In Sweden people call those last frosty nights in spring "Järnnätter", literally meaning "Iron Nights". The sun this time of the year
is shining as powerful as in July, but all that means during this awful spring is that you may get sun-burnt while at the same time
dying from frostbite on your motorbike.
After the torrential rain of last week the weather gods are now sending an air-mass straight from the North Pole deep into Europe - before
more rain is going to drench my part of the world later that week. Obviously it is high time to get out of here, and I only
have about 24 hours for it; the cold front moved in yesterday, and this morning it's only 5 degrees outside. But tomorrow it will stay
this cold, only with more rain mixed in.
I'm under way at 0930 hours under a grey, threatening looking sky. However, the weather improves with every mile I am heading
westwards on the motorway - but the temperature struggles to make it above 10 degrees this morning.
By 1400 hours I have reached the French border at Geneva and leave the motorway. From here on I follow the
Rhône river. It
would be far too cold to ride over the nearby mountains - it's snowing above 4000 ft.
The Ain and
Isère regions are under my wheels today.
After very enjoyable 540 km I end the day at an equally enjoyable hotel in
Condrieu right at the banks of the river:
I can also report that the bike and all my kit (including the new dashcam) is working excellently and the repairs were entirely successful.
The hotel diner was a lengthy process due to the four star status of the place and its place in the Michelin Guide - everything is done very elaborately and fussy, so that the diner took nearly three hours - and I was last in and first out of the restaurant. Long distance motorbiking is not conducive to the finer points of French cuisine. I simply have too much to do to prepare tomorrows journey to waste half the evening in the restaurant - or maybe I'm just a philistine?
Due to the late diner it was midnight before I was ready for hitting the pillows. As a result I have a late start this morning and set out at 0950 hours. I continue my ride southwards on the western shore of the Rhône river for about 200 km until I reach Montélimar in the Drôme department. I am now far enough south to avoid biking through the Massif Central if I turn westwards. High up in the Massif Central it would be much colder than these snug 21 degrees we have down here in the valley at less than 100 metres of altitude. In fact biking here is about as good as it gets. It's always my nose that's the best indicator to tell me that I am in the "Le Midi"; that exotic smell of herbs that smell nowhere like they do down here - people born and bred here can never get that smell out of their heads. I can't blog the smell, but at least I can show you how it looks out here:
So in the afternoon I turn westwards on very minor roads through the southern ranges of the
Cevennes and into
Hérault.
Time flies, and by 1800 hours I have only covered 370 km. I pick a small hotel in
Lamalou-les-Bains which is a small spa town
basically unknown outside of France, specialising in rheumatism and other ailments affecting older people, so the hotels are
all full of old coots like the one I
myself am rapidly turning into.
However, this is a two star place. They offer half board, and diner is served at 1900 hours sharply. Between 1800 and 1900
hours I check on the bike, grease the chain, download the photos from the camera, the videos from the GoPro handlebar
camera and the tracklogs from the GPS and have a shower. Then I go for my diner at 1900 hours sharp.
By 2000 hours I am alone in the restaurant; all the other old coots
are done with their diner and I am alone, just finishing my blog on the laptop - that's more to my liking rather than all that waste
of time I had yesterday in that posh place.
When I wake up at 0630 hours it is six degrees centigrade outside - it was certainly another of those Iron Nights. When I set
out at just after 9 am it has warmed up to 12 degrees, but then rapidly gets warmer and within a few minutes hits 18 degrees -
very strange.
It rather looks like it's going to be a nice day instead of the maximal 18 degrees my own forecast predicted.
I have just gotten rid of my polar bear winter biking kit (warm undies, woollies etc.) when out of the blue the temperature
starts dropping again to a cosy 11 degrees within a few minutes - that feels so much more like Southern France in the
second half of May, doesn't it? These local weather phenomenons are definitely very weird at times...
I have a few breaks to take pictures, all the way heading due west about 30 miles North of the ridge of the Pyrenees. Here is pic of me having a lunchbreak at Venerque:
The ride is highly enjoyable and the temperature returns later that afternoon to 18 degrees as expected.
There is no increase in temperature in sight anytime soon.
I end the day after more than 400 km of winding country roads in
Orthez.
The three-star hotel is in a quiet side street, so I assumed that the room would be quiet, too. Wrong, the hotel is
much bigger than the small front would indicate and my room is directly over a busy main road, so I had a lot of noise
in the room last night. They also have no nearby garage. Instead they offer an open space with a locked gate about
500 metres from the hotel. This morning, when trying to fetch my bike back from the parking space I notice that I have
forgotten the lock combination. So back 500 metres to the reception, walk back once again (now with the combination), fetch
the bike, drive back to the hotel, pack my things, and finally I am on the road by 0930 hours.
I am heading south-west from Orthez and reach the Spanish border about 20 km south of
Bayonne. The wind is northerly and
the clouds jam against the higher mountains further east. I can see the rain hammering down over those mountains, but where
I am it is nice and dry.
Yesterday I noticed the first two technical failures on the bike; the brake light switch from the front brake lever only works
intermittently and one of my two headlights has failed. The brake light switch is a known problem on Tigers,
they are not very good and
this is the second unit that has failed on Tigger. Often some lubrication helps for a while, but soon comes the day when the
unit needs replacement. Alas, that is work for a rainy day, as the foot brake switch is working just fine to operate the brake
light itself.
For replacing the failed headlight I stop at a rest stop just after the Spanish border and replace the light:
But the problem is not the light bulb itself, the new unit which I fit does not work either. So it is a relay or wiring
problem - and thus another one to go hunting for on a rainy day. Alas, I have two headlights, one will have to do for now.
Once I have it all re-assembled and am ready to continue the ride I notice the error "mains power lost" on the display of the GPS.
That's strange, but in the end I find that for unknown reasons fuse no. 4 has blown while I was working on the bike. That kind
of item I always keep ready at hand, and after once again removing the tank bag and baggage roll, the problem is quickly
remedied. But all in all I have spend 90 minutes in this spot and it is high time to continue the ride; the northern cloud
jam seems to attempt to climb over the mountain ridge into the valley I am biking through:
At Durango I turn south, away from those clouds and end the day after only 315 km at Vitoria.
As the old proverb goes, "when in Rome... ".
Spaniards work until 2000 hours, then go on partying half the night, go to bed
later than all other Europeans and hardly get up before 0900 next morning. So I have a lay-in, get up at 0800 hours and leave
Vitoria at 1000 hours.
I have decided to stay on my southerly course, because that's where the good weather is and there I'll also be safe from
the monster anticyclone that is about to engulf Western Europe with massive amounts of rain. The thing is so big that it will
bring rain to all of Northern Spain, too. The monster will arrive on Saturday evening, so I'd better get out of here.
The first 100 miles lead me through the Southern ranges of the mountains, but then I reach the High Plain that makes up most of
Northern Spain, called the "Meseta" in Spanish:
The country is so sparsely populated that petrol with my tiny tank (17 litres are usable) is a problem out here. So whenever I can top up with eight litres or more I stop for petrol - often in rural places like here where they have three types of diesel (Premium, regular and that abomination called "B-Grade"), but only one type of petrol, usually of low quality:
The roads are (as usual in Spain) mostly excellent and only on the most rural byways do I encounter some potholed stretches. As a result the miles are clocking up fast, though one could stop and take a picture at every other corner, the country really is that beautiful:
The roads out here are a bikers wet dream. This turns out to be by far the best riding day so far. To offset
for the rather late start I decide to ride on a bit longer than usual. At 1800 hours I ask the GPS for the nearest place with
multiple hotels to choose from. The GPS duly recommends
Albarracín, a town I have never heard
of, but as they have plenty
of hotels this must be a sizeable city.
Guess how surprised I am when the place turns out to be yet another tinpot little village of just a thousand souls. The
reason for the unusual density of hotels out here apparently is due to the exceptional beauty of the old town.
At the hotel reception I am told about what to see, they hand me a map with the village layout, but I am way too tired to do
any exploration of the place. For me only those three universal traveller requirements are important, which the North
Americans pragmatically call "Gas, Food, Lodging".
I propose you have a look at the above Wikipedia link for Albarracín - they have some stunning pictures of the place.
I have done 500 km today, and I am grinning like a
Cheshire Cat - hopefully I get more of the same
tomorrow.
At 0730 hours in the morning it is 11 degrees outside. However, again blaming the "Iron Nights" on the lousy spring is not
really fair here in Spain - that I am 1200 metres (4000 ft.) above sea level might have more to with it. By the time I start
the ride at 10 am it is 16 degrees and just right for biking.
The Spanish roads are again breathtakingly smooth, winding and great fun. I continue my south-westerly ride through
the High Sierra provinces of
Valencia,
Albacete,
Murcia and finally
Andalusia. All day long the temperature remains at
about 23 degrees, except between
Jumilla and
Caravaca de la Cruz,
where the terrain descends from the usual 1000 metres
above sea down to about 300 metres. Immediately the temperature climbs to 29 degrees, which is rather uncomfortable.
But after that stretch of about 60 kilometres the land rises up again and immediately the temperature is bearable again.
The only picture I did today was at the
Cofrentes Nuclear Power Plant
in the Valencia province:
I end the day after another 530 kilometres at Pozo Alcón at about 800 metres above sea. Again one can only hope that tomorrow will bring more of the same...
Below is the usual map with my GPS tracklog.