Spain by Royal Enfield Bullet
(Page 2 of 3)
May/June 2007
By Peter Henshaw
Over the Mountain
For the next day, we’ve got something a bit more challenging lined up — an unpaved road up the side of a mountain. So we’ll be hiring trail bikes, right? “Nah,” Phil says, “we’ll take the Enfields.” We head up a single-track road, gaining height up the side of the steep-sided valley. The road quickly deteriorates to broken blacktop, then hard packed gravel, with grooved concrete on the steepest hairpins. There are lots of tracks in this part of Spain, legal to ride on, and I’m told this is one of the better ones.
Up, up, around the shoulder of a mountain to a high pass, then we’re looking down over the gorge of the Rio Canes far below, and the legendary AS114 that snakes through it. Why legendary? Well, Phil says, just about every group he’s led through it has asked if they can turn around and do it all over again.
Going down the other side the road deteriorates again, with a lot more loose stuff and more corkscrew hairpins with awkward cambers. The Enfields can handle it though, using engine braking in first gear, but I wouldn’t like to try this on a bigger, more top-heavy bike, and certainly not two-up. “I only take the more confident riders up and down here,” Phil says, “and only on the Enfields, not big bikes. I had one guy arrive on a Suzuki V-Strom 1000 which he’d borrowed — he obviously wasn’t enjoying it. So I lent him a Bullet for an afternoon and he was dead chuffed. He really liked it.”
Even when we’re halfway down, the view is still breathtaking. We can see the back of the mountains that surround the town of Llanes, Bike Astur’s base on the coast. We’re still on the edge of the Picos here, and in the distance you can see a group of their distinctive, ragged-looking peaks with what look like sheer cliff faces. Exploring caves, as well as climbing, is popular around here, as the soft limestone has eroded into a maze of caves and tunnels.
Finally, we get down to river level and follow the legendary 114, canyon carving at 50-55mph. That may not sound like much when some of us ride newer motorcycles that will do 150mph, but in the right conditions these speeds can be great fun. As we’re heeling through these sublime bends, I remember the words of a fellow bike journalist who dismissed the Enfield Bullet as a pointless bike. But he didn’t understand that there’s more to life than race bike speeds or getting your knee down, or that, on the right bike, 50mph can be fun. Maybe these Enfields are like Harleys, and if folks don’t understand, there’s not much point in trying to explain.
On my last day we stay down on the coast, and Phil takes me up to a viewpoint. From here, looking east along this northernmost edge of Spain, you can see the attraction of the place. There’s spray over the shoreline, haze over the mountains and a patchwork of little green fields in between. Distant waves breaking on the shore are the soundtrack. There’s no doubt about it, Asturias is a beautiful part of Europe, and an Enfield is the perfect bike to tour it on. Not only that, but the Bullet I’ve been riding has managed 87mpg — arrive by ferry rather than plane, and this really is motorcycle eco-tourism, Green Spain in more ways than one.
How to be a tour guide
Phil Butler never meant to run a motorcycle tour company. He was an electrician and gas fitter for 25 years, though he’s always been into bikes. And don’t be fooled by the 50mph Enfields, he’s also got a Ducati Supersport in the garage. He’s been riding since he was 16, on a whole succession of British, European and Japanese bikes.
A few years ago his job dried up, and at about the same time his partner, Jackie, bought a language school in the coastal town of Llanes. It was one of those crossroads in life. “I knew there was potential for a tour business down here, as no one else was doing it. I did some fact finding, worked out the good routes and places to see, and it all fell into place.” Bike Astur is now heading for its fourth season, and looks like it should be around for many more.
How to go
Bike Astur runs tours between April and October, but leaves out August as the Spanish themselves are on holiday then, and the roads and hotels are all pretty busy. A typical seven day tour has both short (80-110 mile) and long (140-200 mile) days, and accommodation is at a modern three-star hotel in Llanes. Fly-ride prices with shared accommodation start around $1,200 for a six-day tour including hire of the Enfield, but not the flight. Bring your own bike and prices (for seven days) start at around $1,150, which includes the Santander ferry ticket from the UK, though you can always hire an Enfield once you’re there. More info: www.bike-astur.com
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