Author: joshcapaldi

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Practise Day

As we are technically late to the party as some people have been here since Monday doing other rides. But today was our first day so let’s explain how this whole thing works.

Let’s sort out the facts, the Moto Piston Rally is not just a bike ride with old bikes in the beautiful Picos de Europa Mountains. It’s a self navigated time trial.

So today was a practise ride today that was 180 ish miles long. You are given a crib sheet type document that’s a map that looks like this.

So you tape this thing to your tank, then you zero your trip meter so you can keep a check on your milage as your total milage gets very important. So those little boxes are your directional map for the next junction you need to take.

So as above this means in 1.2 miles you need to turn right on to the CA-286 road signposted to La Veguilla and you should be on the junction when your total millage is 64.2m. So once you have passed this, you move on to the next one but as you see in the top left corner. You have to know the number your on at all times. Because if you forget it then your lost. And just to bring this back, your navigating this while on a motorbike riding at 60mph lent over in a corner trying to avoid the bike in front of you, the bike wanting to overtake you behind, the cow shit/gravel on the road and remember that turn number, where you are and when you have to turn off the road. Needless to say its busy in your head on these rides. Now with all that said today was the practise run to allow you to do this and get used to the navigation but with arrows on the turns in case you go wrong.

However tomorrow on the 5000 curves there are no arrows on the lamposts so if you get lost, your stuffed basically and you will not be a Conqurer. It’s just over 300 miles this year and generally this will take 8 hours (if you don’t get lost).

So that’s the prep work done you now know how it works.

Today however due to it being practise as such we soon got used to how it all works and got in to the swing of things for a very enjoyable day around the Picos. They setup checkpoints to feed you and make sure your watered and there were some very nice bikes out there today.

We got back tired and it’s only half of the distance of tomorrow’s. Tonight is the welcome meal so we’re all in for a slap up meal but me and martyn shall be taking it easy on the wine, the grub is delicious tho! Early to bed once it’s done tho tomorrow is the big day.

I

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Logrono to Santandar

So we got up to get on the road early doors to arrive at the Piston Rally with time to spare. But as with all things Danny’s fix last night was not to be, he felt it wasn’t right within the first hundred meters and he headed to the Yamaha dealer once again. This time they took the back wheel off.

And indeed the true problem was revealed the rear wheel inner and outer bearings were collapsed and the bearing mounts worn. So a new wheel is required they sourced a second hand one and are same day delivering it but will be the following morning before the tyre can be swapped so as with all good adventures we’re leaving Danny behind and he will catch up tomorrow.

We headed up and made great progress managing it on a single tank of gas. We got checked in and awaited the bikes to roll in off the ferry.

Looking forward to the next few days where the real action happens!

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Pau to Logrono

So we kicked off our voyage in to Spain after a good breakfast at last night’s hotel before kicking off this morning to a misty and cold start. Today we were heavily reliant on technology due to the tricky nature of staying off motorways and the silly amount of random roads to cross over to main roads.

So I took the lead aided by google and we made good progress to Saint Jean Pied de Port just on the French/Spanish border thankfully the mist had cleared by then. We stopped for a coffee.

Apparently tho we were not a train and we shouldn’t park in the landtrain station so was soon asked to move the bikes by a local policeman.

We soon got down to business tho heading over the Pyraneese Mountains. Absolutely great riding roads with lots of switch backs. However in a few corners Danny’s bike was not behaving quite right so we stopped to check but everything seemed OK. We continued on to the top near Roncesvalles.

Crazy great views and lots of memories for me from my previous camino exploits. We briefly stopped in Roncesvalles so I could have a picture with the famous sign.

We Continued Down the road to a police checkpoint were 3 out of 4 of us were categorically told our motorcycles were unacceptable to Spain and it would not be possible to continue only to let us go and let us know it’s a 100 euro fine. We assume there was another checkpoint further up where we would have been fleeced if we stayed on the main road but were following the sat nav which took us off to a cracking pass with tunnels and lovely roads. You will have to wait for the video on that one.

The plan was to skirt Pamplona and follow a different road down however we experienced the downside to googlemaps we went the wrong way due to some unclear signage and instead of just telling us to turn around it tried to loop us so we followed down some very small lanes with turned to some gravel followed by boulder ditches and proper off road stuff, not ideal for two sports bikes and two cx’s. But we managed assuming this was just the short bit we needed to do to getto the road we need to go to but nope it took us back to where we started.

Lesson learned on that off road escapade we realised fuel was low the cx’s can only do 120 miles per tank. We now had the option of running out of fuel or biting the bullet and heading into Pamplona. We decide fuel was king so headed in and got filled up and decided to roll the dice again and trust the sat nav however now we were in proper fast paced city centre traffic and took a lot of brain power to navigate through. So we stopped for lunch when we got through the other side. Then the road from Pamplona to Logrona is mainly motorways hence why we were trying to miss it so let the google’s take over and we had to zip zag our way but all nice roads to be fair tho we did spot these caves.

We are assuming troglodytes caves but we’re guessing.

We got into Logrono and Danny was now advising there is some clunking noises coming from his bike, suspected front sprocket issues. We checked into to the hotel and Danny got on phone a d luckily found a Yamaha Dealer in Logrono just 750m away. With opening hours until 8pm he rode round to see if they could sort it. They did indeed the nut and split pin were absent so very lucky there was not more damage or problems. They fixed it but Danny still thinks there is something not quite right so is hoping to get it on a bench when we get to Santandar tomorrow so the plot thickens.

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Saint Angeau to Pau

So a slightly late start but much better kip was had at Alain’s. We prepped for the day ahead.

We soon got on the road and after a few lane diversions we stopped off at a lovely place for coffee. And with no rain today I finally got my big camera out!

Been having a few gopro issues today but managed to film a good bit between my camera and Martyn’s. The roads were so much better today with a lot more flowing winding open roads. All bikes behaving so far and just my gopro being sketchy but iv applied the classic IT fix and formatted the card so hoping for a smoother day tomorrow. After 220 very winding miles of twistys we arrived in Pau at a hotel I booked last night on the ol booking.Com app Two joined apartments for 25 euro a night each and some private parking. So far no Complaints and I’m allowed to book the next hotel.

Tommorow we will hit Spain and looking forward to going parralel to the camino I walked a few years back and we have a nice hotel booked in logrono which should leave us close enough to hit Santander for the kick off of the Piston Rally!

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Caen to Saint-Angeau

So after I posted last night we retired to the cabin I was told it wasn’t too bad but I don’t do ferry’s often but maybe it’s different on the top bunk but I didn’t sleep that well. But the harp sounded at 5 am and it didn’t feel angelic.

Unfortunately putting on moist gear is never fun but made worse by the fact the rain followed us over the channel. So today’s ride was always planned to be a bit of a long affair and the rain made it quite a soggy time. With big miles to we made good progress first stopping in Alencon for mcdonalds for a coffee unfortunately the French don’t do bacon so we had to settle for some cake or doughnut.

The cx’s need refuelling every 120 miles so thankfully it gives us many chances to stretch the legs. We were making good time but after being on the road from 6am by 12 we were looking for the the lunch menu and a service station came calling for a burger. And unlike UK services this one was tasty.

However the delicious food made us all a bit snoozy so with regular breaks we soldiered on. Making good time and arrived at Alain’s by 4pm a long day in the saddle and due to it mainly being a moist day not many photos!

But the weather looks to be breaking and hopefully the sun will be getting it’s hat on. And we’re making rough plans for tomorrow but our French host is now looking at me strangly as I’m typing this up so I shall not be rude and go enjoy the evening! A moist but successful day with big miles done.