Having recently been turned onto bikes I was very stoked to get on the road and see a side of Spain that only a motorbike could show. Our little ‘Tour De Tapas’ took us from Barcelona, up into Andorra, along the Pyrenees and into France, to the incredible shores of San Sebastian, Bilbao, Pamplona and back home to BCN. At the end of 6-days we would cover just over 2000km’s and experience an unbelievable urge for something more. I guess it is a fitting name as tapas are exactly that: ‘to Tapa’ means ‘to cover’ and it’s meant as a small snack to cover you until dinner.

Time will tell what other adventures are in store, so in the meantime I hope you can savor a little taste of our experience.

—– Prologue ——

Planning for this bike trip was a long time in the making. In fact, I mentioned it to Stan months before leaving for Spain. I recall going out for sushi with him in Van and surprising him with my yellow class 6 learners license. I think Stan must have thought ‘well it’s about time you got into bikes!!‘ I mentioned that a short bike trip somewhere around Spain was in order sometime in the late summer. Not needing any convincing for adventure he left it in my hands to figure out the logistics of bike rental, route and dates.

With maps strewn out all over our floor I had high hopes of us covering most of Southern Spain. Damn this country is big!

Spain is rumored to have some of the best riding in all of Europe and in order to find these incredible roads all one has to do is open up a Michelin regional map of Spain and look for a yellow line (indicating less congested road) coupled with a green line (indicating scenic route). The key is to find these two colours making snake like turns for as long as possible indicating deep valley gorges and stunning sweeping mountain passes. Actually the key really lied in getting a route handed to us from a guy I corresponded with from a Motorcycle Adventure forum online. Over beers and some pintxos ‘Spanish Bob’ told me of the Holly Grail of riding routes which we followed to a T for the first 2 days out of Barcelona and to the foothills of the Pyrenees.

——- Let’s Roll ——–

Via a side trip to Turkey Stan arrived in Barcelona however his bags which contained helmet and riding gear did not. Scheduled to leave the next day we had to push our departure back by one day as we waited for his bags to arrive. We did manage however to pick up the bikes so that when the gear arrived, and it did around 5:00pm, we would be ready to roll out. (Un)fortunately Bob (highschool Bob) was still in town and with our delay it meant the 3 of us would be hitting the tapas bars; as Bob desperately wanted his last fill of great food before heading home to land of the bland (U$ of mighty A). It goes without saying that we went out a little harder and longer than we should have so our first day on the road was in fact now almost a day and half later than we wanted. My wishes of covering the Asturias was fading.

 ’Highschool Bob’, Stan and I on the Passeig del Borne

And we were off. With panniers filled with gear we thought we would need and couple of ‘club’ outfits for Stan we hit the Spanish tarmac and sped off, out of Barcelona as fast as my little 650cc and my white knuckles would take us. Stan showed great patience as this was my first ride on a bike without an instructor in front or behind me and the speeds on the major motorways were a little daunting for a newbie on a fully loaded bike. I had planned on us avoiding the large motorways but to get out of town as fast as we could and onto the good riding route this was a necessary evil.

An hour into the ride, the traffic thinned and what seemed like a blink of an eye we were winding around mountains and valleys making sweeping turns and overlooking the start of something great. Stan had us setup with 2-way communication devices so we were fully wired and able to talk to each other the whole time with a simple click of a button. This proved to be invaluable as I was able to get pointers on my riding, and we both able to point out things that we figured the other would want to know about (like a cow on the road ahead, a heard sheep around the corner, or an unusual gear down to 1st tight hairpin turn)…you know standard things like that.

Heading North we were heading straight for the French border to set ourselves up nicely for a ride along the Pyrenees for day2. Getting close to the end of the day but with still plenty of light left we noticed that we were only 20km from Andorra and decided to make our first nights rest in this tiny (181 sq miles) country.

The people of Andorra are currently listed as having the highest human life expectancies on Earth, at an average of 83.52 years

Overlooking Andorra.

Stans’ R1200GS and my F650GS (foreground)

With my required call into Shanti to tell her I was alright we found a cheap hotel, checked out the local eateries and called it an early night.