Picos and Pyrenees on a wing and a prayer !

Ribedesella is a cracking little town with some great bars and places to eat. and a good base of operations so to speak

The cider that is the local tipple is excellent, poured from height to aerate it

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Food is fantastic but i only managed one photo as I was always too hungry to remember you lot like pics of food
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We had another day hooning our awesome steeds around the Picos and another night in town eating and drinking before heading off to our next destination, over the border into france somewhere called St Jean pied de port

Our hotel here was a quaint little farmhouse run by a a woman who was very much like Edith from Allo Allo. and her long suffering husband who kept giving me beer !

We came through some mountains South of the coast to get here, a bit off direct route but very worth it, then a bit of motorway which was the only time we were ever overtaken, we were trying to be sensible and travelling at a ton give or take when a renault capture came past us at what must have been about 120 !
 
Back over the border into Spain on the N240 and Into the Pyrenees and along the N260 for many miles

What a roads they are with bend after bend and spectacular Scenery

This was early morning and it was a bit chilly

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Any how we hammered along it and had a great lunch at a dingy looking place along the route

Ended up in Sort which is by the looks of the place a outward bound Ski type town and stayed in quite a nice place Hotel les Brasses. Garage for the bikes which was good, decent food and drink but very poor toilet paper !
 
pics are stunning Rick - im off work for 7 weeks starting 28th Oct and thinking of booking ferry for 8th nov for 2 weeks..is it too late?
 
Turned north now and after some more of those horrendously twisty roads over the mountains to our next desination which turned out to be a proper Chateau near Aurilac

The Chateau de Salles In the morning as it was dark O'clock when we arrived

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We were the only guests and the restaraunt was closed for the year but the owner offered to cook for us and as it was late we were very grateful and not bothered what we got but as it turned out we had a cordon bleu meal of duck and other things and some excellent beer.

It was decidedly chilly in the mornings and at altitude in the mountains but bloody brilliant all the same.
 
It was getting very cold in the mornings!

HAd Ice on the bike seat every morning from the monday onwards
 
We left the chateau as we had arrived, In the dark and cold for a few more twisty roads before france becomes boring !

Up to Chalons en Chamagne for the night in a Campanille

This was a pretty long day of about 400 miles so no pics and not much to say except the first half of the day was brilliant and became less so the further north we got.

A nice 230 mile ride up to the train at calais was spoiled somewhat by spending 2 hours on the best roads we could find but in very thick fog although as it turned out it was 60MPH fog so we still made an early train !

250 ish miles to Doncaster mostly in the dark and heavy rain ( the only rain of the trip) saw me home shagged out tired but a happy bunny
 
Some Stats of the trip

As you know dear reader I have the XR and my mate was on his 1290 Super Duke R. Theyt were a well matched pair of bikes and I can think of no other that would accomplish the level of hooliganery and fun in the mountains although something along the lines of a ducati hypermotard could possibly have been more fun in the Picos

We rode 2652 miles in what was effectively 7 days I had a moving average speed of 49MPH with 44mph overall average. The XR returned 48mpg the KTM slightly less.

No mechanical glitches whatsoever all kit performed as expected.

We had both fitted a set of Metzler Roadtec 01 and they are bloody brilliant and I would recommend them to anyone. they stood up to 2nd and 3rd gear going for it hard in the Picos edge to edge no chicken strips at all. Motorway at high speed and after all that only seem half worn and not squared

All in all its been bloody brilliant
 
Ooh hello Rick you're back, just finished reading your trip post. Some grand photos there to wet the appetite. Broached the idea of a 3 week trip summer 2018 following a similar route . Good to hear the bikes behaved well, do you have any GoPro footage from your trip:beerjug:
 
No mate I gave up on go proing a while ago and besides which i doubt it could do it justice !

I seriously doubt there are any better roads in the world and 3 weeks would be spectacular and of course give some time to take in the scenery which was a bit difficult whilst knocking out 300 plus mile days on those roads
 
Enjoyed that thanks. :thumb2

What was the name of the hotel in Ribadesella again please? Can't seem to find it on booking.com
 
I forgot to mention that as utterly brilliant as the roads are there is the potential for it to go horribly wrong with some over enthusiastic throttle or lack of talent and if it was to go wrong it would be big style as this corner shows

The road runs along that sticking out lump of rock and is a 180 degree bend

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Sweet - looks like you had a blast and glad you've discovered the beauty of and the fun that can be had in the Pyrenees. A wonderful part of the world if ever there was one :beerjug:

Andres
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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