We awoke to nice weather – thank god. It was definitely a lot cooler being that Andorra is sandwiched the valley of the Eastern Pyrenees which has peaks as high as 2900 meters. At breakfast Stan and I reviewed the proposed ride that I had mapped out for us the night before. Basically we were still following ‘Spanish Bob’s’ recommendation and if was anything like the ride we had on day 1 we were eager to get back on it and we took full opportunity to fuel up at breaky.

Todays ride would take us along the foothills of the Pyrenees to a place called Sallent de Gallego. In all honesty when reviewing the route that I received from Bob I didn’t think it would keep us occupied for 2 full days of riding but with all the sweeping turns and tight hairpins getting any miles behind us takes a lot longer than expected. It is well worth it though as it sure beats the alternative.

After gearing up we grabbed some petrol (it’s very Euro to call it petrol) and upon exiting we caught the tail end of a bike rally that consisted of riders from 3 different locales; France, Spain and Andorra. There must have been a thousand riders in total. We caught the tail end and even that lasted 10 minutes. It was a pretty cool site to see. They had volunteers from the various clubs blocking traffic to allow the bulk of the riders to flow through in unison and out of Andorra where they all got waved through customs.

Luckily, as we exited Andorra our route would be taking us East while most of the riders were heading either South to Spain or North East up the coast and into France. We watched our speed for the first hour or so as the amount of police on the road was sure noticeable.

The scenery continued to roll past us. We stopped only for the occasional picture taking and we continued to be blown away by the roads. They were unbelievable. This short video should give you a good idea of the type of sweeping roads that are to had in this region of Northern Spain.

An example of the curves and tunnels.

‘Hey Stan, how big around is it?’

On one scenic photo stop we witnessed some ruins below and decided that it would be cool to get a closer look. Finding the turn off we faced some loose dirt and gravel and wound our way down from the hill and to the foot of a suspension bridge. We both stopped to take a look and then Stan made the executive decision that since my bike was lighter that I should go over first. It was pretty funny really but having got off the bike to walk the bridge to verify its’ condition there was no issue in going over it. Nonetheless it was our first suspension bridge crossing which is always cool.

The detour

Once Stan and his heavy weight adventurer made it over we were faced with pretty steep loose dirt hill. There was no way around it either. If we wanted to get to the ruins that we saw we had to get up this hill. We sat on our bikes for a while and just stared at it and then, being that I was in front of Stan, I said I would do it first. I felt pretty good about the line I had chosen and was all set to give this a go and then Stan piped up. I think he was feeling a little guilty of sending me over the perfectly safe bridge first. He mentions that he doesn’t feel right sending me up first being that I am such a newbie and that he should go first. I asked him he was sure and then gave him the space he needed to make a run for it. Of course such an endeavor should never go undocumented so I had the camera on video mode.

Once I get the video I will post it but suffice to say that a 1200GS is a pig on a loose dirt trail with street tires on. Stan made it about half way and the loss of traction forced him to realize that it wasn’t going to happen so he put the brakes on hard and started to yell at me for some assistance to inch the bike back down the hill. It took a little bit of time to quite laughing and put the camera away but we both managed a good chuckle as we carefully and slowly reversed him back to flat ground. The ruins would have to wait for another hardcore set of adventurers!

Our first bridge crossing and the subsequent track that stopped us.

Riding closer to Sallent we ate up a lot of vertical as we witnessed some beautiful small towns off in the distance. Having spent about 5 hours on the bikes we rode into Sallent with the not so easy task of finding a place to stay. It is definitely a bonus riding the roads in early September as the summer crowds are gone however finding lodging and a place to eat in some of these small towns was proving to be difficult. Stan, being in charge of finding accommodations hoped off his bike and knocked on a few doors before finding a quaint little Inn that was open. The feeling of Sallent was that of any small ski town that has just wrapped up its’ summer rush and is now in this holding pattern as it wait for the cold fronts and the first dumping of the white stuff. From what we heard that wasn’t too far off either.

Small town of Sallent de Gallego, Aragon, Spain. 1200 peeps.