A Pyrenees route from Tourenfahrer-Motorrad magazine

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Yes, it’s in foreign but....

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It would be easy enough to translate the map into BaseCamp or some similar route creation software. Similarly, you could find biker friendly hotels via the Tourenfahrer partner hotels.
 
I’ll bank that one for sure.Having done the entire N260 and most of these roads in bits, it would be great to do a tour like that.
 
Doing about 60% of that route in June :)

Basically following Route Des Cols along the French side (with a bit of a detour to take in the Vielha to Sort road before heading back up through Andorra to rejoin Route des Cols, but then stopping after Col du Pailheres and heading south to Puigcerda to start running homewards along N260 with some other detours here and there.

This route keeps buggering off away from he Mountains, probably to see stuff, but my primary aim is great roads over historic guff.
 
There are ‘great roads’ at places that have no or indeed less ‘mountains’, you know ;). It’s why people go to the north German coast, Sweden, Poland and (to some degree or another) the Ardennes or the Harz. If you plot the route out, you can see that it takes what look to be some pretty interesting smaller roads. The value of the good, predominantly German, touring magazines is that, whilst they indeed do have ‘mountain’ routes, they also feature ideas on where to go that people might not have thought of.

You can see the same thing here in the UK. People spend sometimes the majority of their lives riding in the Home Counties, with excursions up to Yorkshire, the Dales or into Wales or Scotland. None of these places have mountains on anything the scale of the Alps or Pyrenees but they are not entirely devoid of ‘great roads’. Sometimes the roads are ‘great’ because they are technically difficult to ride; maybe no more than a car wide, with high banks or stone ‘hedges’. Sometimes they are miles upon miles of racetrack smooth tarmac where you can probably sit well in excess of 100 mph with all but zero chance of encountering the police or even a sleeping policeman hump, let alone a static speed camera. Maybe, they have bends that entice you in then catch you out as they tighten unexpectedly. It’s ‘great’ when - out of the blue - you come across a series of hairpins just to cross what is really quite a small range of hills, that you really were not expecting.

Yes, the alternative routes will sometimes take you through some ‘interesting to see’ sites. I guess it’s why people leave Basingstoke to go to live in the Loire; it’s not exactly littered with snow capped Alpine mountain tops but has some ‘great’ roads and views, just the same.

Have a great time and a sincere ‘thank you’ for the super help you provide answering the often heard, “Me and my mates are going to the Alps....” pleas.
 
In future can't you translate the articles. There are bikermates out there that can't make basecamp work with instructions in the mother tongue, so them finding your article the least bit useful is unlikely.

Must do better :thumb
 
I'd say that route is a bit obvious and misses many of the really great roads in the Pyrenees.
 
I'd say that route is a bit obvious and misses many of the really great roads in the Pyrenees.

It doesn’t claim to be the definitive route to take in the Pyrenees, nor does the thread. It’s just something different.

There are loads of threads and posts on ‘Great roads, mate’ in the Pyrenees. They can range from something like this:

https://www.ukgser.com/forums/showt...Pyrenees-and-back-again-ADAC-map-and-GPX-file

Through to the RiDE magazine ideas on ‘Great bikermate roads’, through to trip reports on riding the rock strewn and all but impassable unmade tracks *, unless you are an off-road riding God with four days’ growth of stubble and the thousand mile stare of someone who really has looked into the face of a mountain goat and not shat themselves.




* These are totally unsuitable for many many of the bods who litter this site, who moan when their very expensive GS bike apparently cannot cope with the broken up surface of some roads in the Ardennes in autumn when they sometimes have gravel and leaves on them. Their suspension cannot deal with it, so they say. Feck me, we even have bods who hate regular Alpine hairpins with a pillion and others who wonder if they should perhaps have ordered their 1200 with the alternative first gear, as they can’t manage one up with panniers, top box, tank bag and other stuff strapped on.... despite the bike having had a trip to Hilltop.


Buy hey, now that we have your attention, give us your definitive ‘must do’ 1000 km route through and across the Pyrenees. You’ll need to include:

Place names
Road numbers
Which maps they will need to buy or better still download for free as shops are a rip off and they don’t like talking to people face to face, better to have first hand knowledge here. That is actually coded bikermate speak for: I can’t be arsed to go out and I lack any imagination
What the weather will be like
A GPS route and one that won’t just load straight lines when the bod trundles of the ferry at Santander, having spent 24 hours in the company of like minds, chilling probably
Biker safe accommodation, something beyond “We stayed in a great hotel”
And, not least, routes on how to get to the start and send points from their home in Bolton, as they always ride their bike, never take a motorway, never touch ferries (or cages or aeroplanes) and they leave tomorrow with their six mates, except one of them has got to do overtime and another one has just remembered that he has no MOT so can someone recommend a place to stop near Oundle that is open at 8 pm and run by a bloke who understands bikes and can someone tell them......
 
It doesn’t claim to be the definitive route to take in the Pyrenees, nor does the thread. It’s just something different.

There are loads of threads and posts on ‘Great roads, mate’ in the Pyrenees. They can range from something like this:

https://www.ukgser.com/forums/showt...Pyrenees-and-back-again-ADAC-map-and-GPX-file

Through to the RiDE magazine ideas on ‘Great bikermate roads’, through to trip reports on riding the rock strewn and all but impassable unmade tracks *, unless you are an off-road riding God with four days’ growth of stubble and the thousand mile stare of someone who really has looked into the face of a mountain goat and not shat themselves.




* These are totally unsuitable for many many of the bods who litter this site, who moan when their very expensive GS bike apparently cannot cope with the broken up surface of some roads in the Ardennes in autumn when they sometimes have gravel and leaves on them. Their suspension cannot deal with it, so they say. Feck me, we even have bods who hate regular Alpine hairpins with a pillion and others who wonder if they should perhaps have ordered their 1200 with the alternative first gear, as they can’t manage one up with panniers, top box, tank bag and other stuff strapped on.... despite the bike having had a trip to Hilltop.

Despite your lengthy reply you seem to have misinterpreted mine with assumptions.

What I'm saying is give a 10 year old a map and a crayon, mention the N260 and come up with a route this is what you'd get.
 
In future can't you translate the articles. There are bikermates out there that can't make basecamp work with instructions in the mother tongue, so them finding your article the least bit useful is unlikely.

Must do better :thumb

:jes

It reads like my school reports, “Must do better”
 
Despite your lengthy reply you seem to have misinterpreted mine with assumptions.

What I'm saying is give a 10 year old a map and a crayon, mention the N260 and come up with a route this is what you'd get.

Great, give us the 50 plus year old’s definitive route. 1000 km will do.
 
I don't use 'routes', leave that for those who can't think on the go :D

Which is why this thread might just be helpful to others, less blessed.

Now, come on, give the world Tim’s One Thousand, it’ll be the go-to guide. You’ll be able to lie on your death bed knowing that it will live on.... until that is some bikermate pops up in the not to distant future to ask in the 150,000 volt GS section: “I am worried about charging points on Sundays...”
 
Now, come on, give the world Tim’s One Thousand, it’ll be the go-to guide. You’ll be able to lie on your death bed knowing that it will live on.... until that is some bikermate pops up in the not to distant future to ask in the 150,000 volt GS section: “I am worried about charging points on Sundays...”

If you think that's my wish then you have entirely missed my philosophy of travel.

So why continue with the sarcastic patronising of a keyboard warrior?..... oh of course take a step back, it's because I suggested the route you posted was simplistic and obvious.

Why on earth anyone would want to follow that (or any) prescribed route is beyond me, by all means use it a rough guide ..... the devil is in the detail you find along the way :beerjug:
 
As we are drifting into the realm of sharing (or not) ideas and routes, I’ll share why I like the German ‘Touring magazines’, though I speak not one word of German. Let’s take the latest issue of Alpine Tourer by way of example. They realise that there is only so many times that they can create ‘great roads’ in the Alps, let alone other mountains (let’s be frank, they have been done to death) so they branch out. This issue was just about Germany but others regularly feature most of the European countries, even Wales, though Wales is not a country.

Now, I am sure that few of us will ever need a nice route between Schomberg and Aalen... but maybe you might if (as some do) you happen to have found yourself in Stuttgart (feck all Alps and twisties there mate, a right shithole, all bleedin’ motorways, hate cities me) visiting the very good Porsche museum or maybe on the way to Ulm, a nice enough place. Or maybe the article on roads to see and ride around Berlin (flat as a witch’s tit mate, feckin’ miles away, never go beyond feckin’ Arnhem me, to pay respects like) might just spark some imagination in even the dullest brains.

Here, at the risk of the copywrite gods sending thunderbolts down on the janitor’s latest super-yacht are some screenshots on what the mag kicked out this time:

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Might the articles fire me up with enough imagination to ask Google where the feck Oldenburg in Holstein is? Maybe, yes.... as it looks interesting enough. Might it prompt me to go there, as I have already been to Lubeck on me awsome steed? Yes, it might.
It’s here if anyone is interested:

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If you think that's my wish then you have entirely missed my philosophy of travel.

So why continue with the sarcastic patronising of a keyboard warrior?..... oh of course take a step back, it's because I suggested the route you posted was simplistic and obvious.

Why on earth anyone would want to follow that (or any) prescribed route is beyond me, by all means use it a rough guide ..... the devil is in the detail you find along the way :beerjug:

I am fully aware of your philosophy of travel and, yes, I used the deathbed idea to spark a likely reaction. Do I think you’ll give us, Tim’s One Thousand? No, of course not. Do I think that you’d give somebody some help or advice on the trails? Yes.

Nowhere have I suggested anyone has to follow it, any more than I have ordered that anyone has to follow the ADAC routes, though they are a popular source for bods to start from, even if the modern rider is reluctant to buy a map. Bods can use it as a rough guide or bog paper out on the trails, I care not. As much as anything else I lobbed it up, with its source, in the vague hope that someone might make a small leap to look for the magazine and then see where else their imagination might take them. But hey, it’s much easier to say: “Me and my eight mates want routes from Potes, leaving Tuesday....” and some fecker will do them for them.

:beerjug:


PS There was a complete denial in UKGSer’s Travel section that Germany even existed before some mug asked that a sub-section be created. No doubt its absolute lack of twisties, mountains and off-road bogs rendered it (like old maps) as ‘unknown’.
 
I am fully aware of your philosophy of travel and, yes, I used the deathbed idea to spark a likely reaction. Do I think you’ll give us, Tim’s One Thousand? No, of course not. Do I think that you’d give somebody some help or advice on the trails? Yes.

.

Ah I see you've re opened the thread....do you water your gin down so much, I doubt it :D
 
Ah I see you've re opened the thread....do you water your gin down so much, I doubt it :D

I only locked it briefly, as I had (somewhat stupidly) started the opening paragraph of post #17 here and posted it.... then to nip over to the magazine to snap the pictures... then go to Tapatalk to load them up. I didn’t want some bod saying, “You forgot the pictures” whilst I hunted about.

What I should have done is created all the post in Tapatalk.

The thread is open and will stay open.

Richard
 


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