally time for the main destination of this tour, the "Picos de Europa", they've been on my list for years but for one reason or another I had never made it this far. The roads and scenery are amazing around here, too bad that the tarmac was still wet on the north side and could not fully enjoy the curves.

Arriving in Lisbon over the Ponte Vasco da Gama.

Cabo da Roca, Europe's western most point.

This is it, final destination, Mafra.

Crossing the Pyrenees

August is proving to be one of the worst times of the year to travel around Europe without previous reservations, (almost) every place is fully booked. Funny thing is, when I ask if they have a room, they go and ask if I have a reservation, dumb question. Besides that a lot of restaurants also profit from this weeks holiday to close for vacation.

The calculated track continues to surprise positively.

Despite the weather forecast announcing good weather for the day the sky was cloudy and after a while it started to drizzle, it was so weak that I didn't care to stop and put my rain suit on, in Portugal this kind of rain is called "wets the silly". With time though it became stronger and stronger and I was the silly who became all wet. I crossed the Pyrenees over a nice twisted road through an old beautiful forest.

Heading to Europes Westernmost point (mainland)

The rest is over, during this short pause I've done some updates to the bike that I've missed from the beginning, like a speedometer, proper tires and the ignition lock, besides that I've done service and checked everything again. My first test ride didn't went that well though, the bike entered reserve on the highway and I wasn't fast enough to turn the tap into the right position, after what the engine stopped. I tried to start the engine again after but had no luck, the fuel pump doesn't seam to build enough pressure to send the fuel from reserve level into the carburetors. Two or three weeks ago I got a tip about a website where you can calculate a route motorbiking based on your curve preferences, I did a test calculation on a known route and liked the outcome, therefore I decided to give it a try for this trip and see how it goes.

I still remember how the purchase of my first GPS changed and improved the way I travel from A to B, specially with the "shortest distance" option but the results I'm having from this site it's a completely new level. Specially now that you can hardly find paper maps in a useful resolution. Basically it searches for roads that are as least strait as possible and avoid, as far as possible, crossing villages, big ones in special. The result is that you'll be driving roads like these most of the time.

Barely no traffic and only a few small villages to cross.

I've spent the last days ridding through forests, natural reserve parks, mountain passes and as already mentioned with barely no traffic, a bikers dream as far as I'm concern.

The down side of it, if there's one, is that you're ridding far from the majority of the accommodations, restaurants, gas stations, ... and it will take you longer to get somewhere if that disturbs you.

Yesterday I had some difficulty finding a place to stay, it was getting late and I was trying not to leave the track then I finally found one where it was supposed to be none, had a nice talk with owner, we joked around, really nice. By norm I usually don't eat in the same place I sleep unless I have previously found positive information about it's food. Yesterday I broke the rule, (they didn't have a menu to choose from, just a plate of the day) then got something on my plate that I was not able to eat and got kicked out of the accommodation for it :/ if it didn't happened to me I would not believe it. Anyway, that got me a little in trouble as it was almost dawn and it started to get cold, I had to ride and search until 22:30 to successfully find a place for the night.

Albania to Germany

The short detour back to Greece had the positive effect off allowing me to ride over 200 km of twists along the Albanian coast.

I had no plans to stay in Albania but the heat and all the nice beaches with clearest water were far too tempting to just drive by.

The Llogara pass is one of the most beautiful I have ever ridden, climbing up to 1.000 m with a constant view to the Adriatic Sea.

Had a light lunch on the road the guy selling the cherries spoke perfect Italian and asked me if I wanted them washed, I said yes but while I was eating them I started to get some concerns about where the water came from as we were in the middle of nowhere but all went well.

The goal for the day was to stop in Montenegro for the night, but the town I chose, near to the border, was very small and didn't have any accommodations.

On the Serbian border I was once more asked for the insurance green card, took my copy out and the officer asked for the original, I said that I don't have it with me and he went away with my papers. Minutes later he came back and told me I would have to go back to Montenegro and cross the border to Croatia.
I thought, "wait, what?!!!" I looked at him with an incredulous look and the SOB winked at me and let me go. Didn't new that the Serbian officers were able to make these kind of jokes at the border.
I've been to Serbia before and it didn't have a good impression of it but the road I took was really beautiful.

My memory of Croatia is spending hours ridding very slow behind cars, campers and caravans along the coast so this time I went for the highway. It was cold and there was a strong wind blowing but it all went well until shortly before the Zadar exit, there I bumped into a 10km traffic jam, very lucky to be on a motorcycle. For some reason they closed the highway forcing everyone out, meaning hours of waiting to pay your way out. Just 3km later the police was sending everyone back to the highway and shortly I got on it there was a sign forbidding motorcycles to continue, not really something I wanted to see so I just ignored it and I wasn't alone on that. Then the speed on the traffic control system displays was reduced to 80, 60 and then 40 km/h with the wind getting stronger as we climbed the mountain. I far as I can remember this was the strongest wind I had ever to face on a motorbike and the hardest part of the whole ride so far. The speed reduction may be a good thing for cars but it certainly isn't for motorcycles so I ignored it to save my life, it may sound strange but it is a lot easier to control such an heavy bike ridding fast than slower. I saw a lot of guys in trouble along the way, some had stopped others were paddling they're way up in first gear. Next I crossed Slovenia to Italy, I haven't been to Italy for a while and was impressed how beautiful it is, have to go back soon.

In the morning I checked the weather and saw that it would be stable the all day, being so near to the Großglockner I thought that it would be a nice end to this long ride to cross it again.

My trip was almost over when just 50 km from home while rolling to an intersection my clutch cable broke forcing me to stop for a last repair before I could get home.

Back home.