We've just got back from my Dordogne / Pyrenees / Picos road tour through Western France and into Spain.

Poor weather dogged much of the trip, but we had a great little group of people whose true grit spirit pulled us through.  We crossed from Portsmouth to Le Havre on an overnight ferry, using luxury reclining beds, which weren't half as horrid as I was expecting.   We had a lot of laughs.  We normally use cabins - but they'd all gone.

A French, work-to-rule disembarcation at 08.00am saw grey skies and rain, which continued virtually all the 400 miles down to the Perigord region.  Luckily, our usual charming riverside hotel in Beynac supplied us with hot showers, Confit de Canard and lashings of Chateau de Domme.  Madame Maleville was very happy to see us there again.  She moaned about the recent 40 degree high temperatures, and seemed almost pleased that we'd brought the cooler weather down with us.

With rain yet again the next day, we actually walked, rather than rode, the 10km or so for lunch in the medieval hill top town of Domme.  I say lunch, but it was more like "afternoon tea" for Terry & I who took one of my famous "short-cuts" but failed to find the required GR64 and chased wild geese up the wrong valley for quite some distance.  Oh how we laughed :)   It was even funny at the time.

The following mainly sunny day, we completed our 22km descent of the river Dordogne without major incident.  Apart from Clive & Terry falling in the river at one point.

The ride down to the Pyrennees, over the Col de L'Aubisque and down to our spa town near the Spanish border was pleasant and a very manageable distance.

After a night of strange goings on, we crossed into Spain, rode mile after mile through Spaghetti Western barren lands, got drenched again in Logrono, and finished the day riding on petrol fumes through the never ending, twisty back road approach into the Picos mountains.  This is a hard day - we may split it into two days in future, or "cheat" and use the motorway along the coast instead.  "It's only 270 miles" said Bill, "but it feels over 400".  

Once again we were made most welcome at our adventure centre within view of the Torre Cerredo - the highest mountain in the Picos region.  This is just about the friendliest, most laid back, most perfect little place I have found anywhere.  It's mainly used by Exodus who run adventure trips; walking, cycling, canyoning etc, although they're more than happy to welcome hairy scary bikers like us.   Hmmm.....  the only scary thing about us was the amount of beer and brandy we drank in their bar :)

With just 2 full days left, one for riding one for walking, our host Jim rightly suggested we ride my famous Picos "circuit" straight away, as rain was due to sweep in again the day after. 

What a stunning day!   (I'll post photos later somewhere)

The sun shone for the entire 160 mile route, and as usual, we had lunch at the head of the magnificent Cares Gorge.  I'll never again forget what "Heuvos" means.

On the ride back, at an often-missed location,  a little of the beaten track, we saw a white bear, a fire salamander and an angry hissing adder - all in the same place!  The Adder wasn't all that angry until we picked it up to get a better photo in the sunlight. Then it displayed it's venomous temper to the full.   The Fire Slamander looke dlik ea toy at first - like shiny black & yellow plastic - but it was real.

Back to Jim & Pilar's place for more great local food and copious quantities of free Rioja.

Due to Bill's sheer incompetence and a mix up of return ferry dates, I'd booked the wrong three nights in Las Arenas.  Our normal hotel was fully booked on our third night, so we had to move to a "posher" one in the village for our last night.  The mainstream hotels seemed almost empty.  What does that tell you?

Rain rain rain again.  Plans to walk the Cares Gorge melted as we setted down in a Tapas bar, and watched the afternoon slip by over Croquetas con Jamon, several glasses of local Sidra and a some more of that lovely Rioja.

We noted how things were so reasonably priced in Spain (compared to France and the UK) and petrol was just 1.16 Euros per litre.   About 92p at current cripplingly poor exchange rates. 

This is when my problem started.   Geordiegasman had ridden my bike for a while on the run across Northern Spain.  He said my trusty Fazer 1000 made a strange noise when the rear brake was applied.  It's not something I'd noticed until now.  These things creep up gradually, and it often takes someone else to spot them.

Just the day before we were due to sail back from Spain, a strange, intermittent grating, graunching,  clicking noise could be heard from the rear of my bike.  It was a bit like when your chain & sprockets are worn out - but these items had been replaced at the last service.  Close inspection revealed a little lateral play in the rear wheel.

I coached my bike carefully, in the rain again, at 60mph maximum along the coastal motorway in the direction of Bilbao.  It's not true that the rain falls mainly on the plain.  It fell everyhwere while we were there.  Spanish TV showed streets awash, and some houses washed away.  Mind you, the UK also got flooded this week, and Florida and Texas are getting their fair share also.

Regular stops & checks confirmed that is was definately the rear wheel bearing, disc side, that was beginning to fail.  Nothing too serious - yet - but it was gradually getting worse.  I limped along in the inside lane, even holding up the lorries.  Slowest thing on the road - imagine that!  As long as it gets me back to the boat I hoped......

A short section of trunk road broke up the 120 miles of motorway to Bilbao.  I was initially happy to be stuck in a bunch of slow lorries in this mainly single carriageway section.  Until I realised that if the rear wheel bearings suddenly suffered catastrophic failure, I may be flung off the bike, and straight under the wheels of the 40-tonner on my tail. 

I carefully picked off the lorries one by one, (without any undue speed, acceleration or braking), including the painfuly slow cement mixer at the very front of the truck jam.  It was at this very point that the Spanish Police kindly flagged me down, and sold me a nice certificate to prove that my measly 75 kmh (about 45mph) was still too quick for this busy trunk road.  My tour guests were most amused.  My view is, I saved the rest of them!  Most vehicles were all doing the same speed, even the lorries - I was just the first one through, and got the pull.  First one for 24 years :(

By check-in at Bilbao docks, the play in the back wheel could no longer be ignored.  At least the bike would make England though.

After a crossing taking 3 hours longer than scheduled, due to a Bay of Biscay swell reaching 6 metres on occasions, we arrived back in Portsmouth just after 8.00pm, after a rough & bumpy voyage of some 33 hours.

The cooled-off bearings now seemed viable again, and Geordiegasman offered to escort me at 50mph for the long ride up North.  50mph dropped to 40mph as the bearings got steadily worse.  Cars sped past in the darkness some 40-50mph faster than us on the high-speed A34.  By Newbury I'd decided it just wasn't safe to carry on.   

If it had been just 20 or 30  miles left on an empty road, in daylight, I'd have carried on.  But, I still had almost 150 miles to do, and at any minute the bearing could totally seize up or break down entirely, causing the wheel to jam solid in the swinging arm.  I have two good friends currently recovering from very serious motorcycle injuries, and I've a wife and young kids to think of.

Discretion being the better part of valour, I called out Green Flag.  I hate being beaten, but I had full recovery insurance (of course!) and I'm entitled to be rescued.

As with all the recovery companies, the actual get-you-home process doesn't go quite as slickly as the adverts suggest - but they're all the same in this respect IMHO and experience.  A call for help at about 10.00pm resulted in my "knight in shing armour", friendly bike owner John, arriving pretty swifty to assess the problem.  He agreed it wasn't safe to continue, and authroised a full recovery to my house.  He said he'd heard of Bike Tours UK and looked forward to seeing his photo on my website - here you go John :)   (click to enlarge photo)

Green Flag did me proud. Some poor guy on his "day off" took me as far as Cherwell Valley services, and though a "linked recovery" system, the next guy, ready and waiting with his dedicated motorcycle trailer, took me back up to Nottingham. 

I didn't take a door key to Spain with me, and Mrs Bike Tours wasn't that keen to be awoken at 03.45am to let me in.

Bill