Our next main day of riding was on faster roads to the east side of Madrid and still keeping off the motorways, we found fast roads with many bends. These were good long fast bends where sticking to the speed limit is very difficult. We rode along the side on one hill, where the road was cut into its slope, overlooking a valley. This was the sort of road with almost no vehicles, where you could see no cars were coming in the other direction and the bends are just sooooo inviting that flipping the bike right and left for bend after bend, where riding the wrong side of the road is perfectly safe, allowing the bends to be taken even faster than normal. It was just fantastic. We stopped and looked back at the valley and the road on the left....
The weather continues to be incredible and being in the sun all day with an open-faced helmet means sun protection is essential.
Towns and villages are few and far between in this part of the country. The houses are nearly always painted white to reflect the heat of the sun as a way of keeping the non air-conditioned houses cool. This one was perched atop a hill....
Paul, in his ATGATT.... phew it was hot for all this gear....
We found one road in a canyon of about 1.5 miles long. It was so good, we rode it four times. The road surface was brand new with no bumps and changed in elevation to reflect the natural contours of the land. The road reminded us of a car slot-racing game called Scalextric and it was such a joy to ride this road, we did it four times! I fixed the video camera to my bike to record this terrific road, but sadly I could not open the file on my computer, so am not able to include it here.
Nearby, we stopped and admired the view of another canyon called Mirador Del Cararizuelo....
Another white village, set amongst the hills....
My Road King has a fuel range of anywhere between 130 and about 190 miles. I had noticed I was getting low on fuel and after estimating how much I had left and comparing this to my GPS / Sat Nav information about likely petrol stations, we realised we were in trouble and would have to divert off our planned route, just to find fuel. We could see the nearest fuel (if it was open) was about 35 miles away and I had already done 160 miles since I last filled up. This was going to be close! We rode as conservatively as possible and I even coasted down a long hill about 4 miles to save fuel. Keeping the revs low and riding really slowly I made the most out of the tiny amount of fuel left in the tank. I was certainly running on empty. Twice the engine spluttered and stopped when braking but luckily restarted and we made it to the petrol station with 197 miles showing since I last filled the bike up. Luckily it was open! Phew!!
One of the places we stopped to look at along the way....
A lake near where we stopped for fuel....
I cannot remember where this was, but we had to stop to look down into the impressive canyon and the wonderful coloured water in its river. There were a few people swimming in the river....
A strange shaped top to the hill....
We rode 284 miles on this day. Another great days riding.
.jpg)
3 comments:
Looks like another great day with beautiful scenery. Love the canyon view with the turquoise water. The only downside I can see is the heat + ATGATT. Poor Paul.
Lovely photos Gary. Running on empty and going into conservation mode a long way from anywhere always gives me severe butterflies. Worse when you're riding solo of course.
Sonja – Due to the heat we did abandon some of the ATGATT, whci I suppose technically became MOTGMOTT.
Geoff – In rural Spain, the big worry with fuel is wondering if the petrol stations will actually be open, especially on a Sunday.
Post a Comment