Pyrenees Twisties

I’ll confess morning came too early for us. We were still quite tired from last night’s conversation, but we ate a typical hearty European breakfast of cheese, prosciutto, soft boiled eggs, baguettes and espresso. As we were eating on the outdoor terrace, we had a visitor to the table: the hotel cat, who is appropriately named Can Boix. He was a little cagy at first, but he could tell pretty quickly I was a cat person. I fully expect another visit tomorrow morning at the rate he was enjoying the little nibbles of cheese I slipped to him.

We set out on a 125-mile loop through Col de Nargo, Isona, Col de Balloxis, Tremp, La Seu de Urgello, Adrall and back again to Peramola. These roads were narrow, one-lane and filled from one end to the other with S-curves that took us back and forth in a rhythmic motion. We found ourselves leaning from side to side all day on the bike, some times nearly scraping the ground in the tightest curves. Riding on roads like these, you have to stay focused on what you’re doing at all times and think every time you enter a turn. Especially on the right-hand curves, you have no hope of knowing if anything is coming from the opposite direction, so it is particularly important to start the turns wide so you can apex very late into the turn. This keeps the bike as far in as possible in the blindest part of the curve. Quite challenging for the rider, and even though I have wondered if I would rather have been riding my own bike, I am certain it would have been very difficult for me to pull this many turns off without making a major mistake. Which in the mountains, is not something you want to do.

Lunch finds us at the top of a mountain pass, where we enjoy baguettes, cheese and prosciutto, which we picked up at a roadside gas station with a small market. The views here are beautiful, and for the first time, I see a similarity between the Pyrenees and the Alps. Both have dramatic peaks and valleys, both have lush green hillsides, both have tiny villages hanging off the mountainside, both have a chill in the air, both were clearly drawn by God’s hand.

I am also enjoying photographing several of our fellow riders and watching how they handle their bikes. Not surprisingly, many times during our breaks the conversation turns to motorcycles. We learn what everyone else rides at home, and what they enjoy about the bikes they are riding here. It’s great fun connecting with people when you speak the same language. What you do or where you live matters so little when you discover a common love of motorcycles.

We complete the day’s route by riding through several other shorter mountain passes, through tunnels carved into the mountains themselves, and then following a gorge with a river running through it back to Peramola. This is the El Segre River. Along its banks are churches, farms, small towns and tiny roads winding up toward the base of the mountains. This is clearly the Catalonian Pyrenees, which has hosted countless visitors before us and no doubt countless to come. Places like this are why vacations were invented.