The first ride

After a really good nights sleep on my first wild camp of the trip I packed up camp and prepared for the first real ride on the little CRF. The ride here last night was in the dark and of course I was getting used to riding on the right plus it was only around 25 miles or so.

Last night I discovered that some friends were staying at a hotel in roughly the right direction (South!) so I dialled in the postcode and headed in their direction.

The route took me into the foothills of the Picos or Parc de Europa, an area I have traveled in before which has some superb riding so I was off to a good start.

I have to admit that it took some time to get used to the power, or lack of it!, but once I got used to the bike I was trundling along nicely. Some of the hills in the mountains had me changing down a gear or two but it was fine and as the ride unfolded I was getting more and more out of the bike.

When I travel I like to roughly stick to the local speed limits and this bike does that really well, ok so I had to pass on the morning power wheelie but apart from that all went pretty well.

Some fantastic riding throughout the day from fabulous twisties to long open roads and I managed to avoid toll roads and motorways all day. I say avoided but in reality I found myself riding in close proximity for long periods of the day.

Todays ride was around 260 miles and took around 6.5 hours, maybe a little more, rough calculations for this mixed riding returned about 80 mpg which is pretty much what I expected, tank range is a little less than I thought though. I feel that 160 miles is a comfortable refuelling point and I could possibly stretch it to 170 miles at a push. I’m not really worried about running out of fuel as I have spare fuel in the Rotopax, it takes the pressure off which is nice.

Some Spanish chap overtook me on a corner whilst filming me on his phone which was a bit weird and Guarda did a couple of loops around me probably expecting me to speed up when they had gone, if only they knew!!

i decided to check into the Hotel Puerta Cuidad Rodrigo to spend the evening with Mark, Mark and Martin. We decided to eat alfresco so went shopping in the local supermarket. An excellent meal in the town square washed down with far too much red wine and we stumbled off to bed.

A very sound nights sleep and local breakfast and I’m ready to continue my ride south, it’s cool in the mornings at this time of the year and there were a few spots of rain too but that appears to have passed.

Fond farewells to the boys and I’m getting ready for the off.

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Great to have a few beers with friends!

Great to have a few beers with friends!