The Farmer
Registered user
OK - I tried putting this up last night, but i stuffed up by not putting the proper links to the pictures...I've worked it out now so enjoy:
This is an old trip i did back in 2010 - but I've only got round to getting the forum up now.
So me and two mates from work decided to go down to the Pyrenees from Holland through Belgium, Luxembourg, France and weave our way in and out of the Spanish Pyrenees side up and back home to Rotterdam
Leaving from Rotterdam
Stopped at a boring part of Luxembourg:
We stopped by Avignon
and made friends with some of the locals
Got lost in a swamp the next day...must have been those beers the night before
Argeles Sur Mer - one glimpse of the Mediterranean before heading into the mountains...it was freeeeezing! I remember this day well because the World Cup was on and Australia got spanked 4-0 by Germany :2cry
in the foothills to the Pyrenees
We found a campsite in La Rotja run by a nice Dutch family. The pool was a welcome relief as it was pretty warm by then.
We even got my Irish mate to eat fish and drink wine - usually he only eats steak and chips and wears guinness t-shirts...from here he now drinks fine wines, goes to cheese tasting events and has managed to wear shirts with real buttons ...but that may have something to do with his new girlfriend
Next day with heavy heads and queezy guts we took the boxes off the bikes and did a day's off-roading. I've put the route and POI's up on
http://motortourer.com if you'd like to download it - well worth the trip
the camera doesn't get the real depth perception, but I'm sure those roads were steeper. gravel hairpins and sheer drop offs - but relatively easy
The we went a little further into Spain, where Koen got lucky with the birds
And we did some more offroading - But not ALL of it was intentional. You see we became, what I like to refer as "geographically embarrassed" i.e. lost. the Garmin was as useful as tits on a bull and the maps were useless as it seems there were no points of reference...but we had fuel,food and wine so we ended up just following tracks for two days with the thought that downwards generally leads to some form of civilisation in the end... so we didn't have to draw lots to see who we'd eat each other first:
whoops...heavy GS in mud on allegedly all-terrain tyres
aaah tarmac...beautiful tarmac
Earlier in the trip I'd noticed a small slow leak coming from the rear end of the drive shaft and dripping onto my rims. I thought it was coming from the back end - but it showed it was full of oil. Turns out it came from the front end seal attached to the gearbox and slowly dripped down. it got made worse by the heavy loads and offroading, but didnt fix it until I got back home.
cant remember where this is - but it looked nice and sinister like the land of Mordor out of Lord of the Rings...well it was pretty cool then...I guess you had to be there
coming into Spain
and Pamplona...but the running of the bulls wasnt until one week later...which is just as well as I'd probably have been gored by some poor animal that gets slaughtered for the amusement of tourists....hey I'm just saying...
Then back to France. We stopped in Biarritz - which is an awesome place. Met a couple of Aussie lads who were going around Europe in a Welsh Locksmiths van (yes they did buy it and no, they didn't steal it
)
we did some surfing lessons there - which was really cool fun and we met these two lovely ladies and we all hung out for the rest of the night and had dinner and dancing - great fun
Netherlands 2 - 1 Brazil - World Cup Quarter Finals...guess who won!
Back on the road, so I had to do some quick laundry in the hand basin and improvised a dryer by strapping socks and jocks to my rollbag
This was a very sad place - Oradour-sur-Glane in France. It's a standing monument to the cruel brutality and senselessness of war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane
Anyway - being in France - it's impossible to stay sad - beautiful country, amazing food and the people were fantastic - don't believe old stereotypes...I've had nothing but good experiences in France...except at Charles de Gaul airport...but nobody has a good experience there
Mont St Michel
Mark's bike
hello - is there anybody home?
Then onto Normandy - no need to tell you what went on here, but it's a very moving place to be and I'd fully recommend going there. The roads aren't spectacular as far as biking goes, but there lots more to biking holidays than just the ride itself...non?
and still more...
imagine being in this thing with these bullets pinging around...thats some very thick steel
American War Cemetary
On the cliffs of Normandy - we saw this and decided to stop and have a look, but it turned out we were riding through some poor farmer's wheat fields, he was pretty good about it
Pegasus Bridge
A restored glider - imagine fully armed men being towed into the air in something made of canvas and balsa wood - no thanks - I'll wait for the next boat
OK this is cool - the infamous Bailey Bridge - I could tell you but i'd only stuff it up - you can read about them here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey_bridge
But the fabrication and design of them was top secret...but the bad guys found out about it and Hitler even sent them a christmas card to show that he knew...for such a b###ard he did have a sense of humour...maybe this was before he started losing ha ha
So after getting our fill of WW2 stuff, I thought I'd show my mates what the Aussies did in the trenches of WW1 in Belgium and France, by stopping at Villers Bretoneux http://www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/villers-bretonneux/, however the ignition lock on my bike seized up - it was friday afternoon and nothing we tried was going to get that thing working.
It was getting late - so we called a bike mechanic (through use of sign language) and eventually this guy from a yamaha shop in Amiens came through in a van and picked it up.
we actually had to grind off the ignition - as it's a sealed unit. So as we had to get back to work on monday and couldnt just hang around all weekend until we could have a bmw ignition sent to us, we had no option left but to rig a hotwire ignition - yep - just connect two wires and away you go
so that's all she wrote folks. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll put up the rest of my trips later this week...if you're not too bored with this report, you can watch the video of this trip here...just turn up the sound I hope you enjoyed this https://vimeo.com/69468949
This is an old trip i did back in 2010 - but I've only got round to getting the forum up now.
So me and two mates from work decided to go down to the Pyrenees from Holland through Belgium, Luxembourg, France and weave our way in and out of the Spanish Pyrenees side up and back home to Rotterdam
Leaving from Rotterdam
Stopped at a boring part of Luxembourg:
We stopped by Avignon
and made friends with some of the locals
Got lost in a swamp the next day...must have been those beers the night before
Argeles Sur Mer - one glimpse of the Mediterranean before heading into the mountains...it was freeeeezing! I remember this day well because the World Cup was on and Australia got spanked 4-0 by Germany :2cry
in the foothills to the Pyrenees
We found a campsite in La Rotja run by a nice Dutch family. The pool was a welcome relief as it was pretty warm by then.
We even got my Irish mate to eat fish and drink wine - usually he only eats steak and chips and wears guinness t-shirts...from here he now drinks fine wines, goes to cheese tasting events and has managed to wear shirts with real buttons ...but that may have something to do with his new girlfriend
Next day with heavy heads and queezy guts we took the boxes off the bikes and did a day's off-roading. I've put the route and POI's up on
http://motortourer.com if you'd like to download it - well worth the trip
the camera doesn't get the real depth perception, but I'm sure those roads were steeper. gravel hairpins and sheer drop offs - but relatively easy
The we went a little further into Spain, where Koen got lucky with the birds
And we did some more offroading - But not ALL of it was intentional. You see we became, what I like to refer as "geographically embarrassed" i.e. lost. the Garmin was as useful as tits on a bull and the maps were useless as it seems there were no points of reference...but we had fuel,food and wine so we ended up just following tracks for two days with the thought that downwards generally leads to some form of civilisation in the end... so we didn't have to draw lots to see who we'd eat each other first:
whoops...heavy GS in mud on allegedly all-terrain tyres
aaah tarmac...beautiful tarmac
Earlier in the trip I'd noticed a small slow leak coming from the rear end of the drive shaft and dripping onto my rims. I thought it was coming from the back end - but it showed it was full of oil. Turns out it came from the front end seal attached to the gearbox and slowly dripped down. it got made worse by the heavy loads and offroading, but didnt fix it until I got back home.
cant remember where this is - but it looked nice and sinister like the land of Mordor out of Lord of the Rings...well it was pretty cool then...I guess you had to be there
coming into Spain
and Pamplona...but the running of the bulls wasnt until one week later...which is just as well as I'd probably have been gored by some poor animal that gets slaughtered for the amusement of tourists....hey I'm just saying...
Then back to France. We stopped in Biarritz - which is an awesome place. Met a couple of Aussie lads who were going around Europe in a Welsh Locksmiths van (yes they did buy it and no, they didn't steal it
)
we did some surfing lessons there - which was really cool fun and we met these two lovely ladies and we all hung out for the rest of the night and had dinner and dancing - great fun
Netherlands 2 - 1 Brazil - World Cup Quarter Finals...guess who won!
Back on the road, so I had to do some quick laundry in the hand basin and improvised a dryer by strapping socks and jocks to my rollbag
This was a very sad place - Oradour-sur-Glane in France. It's a standing monument to the cruel brutality and senselessness of war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane
Anyway - being in France - it's impossible to stay sad - beautiful country, amazing food and the people were fantastic - don't believe old stereotypes...I've had nothing but good experiences in France...except at Charles de Gaul airport...but nobody has a good experience there
Mont St Michel
Mark's bike
hello - is there anybody home?
Then onto Normandy - no need to tell you what went on here, but it's a very moving place to be and I'd fully recommend going there. The roads aren't spectacular as far as biking goes, but there lots more to biking holidays than just the ride itself...non?
and still more...
imagine being in this thing with these bullets pinging around...thats some very thick steel
American War Cemetary
On the cliffs of Normandy - we saw this and decided to stop and have a look, but it turned out we were riding through some poor farmer's wheat fields, he was pretty good about it
Pegasus Bridge
A restored glider - imagine fully armed men being towed into the air in something made of canvas and balsa wood - no thanks - I'll wait for the next boat
OK this is cool - the infamous Bailey Bridge - I could tell you but i'd only stuff it up - you can read about them here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey_bridge
But the fabrication and design of them was top secret...but the bad guys found out about it and Hitler even sent them a christmas card to show that he knew...for such a b###ard he did have a sense of humour...maybe this was before he started losing ha ha
So after getting our fill of WW2 stuff, I thought I'd show my mates what the Aussies did in the trenches of WW1 in Belgium and France, by stopping at Villers Bretoneux http://www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/villers-bretonneux/, however the ignition lock on my bike seized up - it was friday afternoon and nothing we tried was going to get that thing working.
It was getting late - so we called a bike mechanic (through use of sign language) and eventually this guy from a yamaha shop in Amiens came through in a van and picked it up.
we actually had to grind off the ignition - as it's a sealed unit. So as we had to get back to work on monday and couldnt just hang around all weekend until we could have a bmw ignition sent to us, we had no option left but to rig a hotwire ignition - yep - just connect two wires and away you go
so that's all she wrote folks. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll put up the rest of my trips later this week...if you're not too bored with this report, you can watch the video of this trip here...just turn up the sound
I hope you enjoyed this https://vimeo.com/69468949
