CLASSICS HOLIDAY!
Ride old bikes abroad!
It has to be said that riding a classic motorcycle in the depths of the British winter is some pretty low-rent motorcycling. Besides the risk of salted roads tarnishing and de-valuing your pride and joy, navigating wet and slippery road surfaces in freezing cold temperatures hardly comes high on the list of classic motorcycle riding experiences. But it need not be this way! Just a short budget airline flight away is a sunny land of 18-23°C temperatures with dry, perfectly surfaced, gloriously bendy roads threading their way through fantastic mountain scenery. And right on the doorstep, a fleet of beautifully prepared classic BMWS, available for hire at daily rates little more than the cost of a winter coating of ACF-50. Welcome to Motorcycle Touring Spain. Motorcycle Touring Spain is based in the village of Veluz De Benaudela in Andalusia, southern Spain, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The company is run by ‘Fifer’ Ron Thomson, who moved there from Scotland around 10 years ago, and started renting bikes in 2015. The bikes include classic R100 and R80 air-heads from the 80s and 90s, K75s and some more modern F650, F800 and R1200 GS machinery. Accommodation is also
available in comfortable well kitted-out apartments in the same building as the motorcycle garage, complete with free Wifi, barbecue terraces and an outdoor hot tub: perfect for soothing away any aches and pains after a long day’s riding. Andalusia enjoys over 300 days of sunshine per year and is the second largest and most populated province of Spain. The Province is steeped in past history from the Moors from AD 711 until their expulsion in 1492, which has influenced the landscape and culture up to the present day. There are high mountains, lakes, castles, deserts, beautiful coastline and beaches, and most importantly for classic motorcyclists miles and miles of well surfaced bendy roads with very little traffic. Arriving at Motorcycle Touring Spain on yet another sunny January day with temperatures forecast to again reach 23°C, we were welcomed by Ron who had pulled our ride for the day, a 1992 BMW R100, out of the garage ready for the off. We’d brought our own kit this time, but you don’t have to, because there’s a wide choice of helmets, gloves, boots and textile suits available for loan and all included within the very reasonable price of E70/day for bike hire. Ron also includes marked up maps with suggested riding routes, so once the paperwork is done it’s just a case of filling up and going off to enjoy your day. We decided on a 125-mile route suggested by Ron up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Trevelez, the highest village in Spain at 1476m. Not far out of Veluz you pass through some awesome scenery, and soon see the spectacular viaduct carrying the A7 Mediterranean Highway alongside the dam across the Embalsa de Rules. Our route then followed the glorious A348 out towards Orgiva and on to Cadiar before the road became narrower for the last 20km up to Trevelez. The road surface was always smooth, perfectly dry and made interesting by a huge variety of corner types, ideal for effortless 50-60mph cruising on our classic R100 airhead. On a faster modern bike it’s easy to see how things could become a little scary, because some of the corners have a habit of going on for longer than you think, but on a classic bike everything always remained relaxed and in control. Spain has no shortage of excellent coffee houses and in every small town on the route it’s possible to buy two coffees for ‘dos euro quarante’ (two euros forty). Little English is spoken in the picturesque Moorish villages of southern Andalucia, but if you can remember ‘Dos caffe leche por favor’, ‘Gracias’ and ‘La Kuehenta por favor’, you won’t go far wrong. We stopped at a traditional Spanish coffee bar in Orgiva before continuing on for lunch at Trevelez. Trevelez is at the head of a horseshoe in the road and a very pleasant place to stop for lunch. After settling ourselves into a sleepy pavement café, and finding a table with the angle of the sun just right to satisfy my pillion passenger, we were surprised to hear the rumbling of a forklift carrying a crate with cured hams sticking out of the top coming out of the building next door. Another followed, then within minutes another. Trevelez, on account of its dry climate and altitude, evidently has ideal conditions for the storage of air cured hams, which appears to be an industry on quite some scale in this otherwise sleepy village. After lunch we made a trip into the factory shop, with vast numbers of hams hanging curing from the roof. Continuing our ride we followed the A4132 back to Orgiva, passing through typical Andalucian hill villages such as Busquistar and Pampaneira, along a really enjoyable twisty grin-inducing road. In a few places, when the entry speed into corners became a bit too quick, the centre-stand grounded and ‘the lady on the back’ asked what the problem was. Oh nothing to worry about came the reply, just a bit of
roughness on the road surface. Probably lucky that the R100 had such a comfortable seat, evidently the most comfortable motorcycle seat ever sat on and that includes a Harley-davidson Electra Glide effectively fitted with an ‘armchair’, so high praise indeed. Beyond Orgiva our route rejoined a different section of the A348, which beyond the village of Lanjaron, looks like spaghetti on the map, before the final run back down to Velez. This first day of Spanish classic motorcycling was so enjoyable that we decided to book a second day later in the week, as there were so many interesting looking roads on the map not yet explored. We could have opted for a change of bike, perhaps taking a K75 ‘Brick’ but the ease of riding and handling on the R100, plus the comfort of that pillion seat, meant we opted again for the same bike. Our second route took us through the Sierra de Tejeda mountains lying to the east of Malaga via a truly memorable lakeside lunch stop at the Boutique Hotel La Vinuela. Sipping drinks in the garden, eating fine food, and enjoying stunning lake and mountain scenery in 23° heat , with a classic BMW ‘ticking’ outside as it cooled down from exploiting the morning’s swervery, classic motorcycling in January just doesn’t get any better. At lunch we took only the main course, but back onto the R100 after leaving Vinuela, what a treat was about to be served up for dessert! Following the MA4106, MA4105 and MA 5103/4110 through the mountains (check a map) on a good classic bike these roads are among the best anywhere and by the time we reached the village of Arenas, the constant curving of the road had become intoxicating and the sobering sight of the relatively straight A7 Mediterranean Highway a welcome sight. The R100 had again performed faultlessly, as we reflected on another brilliant day’s riding during the final half hour thrumming back to Veluz. In two days we had only scratched the surface of the truly enormous riding potential which exists down in southern Spain. In the summer it’s hot, with temperatures in the high 30s and low 40s, but in January at 18-23° it’s just perfect. Motorcycle Touring Spain also offers some guided road and off-road trail riding trips. These include some local off-road tours from Veluz, but also off-road tours further afield in Portugal and even Morocco. As far as classic motorcycle riding goes, Motorcycle Touring Spain is the perfect winter tonic, but still a lot of fun at any time of the year.