A Trip Far Beyond

[R4nger]

Me and Klause decided to go on a tour to Spain this year for about 3 weeks. Our plan was to get to the Faro Rally midway through the trip which is in Faro, Portugal. We have never gone touring before so this was really our first trip. I am 19 years old and Klause turned 19 while in Spain. I am taking my Thundercat and Klause is taking his Ducati Monster 750.

The preparation really started back in December 2005 however there was a lot of last minute stuff. Klause got his MOT 1 day before departure. Our plan was to try and pack as light as possible but have everything we would need. We both took soft luggage made by Oxford.

I have to mention that I had 'misplaced' my wallet with my driving licence, bank cards and various other useful things inside 3 working days before we leave. I phoned up the DVLA and they told me I had to get to Swansea by 2pm that day to get a replacement licence in time. At this time, it was 11am and I live about 150-200 miles away from Swansea. So I rode to Swansea at 1:55pm and managed to get it in time. When I got home, I found my wallet. Sods law.

We decided to take the ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao costing around £550 for 2 bikers taking 2 bikes and sharing a cabin (ooo-eer missus) on the "Pride of Bilbao". The ship was built in 1986 and can hold up to 600 cars, 65 freight vehicles and 2500 passengers. You could not get a bigger ship and the ferry crossing is 35 hours outward and 29 hours return. That is a very long time considering everything is expensive and the entertainment was like Phoenix Nights. Suicide was an option.
https://www.r4nger.net/site/albums/spain/smaller/DSCF1778_%28Large%29.JPG

On our first day in Spain we decided to go the famous Museum in Bilbao. Using a GPS in a tank bag means I am cutting the locals up and Klause is nearly getting knocked off. We still arrived there about 2 hours before it opened so we decided to make tracks. Not more than 10 miles away, my clutch would not engage anymore. I pull over into a hard shoulder not wider than my foot so I had to push my bike into someone’s driveway about 200 yards down the road. We where fixing my clutch for about 3 hours in the midday sun. We had taken the bike apart 3 times, each time thinking it would work. On the 3rd try it worked. We concluded that the cause of the clutch failure was due either due to improper adjustment of the clutch or the springs where too heavy. Either way, the lips on the clutch pressure plate broke off. 2 of them where beyond repair so I am now running the clutch on 4 springs instead of 6.

We set off to find fuel and water. While we are filling up I mention that the GPS has sometimes been losing signal. We put it down to the heat expanding the cables and getting a loose connection somewhere. This is what you get for buying something off eBay. After filling up, I look down at the GPS to find it has lost it's position. I fiddle around with the cables abet with no luck. We decide to try and fix it now rather than later so we push the bikes to the side of the petrol station into the shade and get the pliers out. We start stripping the wires back and try to resolve the cable issues. In the end we end up with lots of spaghetti and get no where. Great, we have wasted a couple of hours trying to fix that. At this point we decide to go to the maps and throw the GPS in the bin.

After those few events, we start to make some progress and manage 90 miles before we stop again to eat in service station. I must say, the Spanish service stations are 100 times better than the English ones and they are not as pricey as ours and the food is far better. We needed to travel another 80 miles to reach our destination for the night which was a small town called "Jaca" in the Pyrenees in a valley.
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On the second day we went through a couple of mountain passes. While coming out of a tunnel making lots of noise We get pulled over by the Civil Guard and got a lecture about headlights in Spanish. We tried arguing with him but in the end we just said "Yes Officer" and we went on our way without any fine. He didn't even check our documents. We spent the next day travelling across the mountains and started to head south. The roads get very different and very straight as you leave the mountains. Some of the roads look like Route 66, horizon after horizon and very little traffic. Who needs to go to America when you can go to Europe?
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About 200 miles North from Benidorm, we hit a wall of heat. It suddenly got a lot hotter. It was fine when you was riding and had the air in your hair but as soon as you stopped, it was like sitting in an oven getting hotter. Going off-topic, we managed to find rain 3 or 4 days in a row during the evening. Anyway, we arrived in Benidorm after a couple of days and get a free apartment thanks to Klause's cousin. Everyone should avoid Benidorm, not because it is very tourist like and has tarmac everywhere but because of it's one way system! We kipped there for a couple of nights. We didn't really try and go partying because we were so tired. In fact I had bought a beer from the local supermarket and started to sip it and feel asleep within 5 minutes on the first night there. While we have the chance at Benidorm, we lubed and adjusted our chains. After the couple days of pleasant sleeping we decide to make a move and head West across Spain.
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We now start to head through the mountains to "Huelva" just before the Portugal/Spanish border since we booked a Youth Hostel there for the night. I had only remembered that I had booked and paid for this hostel while we where in Benidorm so the day before the booking we had to ride 500-600 miles in a day to get there. We also did not know where the hostel was within the city, only an address. We ask a traffic warden where this address was after getting lost. He had drawn the worst map imaginable. Just by luck, we found it within a few minutes and booked in. We parked our bikes around the back of the Hostel and we were told the hostel was open 24 hours a day. We got back after eating our dinner and found that a rent-a-guard was on duty. Obviously this was ex-military and written down our number plates, makes and models. The rent-a-guard started to complain to us about the bikes in Spanish. Of course we didn't know exactly what he was taking about so we started to laugh. Eventually he gave us our room key. As we were walking up to our room he asked us to following him to our bikes. After some time we understood that he wanted us to remove the entire luggage (which probably weighed about the same as a person) from the bikes into our rooms up two floors. I am sure he just wanted to be awkward.

We left promptly the next day to the Faro Rally site the long way and arrived there in the early afternoon. We setup camp quickly in the shade and saved a spot for Nath. The site was just full of bikes as far as you could see. There was a lot of Spanish and Portuguese but not a lot of other Europeans. The music was very loud and you could hear it in any part of the campsite. On the 2nd day at the Faro Rally, it started to get a little crowded as more and more people came. Luckily we had cornered off some space for us and Nath.
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Nath was due on the 2nd day of the Rally as well, riding down from the Czech Republic to Faro in a couple days. We meet him at Faro airport. He is riding a Honda CB550 with army ammo boxes as the luggage. I am sure he will tell you about his adventure when he returns.
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Nath used his shield from his "goodie bag" as side stand puck. There is no shiny metal allowed around here!
https://www.r4nger.net/site/albums/spain/smaller/DSCF1811_%28Large%29.JPG



We also meet Babyyams and her husband. Everyone should meet these people. They are great and funny folk. Babyyams got a bit drunk.
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A practice joke from the Portugal Hornet club.
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Klause and Nath decide to leave a present for the people going to the rally next year by burying a plastic cup. Here are a couple of photos to show the process involved.
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We decide to leave the Rally early because it was crap. Deep Purple sounded like a tribute band. They also did not plan for the amount of people there or they just didn’t care. Everything was over-crowded and over-used, people constantly holding their bikes on the rev-limiter. We all set off early Sunday morning just before the rally that goes to Faro city centre.

Setting off early didn’t go to plan since I got separated from Klause and Nath at the rally entrance. We spent the next couple of hours looking for each other but we eventually meet up in the first service station on the motorway. The problem with 100,000 bikes all in one place is that it takes ages to fuel up. Some people chanced it to the next petrol station but that was 100 miles away unknown to them. We did see a few people push their bikes down the motorway. We all came to the conclusion that it would be best for me and Klause to part from Nath.

After the boring motorways, we headed into the mountains and got some good views. I really have no real idea where exactly the photos are.
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We setup camp one evening and notice there is a river nearby so we decided to go swimming. We got to the river and in my wisdom I decided that jumping into the river was the best way to get used to the temperature so I immediately jump in and to my surprise it is freezing. I climb out as fast as I could in doggy paddle style while Klause is saying "It is alright when you get moving". Here's a photo...
https://www.r4nger.net/site/albums/spain/smaller/DSCF1843_%28Large%29.JPG

We start head north back up to sanity were the temperatures are more normal and things are greener. The way things stay green is with rain and boy, did we get caught it in. We were half way through setting up our tent and you just knew it was going to rain. All of a sudden it started to bucket it down and within about 1 minute everything was soaked. We were still trying to put the tent pegs in with rocks we found lying about since we did not bring a hammer. We ran to the toilets after putting in half the tent pegs in and stayed in there for about 10 minutes. The toilets smelt of urine so we went into the bar they had on the campsite and got free beers since we were soaked through which was nice.

On one of these mountain twisty roads, I managed to take a corner too fast and decided to brake for it. There was a gravel run off around the corner. I managed to slow it all the way down and slide on my side for about a foot or two. There was no damage to the bike or me. I was very lucky really. It could of been alot worse considering I was 10 feet from a dropping down the valley with no barrier.
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[Klause]

What he said mainly.

I laughed out loud reading the swimming story. I put my foot in the water to test it and said "*** freezing" at the same I see R4nger in mid air jumping into it. I've never seen such a shocked face in my life, I pissed myself with laughter. He just did this pathetic doggy paddle thing back to the edge because he was so shocked from the ice cold water.

Will be putting the tank cam video up soon, it's us on a nice twisty road which includes us getting pulled over by the police, luckily they didn't see the camera.

The crash was scary from my view, he looked like he was heading straight for the edge but ditched it before the drop, lucky git!

Faro was a slight disappointment but was good to meet nath and babyams, R4nger was tired and slept while me and Nath met babyams for the first time (where I took the picture). Very funny and friendly people babyams and co. Nath just blows me away that he's doing this massive trip on a cb550 with ammo boxes for storage, crazy!

On the last day in Spain we spent at beach village near Bilbao called La arena or something. Met some crazy Yorkshire bikers, one on a 1940's harley, they had been to Faro too. They were glad to meet some English bikers and quickly invited us over to have a beer with them, never stopped laughing after that, they were like stand up comedians.
The one moment I'll never forget is when this spanish begger/guy who sells dodgey watches walked up to us and gibbed away, the very big pissed Yorkshire pig farmer, replied "Hello my name is alex and im fat". We all broke into laughter and the begger wondered off.
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Current bikes: 1960 Triumph 5ta x2, TTR600RE, KTM200EXC, Cagiva Elephant 900ie.

[beatnck]

well done lads, sounds like a good trip!
reading that has made me want to go on a tour

[Method]

Nice job there G
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[Nath]

Hope you guys really enjoyed yourselves out there. What was the final mileage figure then?
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Hard livin', hard luck.

[Klause]

[Dark]

That sounds like a great ride, nice piccies too.

Just out of interest how come you were riding from the Czech Republic Nath? did you ride there from Nottingham first?
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[Steve H]

Great write up - Top Stuff
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[Josh|RD125LC]

I think its brilliant and impressive when bikers go abroad into countries they ain't familiar to and tour them, something I would love to do but most likely won't have the chance. Small world aswell, fancy meeting up with Nath and babyyam! Good stuff lads, well done.
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[Luke_Retrofly]

fucking quality lads, good on you, looked like you had a wicked time, nice pics too great thread, great ride by the sounds of it

Luke
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[Wave2k]

good read, great pictures, Go team Ducati
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Ducati 1299 Panigale
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[Klause]

[Nath]

I thought you said you had photos of the roadside clutch repair? I would hazzard a guess thats probably one of the biggest roadside repairs/bodges done by anyone on this forum.

[R4nger]

[natv4]

So where are these elusive videos then?

I would like to lay claim to the crown of roadside repair/bodge...we change cams and lifters on a bandit 600 this year (mine). Well at least I shoud be in the running.

Nice write up, good pics. Travel is king, well done lads!
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Travelling around the world...a bit at a time. Where am I now? / Visit my BLOG
Bike: Blue Honda VFR800fi (*NEW*) Mileage: 22k Countries visited: GB/F/D/CZ/PL/E/I/B/A/HR/H/Rus/E/MA
West Europe...2004, East Europe...2005, Russia/France...2006, Morocco...2007

[jay_666]

I cant wait to do something like this next year
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[Klause]

We keep meaning to meet up and edit this video sometime but parties and airsoft take over our weekends.

If you really want to tour just do it! I didn't have alot of choice before I knew it the ferry tickets were booked!
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Current bikes: 1960 Triumph 5ta x2, TTR600RE, KTM200EXC, Cagiva Elephant 900ie.

[jay_666]

Got any tips?

Did you come into any problems that could have been avoided?
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CBT - Done | Theory - Passed | Test - 4th Oct [PASSED!]
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[natv4]

Video! Video! Video!

Just a clip, go on....
____________________
Travelling around the world...a bit at a time. Where am I now? / Visit my BLOG
Bike: Blue Honda VFR800fi (*NEW*) Mileage: 22k Countries visited: GB/F/D/CZ/PL/E/I/B/A/HR/H/Rus/E/MA
West Europe...2004, East Europe...2005, Russia/France...2006, Morocco...2007

[Klause]

[Nath]

Or just tour on your own, and not with george (ranger) Good way to eliminate most of your troubles, that.

I feel a bit guilty that the faro rally turned out to be a bit shit and sapped a quite a bit of your tour as I started the interest in it, but hopefully you both enjoyed yourselves enough to tour again and really experience everything the continent has to offer.

Respect to 19year old touring spain on unlikely bikes!
____________________
Hard livin', hard luck.

[colin1]

[Klause]