Spain?

[Itchy]

Erm so what is interesting south of Santander?

I'm 50-50 in following maurice's old route (but cutting portugal out all together) and or crossing over to Barcalona spending 3-4 days burning up and down the Pyranees on the roads the Don went on , then crossing the south of France to do a bit of the Alps before crossing up through Switzerland and Germany back via Calais.

Thus is it really worth going to the south coast of spain? , Gibralta interests me , but then it means I'm going to have to pass through Chav central of magaluf and all those sorts of places. But may enable me to make a quick jaunt for a day or two over to Morroco.

Oh and to add more confusion into the trip , its going to be tenting it to save £££ (due to £ tanking against the Euro) and I'm going to be leading Bolton's 2nd wing out for half of the trip (this is not related to BCF).

Also June or July? (heat issues ya see).

Boot notes

Cities are of less importance due to camping and sort of not fancying the night life as much as I used to, I'm there for the riding primarily.

Time is exactly 13 days due to the way the Santander ferry operates and I don't want to be gun running for 6 days like TheDon either.

Ta
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[TheDonUK]

Let me know when you find out

That was my original plan, in reverse of what you are proposing, roughly Barcalona - Valencia then in a roundabout way Gibraltar and back up north skipping portugal. I ran out of money by valencia and turned inward to madrid and then north but i think it would be worth doing.

Depends on what you want, If the second half of your trip (which i assume wont be in spain) is going to be group riding and you think you will have time to enjoy the scenery then going all the way round solo would be good relaxation with pleanty of adventures to be had. But if you did do the roads of the Pyrenese for 3-4 days it would be some of the best technical riding i can imagine, I only really got to do the main N240/N260 from Pamplona to Andorra once and eastbound at that, With all the little offshoots you could easily loose a week there and be grinning like a chimp and physically exhausted after each day. Those roads are truely the most challenging and exciting i have experienced. But i dont know if that was because i just happened to come across them, i had no expectations it was just an amazing surprise...

As for cities, for me the charm of touring spain was being in the middle of nowhere, Barcalona is epic, but i would rather fly out and do that stuff on foot tourist style, the cities in france and spain are fun fun for mixing it up with traffic and comparing to london but for the riding best steer clear, less places to camp too..

13 days is do-able, depends on the daily milage you want to be doing, i did silly miles, and was more of a european blast than taking in the fine details, its what i needed at the time, to ride hard for a good while...

I would say if you want to do it properly, what 150-300 miles a day?

[colin1]

if it were me id get the ferry to bilbao, and take mountain roads through the pyrenhees possibly in and out of france too, possibly popping down to barcelona

i would be more interested in trying to find lots of interesting mountain roads than getting from one end of the country to the other

id agree with previous post that barcelona is probably best left for a flight in tourist visit
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colin1 is officially faster than god

[Itchy]

[Faldo]

I'm going in June (Only because it will coincide with the Barcelona round of MotoGP).

I've never rode on the continent before so I have no idea where to go, but my rough idea is to blast through France in the first couple of days to the Med, and follow that round to Barca, then down the coast to Gibraltar and back up through central Spain.

I've done a quick "route" on Google maps, but this is only to show the direction of travel. I'm hopefully going to find the best looking routes whilst over there. I've planned on 14 days in total.

Link To GoogleMaps, It will take a little while to load!

I'm planning on 300-400 miles a day
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[Itchy]

https://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=18020059134885034615,45.189960,5.742720%3B14226842606256502907,44.572460,6.082760%3B3416818351941661601,44.087660,6.226510%3B11896537501138014060,43.955760,6.361910%3B6025448961636594753,43.660880,6.922060%3B7978162950417152813,43.808450,7.193590%3B5012868517620560201,43.960850,6.433870%3B17665749666654808537,45.676960,5.851620%3B283422994105188635,45.711080,5.716690&saddr=Boulevard+Jean+Pain%2FD1090+%4045.189960,+5.742720&daddr=Avenue+du+Commandant+Dumont%2FN85+%4044.572460,+6.082760+to:N1085+%4044.087660,+6.226510+to:N85+%4043.955760,+6.361910+to:Avenue+du+Mar%C3%A9chal+Juin%2FD6085+%4043.660880,+6.922060+to:D6202%2FRoute+de+Grenoble+%4043.808450,+7.193590+to:N202+%4043.960850,+6.433870+to:D1504+%4045.676960,+5.851620+to:D1504+%4045.711080,+5.716690+to:45.919632,5.504837&mra=mi&mrcr=8&mrsp=9&sz=11&sll=45.898132,5.460205&sspn=0.213603,0.466919&ie=UTF8&ll=45.247821,5.93811&spn=1.728678,3.735352&t=h&z=8

These roads are unmissable notably the Grenoble to Grasse ,

then Nice to Dinge via the N202,

The road around Aix Le bains could have been any of the gorges to the west of the lake, so no advice there, I considered riding through France but its 1000 miles and took me 4 days (though I didn't touch the motorways), and 1000 miles = £130 of petrol , and is tiring to ride 1000 miles in a day.
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[Faldo]

LOL, thanks Itchy. This trip started as a weekend in France, until I realised I might as well go to the South to catch some rays, turning it into a 1 weeker. Then I realised I wasn't far from Barcelona (Which is somewhere I've always wanted to go), then I realised MotoGP was on and it's become a two weeker, and now you've shown me another road which does look fun, and doesn't look far from Italy .... At this rate I'll never come home!!

I think that route will get incorporated into my journey as it does look fun, especially if you put the Google map onto Terrain View!
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Current: ZZR1400
Previous: ZXR 400 L9, ZX-7R P5, ZZR 400, ZX-7R P6, Bandit 600, GSXR 750 Slingshot, DRZ400, DR650, ZX10R C1H, ZXR 750 L1, ZXR 750 L3, '99 ZX7R P4, KTM 300 EXC, ZX-9R E1, TDM850

[colin1]

when i said bilbao it wasnt that i thought that was a better way than santander, as i have only heard of the bilbao as a ferry destination
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colin1 is officially faster than god

[Radar]

I have heard the A623 Santander to Burgos road is good

[Ste]

Nice roads across northern Spain from Bilbao to Roses.

Northern Spain is interesting mountains and forests whilst the rest of the country is olives and oranges.

[Radar]