Fair Weather Bikers

I woke up at around 7am and I could feel the sun just starting to warm the air, I unzipped my tent and saw beautiful blue skies. Daz was still fast asleep so I had a shower and made a nice cup of tea. Daz woke up some time later and we had our breakfast from a tin with another cuppa. It was fab.

We knew we only had 114 miles to do so there was no hurry in setting off. We leisurely finished our breakfast and packed the bikes. It was 11am when we set off from the camp-site.

Our route for the day took us north into France and then east across the French side of the Pyrenees. The road north out of Spain in a lovely road me and Nig did last year, it gently climbs over the Pyrenees with nice sweeping bends in between the many hairpins. After every hairpin the view gets more and more amazing.

Just as last year, as soon as we reached the summit and crossed into France the weather took a turn for the worse. Dense cloud reduced visibility to next to nothing. Luckily the cloud cover wasn't too thick and we were soon below it as we dropped down the other side. The condition of the road was another problem - a lot worse than last year. It had very large pot holes, many very large cracks, lots of rubble and was covered in cow poo, which with the damp conditions made it treacherous. It was a hard ride to the bottom of the pass so we pulled into a cafe at the bottom and had a very very strong cup of coffee.

We then continued on our way initially heading north on the D26 which was quite a nice road, then we joined the D918 to head east, taking in several of the Cols that are part of the Tour de France on the way. Unfortunately the French road authorities had decided to resurface a lot of these roads by throwing a load of loose gravel down. This made them absolute death traps and took our average speed to well below 30mph. Then there were sections which were quite good so we'd up the pace a little only to discover that they had thrown gravel on the most severe bends - you know the ones with no barriers and 100 foot drop off's. There was more than one heart in mouth moment for me!

Unfortunately this was the pattern for the rest of the day, and is the main thing I remember. It was some of the hardest riding I have ever done, it was 100% concentration all the way, you simply could not let your guard down at any moment. There were some excellent sections, but these were few and far between. The scenery was also truly awe inspiring, but as we got more and more tired we simply didn't care. It was such a shame as without the resurfacing these roads would have been fantastic.

We were very lucky with the weather though. The cloud cover remained for a while, but it was warm and the clouds were laying just above our highest summit so we always had very good visibility and spectacular views. As the day progressed the sun came out and it turned out to be a glorious sunny day. Only two weeks later when the Tour De France passed over the same roads the weather was dreadful.

There were a couple of incidents which do stand out.

The first was we rounded a corner only to be confronted by around 30 cows walking down the road with an old guy shepherding them along. We stopped waiting for him to clear the road, but he simply waved us through, so we had to weave our way through some very worried looking cows - they weren't the only ones who were worried!

The second incident was on our way down one of the passes, we saw a guy walking his donkey. Only he was in his car and the donkey was tied to the back. The funny thing was the donkey wasn't keen on this idea at all and honestly looked to be making it very hard work for the car!

After a particularly hard pass I pulled over for a rest. We'd done just over 90 miles and had been riding for around 4 hours. I'd had enough and suggested to Daz that instead of going to our planned destination we should maybe just pull into the next camp-site we pass. Daz pointed out that we only had 20 miles to go so maybe we should stick it out, after all I had planned our destination for a reason. I reluctantly agreed and got back on my bike.

Amazingly the roads changed from that point on. They were well surfaced, fast, flowing roads. Just what we needed to get the blood pumping and us enjoying our riding again.

Our destination for that day was Gavarnie, which is a small village at the end of a large, long gorge. It is quite a popular tourist attraction so, as we got nearer, the traffic started to get heavier and when we pulled into the village we discovered most of the roads were blocked off to be pedestrian only with all the traffic directed into various car parks.

I couldn't find our camp-site or any signs relating to any camp-sites so we pulled over and I asked one of the women directing the traffic. They didn't speak any English and my French is rudimentary to say the least, but I had printed out a page of useful phrases before we set off. This along with the name of the camp-site soon had us directed the right way.

We basically had to ignore all the signs saying no entry and ride along all the pedestrianised roads. This did cause some strange looks from the folk walking about as they had to get out of the way of two motorcycles bearing down on them, and we didn't care as we were both knackered by this time and just wanted to find the camp-site. I quite enjoyed it to be honest!

The camp-site was basic but nice, with a bar and clean toilets and showers. The showers did cost 2 Euros each mind which I thought was a bit steep! The site was on a large hill but they had levelled it out to make a series of large steps so you could pitch on level ground. This did mean we couldn't take the bikes on the site so we had to park at the bottom and carry all our gear from our bikes to our pitch. Fortunately we weren't too far away so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

The location of the site was breathtaking.

It is without doubt the most incredible camp-site I have ever stopped at. On all sides you are confronted by mountains towering above you but to the south is a large circle of mountains called the Cirque de Gavarnie with a large waterfall cascading down 1384 feet at an average of 50 feet wide (I looked it up!). This becomes a brilliant blue river which surged it's way past our camp-site. I pitched my tent facing the Cirque de Gavarnie so it would be the first thing I saw on the morning. I was so pleased Daz had persuaded me to carry on!

We then went for a walk around the very touristy Gavarnie and to get an ice cream to cool down as it was still very warm. There were loads of shops selling tacky gifts and the like, but also lots of shops selling local produce. We bought a baguette, some jam and a round of local cheese for breakfast, our theory being the cheese and jam would last us a week or so and we'd only have to buy bread for breakfast.

We returned to the camp-site for a 2 Euro shower and got talking to two retired English couples who were on the back end of a four week tour of the Pyrenees in camper vans. They had not had the best weather but seemed to be very much enjoying themselves – they were very nice people.

Then we went for some food in one of the restaurants in Gavarnie which was very nice. As soon as the sun went down the temperature dropped and mist started rolling in and in no time at all we could barley see the river at the bottom of the camp-site

We had a couple of beers at the on-site bar, but this closed at 10pm so we decided to have an early night. As Gavarnie is at 1365 meters above sea-level I was expecting a chilly night so I wrapped up and was nice and cosy once in my sleeping bag and fell asleep straight away.