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Well actually 3 of us...
If you are going down to the Picos don’t forget your camera…!! I was well impressed and it surpassed my expectations.
Anyway I took my new R1200GS for its first long spin of 2650 miles over 8 days, (about 650 miles to much for the duration if you ask me). There were 3 of us who went down; the other bikes were a new Pan European and a Yamaha FJR1300. The FJR is such a small bike it’s unbelievable and ideal for people who are about 5 foot tall. We took the Superfast Ferry from Scotland to Zeebrugge and again I cannot emphasise how superb this crossing is. The crew took great care to tie down the bikes with proper ratchet straps – top job. I was expecting rain when we arrived in Belgium but although overcast there was to be no rain over the next 8 days. We took the coast road down past Dunkirk and Calais going past the infamous Sangatte camp. We had a pleasant ride on some fairly quick roads and spent the first night just outside LeMans.
From Le Mans we headed down towards Tours and as the sun was really warming things up so much we stopped for lunch by the Loire. I had made the mistake of downloading all the route maps onto the Garmin Datacard but had failed to check the box to enable detailed autorouting and as such it only auto routed to points on the base map. This would throw me a few times over the next week. I set the GPS to take me on some smaller roads towards Poitiers as even the smaller roads are normally dead straight and so boring to ride down. The roads the GPS found were full of long sweeping bends with literally no traffic on them except us. These were all D-Roads which were still excellent gravel free roads. We had been going for about 45 minutes when I recognised a landmark we had passed before. I don’t know what happened but we had gone round in a massive circle for the best part of an hour. Great roads though. I reset the GPS and we headed down towards Bordeaux for the 2nd nights kip. We had quite a lot of searching for digs as most of the hotels we tried were closed until June..!! We eventually found a large Hotel at 2145 hrs in a small town near Marmande. The Restaurant was still open and served superb food and excellent wine.
The next day was even hotter and we headed down the D-933 towards the Spanish Border. My colleague indicated that we had gone the wrong way and needed to turn back. I checked the GPS and was convinced we were heading in the right direction. I held my ground and we carried on down what was thankfully the correct road. Being an Instrument Technician by trade I tend to believe my instrument unlike my colleague who is an Operator by trade and always questions the instruments!! We made very swift progress down the D933 which is miles and miles of superb bends and all was going well until I noted all the oncoming traffic were flashing there lights. I was leading the pack and slowed the pace down to see what the issue was when coming out of a long sweeper we were met by at least 10 “Gendarmes” who waved us over. They asked for all our papers and licence etc and seemed quite peeved that they were all in order. The pushy one only changed when I asked for him to smile as I took a group photo next to the officer with what looked like an old fashioned rifle.
We were soon in Pamplona which is a fair sized city and not the quaint town I had expected. There is a huge VW plant there which must employ half the population. Top tip is to fill up once in Spain as petrol is so cheap over there. We paid 0.82 Euro a litre where it was around 1.20 in France. From her we headed west through Rioja country towards the Pico’s. As we climbed higher it got very cold and became overcast. At one point a huge black cloud loomed and I stopped to put on my one piece waterproof which was a blessing as I was freezing cold and was really missing the heated grips on the 1200. The rain never actually came but it did stay cold. We continued heading west along the N-232 which is having a major upgrade. This is a very substantial road however at the moment there are long sections of it which are just gravel whilst they put down fresh tarmac. The GS was in its element but the other 2 guys struggled. We entered the Pico de Europa National Park at Requejo and headed over to Potes via Valle and Vinares. Coming down the steep decent past Vinares the views are just simply stunning and as the light was fading it looked layered like a set in the theatre. We turned lest at the bottom and headed into Potes where I phoned our host “Jim Thompson” and he asked “What are you doing at Potes??? Their Hotel was in Arenas de Cabrales which is a good hour away. We headed down from Potes towards Panes. At Panes we turned left towards Cabrales on what must be the best road in the world. I just really motored along here for the next 10 miles or so until I got to the first “diversion sign”. The bridge on the main road is being replaced so the road is closed and the detours are VERY long detours indeed. I noted that my pals had dropped right back along this road and I stopped for them. “Can you smell the diesel” they asked. I could now they mention it. Apparently there was a huge trail of diesel for about 2 miles along this road and I didn’t notice it – very lucky indeed. We eventually got to the Hotel at 2200 tired and Hungry. Our host took us down to a Restaurant where he was dining with his family in Cabrales and we had a fantastic meal. The next 3 days were spent enjoying the Pico’s. In all the shops there were photographs of the most amazing road I’ve ever seen which looks like it is a vertical drop painted on. Jim told us this was in a small village named Tresviso and was accessible from a road opposite our Hotel. We went up there which was 22Km out from Cabrales and asked the man in the Café at the top if the road was open at which point he laughed at me. Apparently some enduro bikes can get up it when the weathers dry.
We also took the road from Potes to Fuente De which has a cable car at the end. It was well over 30 degrees so we elected to take a drink and head on up the cable car which is highly recommended. They we still skiing at the top although I don’t know how they got to the snowy section as they looked to far away and I didn’t see and further chair lifts?? Potes looks like a fun place with quite a bit going on in the evening.
We also met a couple of guys on GS’s, One on a 1200 and one on an 1150 adventure. I noticed the Motorcycle Voyager sticker on the GSA and I asked him about it. They were actually 2 of the Journalists from Motorcycle Voyager Magazine who were over there for a week making a DVD about touring in the Pico’s. I told him about the website and the poor deals the guys were getting who had taken out subscriptions. He agreed that there were problems with the publisher and subscriptions department. He also confirmed it is to go monthly from June so let’s see if it actually does. The GSA looked huge next to the 1200. I must admit I really do like the looks of the GSA but I am getting to like the 1200 more and more all the time and am more than ever convinced I have made the right choice. Anyway the guys filmed us for a while and headed of to retrieve some lenses they had forgotten by the roadside further back. We also met Cameron a very likeable lad, American by birth living in London but just in the throws of moving to Switzerland, he was an investment banker by profession. He was touring on a Triumph Tiger with a race can pipe on which sounded just superb. He had a month in Spain and we were all so envious. His Dad has an 1150 GS and his Mum and R1150R. Maybe you are lurking on the list somewhere????
Well all good things come to an end and we had to head back home for the trek through France. The roads in Spain are just fantastic and we savoured every last moment. We actually stopped for lunch on the Sunday and watched the Grand Prix from Le Mans on the big screen. That evening we spent the night in Capbreton near Bayonne in France. We found a very nice café that was open late and served excellent food however I still managed to break a tooth a steak bone – bummer. The next day was a long slog to eat up some miles and we were aiming to get from Capbreton to at least Rouen as we had to be in Zeebrugge for the next afternoon. This was countless hours heading North up the N10. We ran into a large group of bikers from Eire who were heading to Nantes. There had all styles in their group from Honda Deauville, Africa Twin to a Honda VTX1800 a Goldwing Blackbirds and a couple of GS’s including a new 1200 with a home made bracket for his Garmin V. The VTX had lost its clutch and was getting taken by the AA and there was also A Suzuki Hyabusa that had been t-boned and that was going back in a box courtesy of the AA. We eventually bedded down in Dreux at one of the infamous Formula 1 hotels which are just as they say on the tin, very cheap and cheerful. My evening meal did not go down well as my broken tooth was like a piece of glass and cutting my tongue to shreds an producing a rather huge ulcer that would later get the better of me and force me to a Chemist in Zeebrugge where I bought the biggest tube of Bonjella I have ever seen (The size of a large tube of toothpaste). I eventually bought a file and filed my tooth down until I got back to the UK for treatment.
So stop blethering and tell us how did the 1200 perform I here you ask..!!! Well I put the seat on the lowest setting and this suited me perfectly feeling more like my old GS. I found the Panniers performed very well although I still think the fixing mechanism is very weak. I didn’t have a topbox as I’m waiting for a Givi adapter plate to come onto the market. I was planning to use the expanding mechanism in the panniers to bring back a stock of wine but it was not to be as it was full of Bonjella. The screen worked very well with virtually no buffeting at all and fairly quiet. Petrol consumption was about 55 mpg overall even when cruising around 80mph all day. I had also bought the new BMW tank bag for the 1200 and it not only looks good but is very functional and is very Tardis like. The biggest downside was a high frequency vibration coming through to my right hand which to be honest was so painful at times I had to take my hand off and shake it around. I am not sure the reason why as it didn’t seem to occur all the time. It may be I was gripping it too tightly or leaning on it to heavily and restricting blood flow. Whatever it was giving me painful pins and needles now and again. I had to top the bike up with oil only once during the whole trip which surprised me as I expected it to be more having only 800 miles on it when I set off. Handling wise the bike is faultless and ideally suited to the Pico’s. I fely very comfortable blasting down gravel roads as the bike is so light. I was actually so frustrated that the guys I was with did not have GS’s as there are so many little trails going off all over the place which looked like heaven. I went very impressed with the 1200 and came back even more impressed with it. I still can’t understand why they didn’t put a larger tank on though!! The lightness is so handy when manoeuvring it off road. The lad on the Pan European was very impressed with the 1200 and I think we may have a new list member soon.
All in all a great trip. I envy you guys down the south coast who can nip to Plymouth and cross to Spain for a week over there. We did around 375 miles a day outside of the Pico’s which I feel is to much to actually stop for coffee and relax in some of the villages you pass through and next year I will plan to limit it to 250 miles a day max as France itself is a wonderful place to go. Just my tuppence worth. Oh and heres a few Pictures of our trip……Have Fun
AndyT
View from our Hotel (Wiltshire lad owns it - ultra clean and cheap).
If you are going down to the Picos don’t forget your camera…!! I was well impressed and it surpassed my expectations.
Anyway I took my new R1200GS for its first long spin of 2650 miles over 8 days, (about 650 miles to much for the duration if you ask me). There were 3 of us who went down; the other bikes were a new Pan European and a Yamaha FJR1300. The FJR is such a small bike it’s unbelievable and ideal for people who are about 5 foot tall. We took the Superfast Ferry from Scotland to Zeebrugge and again I cannot emphasise how superb this crossing is. The crew took great care to tie down the bikes with proper ratchet straps – top job. I was expecting rain when we arrived in Belgium but although overcast there was to be no rain over the next 8 days. We took the coast road down past Dunkirk and Calais going past the infamous Sangatte camp. We had a pleasant ride on some fairly quick roads and spent the first night just outside LeMans.
From Le Mans we headed down towards Tours and as the sun was really warming things up so much we stopped for lunch by the Loire. I had made the mistake of downloading all the route maps onto the Garmin Datacard but had failed to check the box to enable detailed autorouting and as such it only auto routed to points on the base map. This would throw me a few times over the next week. I set the GPS to take me on some smaller roads towards Poitiers as even the smaller roads are normally dead straight and so boring to ride down. The roads the GPS found were full of long sweeping bends with literally no traffic on them except us. These were all D-Roads which were still excellent gravel free roads. We had been going for about 45 minutes when I recognised a landmark we had passed before. I don’t know what happened but we had gone round in a massive circle for the best part of an hour. Great roads though. I reset the GPS and we headed down towards Bordeaux for the 2nd nights kip. We had quite a lot of searching for digs as most of the hotels we tried were closed until June..!! We eventually found a large Hotel at 2145 hrs in a small town near Marmande. The Restaurant was still open and served superb food and excellent wine.
The next day was even hotter and we headed down the D-933 towards the Spanish Border. My colleague indicated that we had gone the wrong way and needed to turn back. I checked the GPS and was convinced we were heading in the right direction. I held my ground and we carried on down what was thankfully the correct road. Being an Instrument Technician by trade I tend to believe my instrument unlike my colleague who is an Operator by trade and always questions the instruments!! We made very swift progress down the D933 which is miles and miles of superb bends and all was going well until I noted all the oncoming traffic were flashing there lights. I was leading the pack and slowed the pace down to see what the issue was when coming out of a long sweeper we were met by at least 10 “Gendarmes” who waved us over. They asked for all our papers and licence etc and seemed quite peeved that they were all in order. The pushy one only changed when I asked for him to smile as I took a group photo next to the officer with what looked like an old fashioned rifle.
We were soon in Pamplona which is a fair sized city and not the quaint town I had expected. There is a huge VW plant there which must employ half the population. Top tip is to fill up once in Spain as petrol is so cheap over there. We paid 0.82 Euro a litre where it was around 1.20 in France. From her we headed west through Rioja country towards the Pico’s. As we climbed higher it got very cold and became overcast. At one point a huge black cloud loomed and I stopped to put on my one piece waterproof which was a blessing as I was freezing cold and was really missing the heated grips on the 1200. The rain never actually came but it did stay cold. We continued heading west along the N-232 which is having a major upgrade. This is a very substantial road however at the moment there are long sections of it which are just gravel whilst they put down fresh tarmac. The GS was in its element but the other 2 guys struggled. We entered the Pico de Europa National Park at Requejo and headed over to Potes via Valle and Vinares. Coming down the steep decent past Vinares the views are just simply stunning and as the light was fading it looked layered like a set in the theatre. We turned lest at the bottom and headed into Potes where I phoned our host “Jim Thompson” and he asked “What are you doing at Potes??? Their Hotel was in Arenas de Cabrales which is a good hour away. We headed down from Potes towards Panes. At Panes we turned left towards Cabrales on what must be the best road in the world. I just really motored along here for the next 10 miles or so until I got to the first “diversion sign”. The bridge on the main road is being replaced so the road is closed and the detours are VERY long detours indeed. I noted that my pals had dropped right back along this road and I stopped for them. “Can you smell the diesel” they asked. I could now they mention it. Apparently there was a huge trail of diesel for about 2 miles along this road and I didn’t notice it – very lucky indeed. We eventually got to the Hotel at 2200 tired and Hungry. Our host took us down to a Restaurant where he was dining with his family in Cabrales and we had a fantastic meal. The next 3 days were spent enjoying the Pico’s. In all the shops there were photographs of the most amazing road I’ve ever seen which looks like it is a vertical drop painted on. Jim told us this was in a small village named Tresviso and was accessible from a road opposite our Hotel. We went up there which was 22Km out from Cabrales and asked the man in the Café at the top if the road was open at which point he laughed at me. Apparently some enduro bikes can get up it when the weathers dry.
We also took the road from Potes to Fuente De which has a cable car at the end. It was well over 30 degrees so we elected to take a drink and head on up the cable car which is highly recommended. They we still skiing at the top although I don’t know how they got to the snowy section as they looked to far away and I didn’t see and further chair lifts?? Potes looks like a fun place with quite a bit going on in the evening.
We also met a couple of guys on GS’s, One on a 1200 and one on an 1150 adventure. I noticed the Motorcycle Voyager sticker on the GSA and I asked him about it. They were actually 2 of the Journalists from Motorcycle Voyager Magazine who were over there for a week making a DVD about touring in the Pico’s. I told him about the website and the poor deals the guys were getting who had taken out subscriptions. He agreed that there were problems with the publisher and subscriptions department. He also confirmed it is to go monthly from June so let’s see if it actually does. The GSA looked huge next to the 1200. I must admit I really do like the looks of the GSA but I am getting to like the 1200 more and more all the time and am more than ever convinced I have made the right choice. Anyway the guys filmed us for a while and headed of to retrieve some lenses they had forgotten by the roadside further back. We also met Cameron a very likeable lad, American by birth living in London but just in the throws of moving to Switzerland, he was an investment banker by profession. He was touring on a Triumph Tiger with a race can pipe on which sounded just superb. He had a month in Spain and we were all so envious. His Dad has an 1150 GS and his Mum and R1150R. Maybe you are lurking on the list somewhere????
Well all good things come to an end and we had to head back home for the trek through France. The roads in Spain are just fantastic and we savoured every last moment. We actually stopped for lunch on the Sunday and watched the Grand Prix from Le Mans on the big screen. That evening we spent the night in Capbreton near Bayonne in France. We found a very nice café that was open late and served excellent food however I still managed to break a tooth a steak bone – bummer. The next day was a long slog to eat up some miles and we were aiming to get from Capbreton to at least Rouen as we had to be in Zeebrugge for the next afternoon. This was countless hours heading North up the N10. We ran into a large group of bikers from Eire who were heading to Nantes. There had all styles in their group from Honda Deauville, Africa Twin to a Honda VTX1800 a Goldwing Blackbirds and a couple of GS’s including a new 1200 with a home made bracket for his Garmin V. The VTX had lost its clutch and was getting taken by the AA and there was also A Suzuki Hyabusa that had been t-boned and that was going back in a box courtesy of the AA. We eventually bedded down in Dreux at one of the infamous Formula 1 hotels which are just as they say on the tin, very cheap and cheerful. My evening meal did not go down well as my broken tooth was like a piece of glass and cutting my tongue to shreds an producing a rather huge ulcer that would later get the better of me and force me to a Chemist in Zeebrugge where I bought the biggest tube of Bonjella I have ever seen (The size of a large tube of toothpaste). I eventually bought a file and filed my tooth down until I got back to the UK for treatment.
So stop blethering and tell us how did the 1200 perform I here you ask..!!! Well I put the seat on the lowest setting and this suited me perfectly feeling more like my old GS. I found the Panniers performed very well although I still think the fixing mechanism is very weak. I didn’t have a topbox as I’m waiting for a Givi adapter plate to come onto the market. I was planning to use the expanding mechanism in the panniers to bring back a stock of wine but it was not to be as it was full of Bonjella. The screen worked very well with virtually no buffeting at all and fairly quiet. Petrol consumption was about 55 mpg overall even when cruising around 80mph all day. I had also bought the new BMW tank bag for the 1200 and it not only looks good but is very functional and is very Tardis like. The biggest downside was a high frequency vibration coming through to my right hand which to be honest was so painful at times I had to take my hand off and shake it around. I am not sure the reason why as it didn’t seem to occur all the time. It may be I was gripping it too tightly or leaning on it to heavily and restricting blood flow. Whatever it was giving me painful pins and needles now and again. I had to top the bike up with oil only once during the whole trip which surprised me as I expected it to be more having only 800 miles on it when I set off. Handling wise the bike is faultless and ideally suited to the Pico’s. I fely very comfortable blasting down gravel roads as the bike is so light. I was actually so frustrated that the guys I was with did not have GS’s as there are so many little trails going off all over the place which looked like heaven. I went very impressed with the 1200 and came back even more impressed with it. I still can’t understand why they didn’t put a larger tank on though!! The lightness is so handy when manoeuvring it off road. The lad on the Pan European was very impressed with the 1200 and I think we may have a new list member soon.
All in all a great trip. I envy you guys down the south coast who can nip to Plymouth and cross to Spain for a week over there. We did around 375 miles a day outside of the Pico’s which I feel is to much to actually stop for coffee and relax in some of the villages you pass through and next year I will plan to limit it to 250 miles a day max as France itself is a wonderful place to go. Just my tuppence worth. Oh and heres a few Pictures of our trip……Have Fun
AndyT
View from our Hotel (Wiltshire lad owns it - ultra clean and cheap).
