Ride Along the Costa Brava (Part I)

July 27^th, 2004

Last week I went for a ride along Spain's Costa Brava (north of Barcelona).

My wife had taken the kids to visit relatives in Spain and I planned on joining them for two weeks. When I asked during a phone call if her brother still had his Honda. The next day she called me back and told me that Carlos (her brother) had said it would be OK if I borrowed his bike for a ride.

Now I had real work to do. What route was I going to take? How was I going to handle those coastal mountain roads? How do you say "cafe con leche" in Spanish? How could I keep Phil from knowing I was going to take time off from my Biker eNews job to go sportbike riding in Spain?

I quickly applied the KISS principle. I just got on a plane and went to Spain. I won't bother you with the details of my family vacation. It should be enough to say that I ate all the calamari I could order, and walked along the paseo until I had blisters on my feet. It was during the second week of my visit, my plan started to take shape. Over sangria and tapas, Carlos offered to let me use his bike for a couple of days and told me about a couple of roads I might want to try.

Despite being anxious to take to the Spanish roads, I knew I had a couple of issues to overcome. First, for those of you who haven't driven in Spain, the road signs on back roads don't usually provide highway numbers. The road signs list the next town or two up the road. This was bad enough, but in this part of Spain the regional language used on road signs is Catalan (sort of a French/Spanish/Latin mix).

Second, my Spanish ability is restricted to traveling through major airports and being able to order what I like in restaurants. My Spanish is not good enough to explain why I'm laying on the side of the road with a motorcycle on top of me and that I'm in need of medical attention. My wife fixed both of these problems. She offered to accompany me with the car just in case I found myself at the bottom of some mountainside.

The next day my wife drove me to Carlos' house to pick up his bike. It is a 1991 CBR900RR. In my stupidity (remember OLD and STUPID), I figured this wasn't going to be a challenge. After all, my Sabre is an 1100 cc bike and I had just finished putting 4,000 miles on it.

Of course, it didn't take me long to figure there were a couple of differences. The first thing I noticed was that the seat height was a couple of inches higher than I was used to, so that put me on my toes. Next, I quickly discovered that I was going to have to get down on the tank if I was going to reach those midget handlebars. I also told myself that if this were my bike I'd have to change out the tank or my stomach (there isn't room for both).

But it wasn't until I started to get underway that I noticed the two biggest differences. I went to shift into first gear and the shifter was missing. Instead of being located just above my floorboard in front of me, somebody had moved the shifter to just in front of a little peg that was located somewhere below my butt.

After mastering the shifter, I eased out on the clutch. It was at this point the strain in my wrist and forearms became noticeable. I felt like I was doing a handstand on a moving motorcycle. Between the "behind the back" shifting, the acrobatics, and the responsiveness of the handlebars I started my ride very, very, very slowly. Fortunately, we had a short ride up to the gas station so I could compose myself.

Palamos

Confident and Proud

I kept my safety gear on while stopped....

Entering La Bisbal

For those who are complaining about gas prices in the good old USA, I put about 15 liters (about four gallons) of gas in the bike and it cost me $16 Euros ($20 US).

The first day we took a short trip so I could get use to the bike. We decided leave Palamos and head for La Bisbal. The town was about 22 kilometers (13.6701662 miles) away, and had two routes that allowed me to travel different roads going and coming. The bike was gassed. I was hyped. The road was ready. We pulled out and headed in-land for La Bisbal.

The road was similar to the secondary roads in the Shenandoah Mountains. It was a narrow two-lane road with enough curves to keep me focused on the road and not on the scenery (which was nice), and slopes steep enough to make me wonder if there was a gear below first. I was awkward at the controls and well below the speed limit on this first ride.

I was amazed at the responsiveness of the bike. As long as I was in the right gear, the response was instantaneous. The bike responded to the slightest movement of the throttle. It wasn't until approaching La Bisbal (and the road opened up) that I realized that I didn't have to lean on the handlebars. On some of the open stretches, I was able to find sixth gear and the wind seemed to lift my chest off the bike and relieve the pressure on my wrists and arms. The top end response is what surprised me most about the bike. It had as much response at 80 kilometers (49.7096954 mph) as it did at 15. My fear factor red lined long before the bike did.

Arriving safety in La Bisbal, I agreed to accompany my wife on some of the finest ceramic shopping in Spain. After admiring the amazing things that craftsmen had created on tiles, we had a quick drink and head back to Palamos.

This time the road we took was a three-lane road that had less curves and a speed limit of 80 kilometers. This was the road I should have taken first. It gave me a chance to run through the gears, and get use to a steady riding position.

The nice thing about this road is that there were virtually no stoplights. The Spanish have decided that traffic circles help to speed traffic and have made ample use of them. While there were reasons to slow down (down shift), yield, and accelerate, there was little need to come to all stop.

It was on this road that I was quickly reminded of my wife's "need for speed". Cruising behind her car, I was trying to maintain a safe distance while staying close enough to discourage other drivers from trying to pass between the bike and my wife's car (I didn't want to get lost on the way home). It didn't take long for me to notice that the "person in front of me" (no names) had managed to find a cruising speed of 120 km (74.5645431 mph). Needless to say the trip back to Palamos was a lot quicker than the earlier mountain ride.

To be continued . . .

Part II

Back to "Muse from the Rest Area"

Back to More from Gary