Devon TRF Group Forum

I've been wanting to ride the Vibraction Roadbook 10 since I read about it in ABR Magazine a while ago, plus ride reports have gotten my taste for riding in Northern Spain.

There were meant to be a few of us, but being wage whores a couple decided to work!  :pinch: 

That just left the odd pairing of just myself and Mike, the Night Club owner and the Chimney Sweep! 

So after nabbing a copy of the RB10 tracklog from a nice man on the ABR forum, plus another tracklog from a fella off the ADV forum, I decided to concoct my own route as the start point to Ainsa from Santander was something like 200+ miles, which for me was a day of being sat on tarmac and not maximising our time in Spain for the 7 days of riding.

So we arrived in Santander at 6.00pm on the Saturday night and rode 65 miles to the first campsite via minor roads up through the mountains.

Time we got to the municiple site at Villarcayo at 8.00pm it was dark, so tents up and look for some nosh in town, anyway 8 euros for this slop    

In the morning we prepared for the first trails.

It wasn't long before we were climbing up very long grass tracked climbs to 5000ft. We had a quick break at the top, when we met some locals on trial bikes who thought that we were a bit loco to come from where we'd been, plus he advised not to go where they'd just come from as we wouldn't get down, so gave us an alternative route through the mountains of which Napoleon used........on a KTM of course We rode up quite high all day and saw some fantastic views. Day 1's mileage was about 140 miles and we got to the Los Cameros campsite with an hours light to spare and by 7.30pm we'd already downed a bottle of vino, calamari and pizza, so by 9.00pm and a 2nd bottle, we were hammered and called it a night! 

The next day we rode East and along a lot of gravel trails up in amongst the hills of the wind turbine maintenance tracks.

I found the numerous gravel hairpins very loose on the front end, even though I had Maxxis IT's fitted. Even witnessed a calf being born by the side of the road!

Today we decided to have lunch alfresco up int hills!

You can see a lot of the tracks on the picture below, behind Mr Stringfellow!

We eventually came down from the hills and through a lush long single track lane for about 5 miles, then we bottomed out into massive vineyards, which we rode through for about 12 miles! It was here that we noticed that the terrain was changing to more arid, scrub desert type terrain. We finished up by riding along the river Ebro and heading to the campsite at Camping Bungalows Bardenas at Valtierra, but it had been permanently shut down, so back up to another site we passed 6 miles back at Villafranca called Camping Bardenas. Only about 105 miles today, so we pitched up at 4.30pm and a bit of chicken for tea  :woohoo:

Plus the obligatory two bottles of vino!

The weather has been great so far, with clear skies and temperature between 18 - 20c, but this evening it's gone a bit cloudy, with some rain forecast, but nothing thankfully.

This was first thing in the morning

This was 2 hours later

So today we were hitting the Bardenas Reales Desert, which is a really strange place to be. It's like being in a miniture Grand Canyon!

Cheeky little vid showing what the roads were like in the area

Click on pic

After a couple of hours riding we find a refuge to stop at for lunch

This place was great and would be great for an overnight stop, as it had firewood and well next to it, so have marked it with a waypoint for the future!

Didn't think much of the landlord though!

YOU'RE BARRED!!!

After lunch we trek on through the desert area to this famous landmark......................nope don't ask me what it's called!

We did notice throughout the day that there must have been quite a bad storm in the area recently as the tracks were quite badly ripped apart and some of the mud was really slippery underneath.

The track that I did today was **** up with the mileage, because I had todays track as 120 miles, but what I'd done was not take into consideration the amount of distance the hairpin turns take up, so on my tracks I just have a straight line going through the hairpins instead of following them! Anyway I was getting tired by 5.00pm and we'd not touched any tarmac for 6 hours, so we decided to try and hit the campsite by 6.00pm before it got dark. First campsite we hit at Camping Pena Sola near Aguero, which is near dark by the time we get there and the route is basically down a goat track for 400 meters with a 1000ft fall if you get it wrong! Thank for the Lordy for HID headlights! Anyway get there and it's closed.........hmmm back up goat track and back to another campsite I have earmarked, Camping Amalygal......shut! Try the local Hostel......shut. Anyway on the way into town we did notice a hotel, so as we were so knackered, we blagged a room at this 4 star spa hotel! Btw todays final mileage was 195 Miles, which 80% was off road.

Bikes on the room balcony

Mr Stringfellow looking a tad tired!

Pic from the room in the morning, sorry about the crap view!

So, back on the trails and we are now in the Navarra region. Today we are up in the mountains and heading towards the Pyrenees

We are doing well for time today and start heading back down the mountains, but then the next part of the trail, we have to cross the same river 9 times over a 10 mile trail. The first one is easier enough, then the 2nd one is deeper with some biggish boulders underfoot, then we come across trails stating that the trail has been washed out by a storm and impassable, so we carry on and give it ago anyway, this is where I have my first fall of the trip

Can't believe that it doesn't even look deep here! It was about 2ft deep in most places and just loose big boulders underneath!

The river crossings are now getting harder and harder and we've only gotten about 2 miles, we then come across this boulder field which goes on for about 300 meters, so we have a conflab and decide to go back the way we came, as we'd already been there for the past 2 hours trying to get through.

Anyway I fall again in the same bloody place, but this time am pinned by the bike on my ankle under water. I was in absolute agony and had to wait for Michael to try and park his bike and try to lift the bike partially to release my ankle. So that took a lot out of us that day and by now time was getting on, so we headed to site as it was also getting cold, due to the height in the mountains. After last nights debacle we found an open campsite about 10 miles before our planned(Which was shut as well we found out!) at Anso. This is where we met our mate, Peter the pot-smoking ponytailed owner who was great! 

So after some tea and beers, we headed back to the tents and thought it was a tad cold, so at -3c it was!

Me and Michael always spend money on good kit, so keeping warm was not a problem

I think even this praying mantis froze it's bits off as it was deed.

Anyway 2 hours later and it was warm again

Today we had an easy day and noticed that route was becoming more road work, even though they were all mountain small twisty hairpins, so we rolled into camp at about 2.30pm and set up early.

By 4.00pm when the sun was setting, we knew that we in for another cold night, but a mere -4c!

Today we started heading back towards Santander, so we decided to try and camp on the coast and break up the 150 mile trek back to Santander. We were riding on the Pyrenees, one minute in France, then the next Spain. The trails were similar to riding in Wales a bit, but in the forested parts the leaves were 2 feet in places, but they were covering loads of wet mud, so a couple of times I nearly went over on the bloody edge!

After this was taken, I can honestly say that I've never ridden such a steep turning hill, it just went down hill at a very steep incline forever, plus it was on wet compact clay, so bloody slippery on the hairpins trying to brake. I lost all my rear brake half way down as well.

We then rode the next 2 hours via 500+ hairpin twisties, which was really fun and fast at times towards Mitriku.

We stayed at campsite Santa Elena, which was a bit of a craphole and the most expensive of the journey so far!

Nice bit of fresh calamari for tea

The next and last day was our 90 mile ride to the ferry. We did A roads to Bilbao, but then we got hit by the rain and rode the last 45 mins via Motorway to Santander. Time we got there, it was lagging down, so we also decided to check into the ferry early, but found that there was bugger all cover! Anyway the ferry back to blighty in a gale force 8 kept most folk in their cabins for 24 hours!

This was a bloody good trip and I can't believe that I haven't been to northern Spain sooner, as the place is beautiful, people friendly and a cheap place to go! I'll be back............Adios