Dualsporting Spanish Pyrenees

[Bucho]

While eating dinner, I get a call from Austin Vince (the tour guide Im meeting tomorrow), he tells me to give him a call when I get to the hotel so he can meet me.
I was thinking he just wanted to say “hi” and greet me.
However, when I got to the hotel almost all the lights were off and I wasnt sure I was in the right place.

I called Austin and he says “Ill be right out”. He meets me in the parking lot and lets me in the front door. Turns out the hotel is closed for the night. Its just Austin, myself, and one other guy who is part of Austin’s moto trip. Since we were the only guests, the hotel just gave Austin the keys and went home…

A local racing hero had some stake in the hotel, it was cool to see motorcycles in the darkened lobby.

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He had raced in the Dakar back in late 90’s

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[Bucho]

Lazy morning. The moto trip didnt officially begin till 1300 hrs. All the other guys started trickling in. Would be 14 riders and 2 guides in all.
Austin and Dai (Welsh for David) were the two guides. And 12 of the riders were brits. Only myself and a young German named Max were from outside the UK.

The Honda CRF250/300L was the most popular bike of the group. However several guys showed up with vintage/classic bikes. At first I thought they were just other moto guys who happened to stop at the hotel.

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[Bucho]

As it turned out, the Classic Bike Guys were all decent riders and were all skilled w/ tools and wrenching. At least 1 would break down every day. But we’d take a break and those guys would have it fixed pretty quickly.

So, this was the first “moto tour” Ive ever done but I believe its a little bit different than most. First of all Austin Vince is the semi-famous guy who rode around the world in the late 90’s and made Mondo Enduro from that experience. (Google it and/or look it up on youtube)

Part of his philosophy was turning the group of strangers into a Team of Riders. At every meal he’d encourage people to sit next to someone new. At all times we’d ride in two separate groups, and he’d mix the groups up a lot.

He also had a different system for riding and keeping the riding group together. 1: You are in charge of the other guy behind you. If you dont see the guy behind you, you pull over and count to 30. If you STILL dont see him, you turn around and go look for him. This in turn would have the guy in front of you need to stop and go back for you.
2: When at an intersection/turn/fork, the guide (Austin or Dai) would point at the intersection and rider right behind the guide would stop at the intersection and wave every rider past onto the correct route. Then that rider would now be the tail end of the group.

It was a different way of doing things. All in all I kinda liked it. My biggest annoyance wasnt being all to stop whenever I wanted to take a picture

[Bucho]

The first day I went off with Dai’s group. Almost immediately we were off the pavement and on dirt tracks. I was further impressed that they were lots of great tracks that were techincally “roads”, they were fun and hadnt seen much traffic in years.

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[Bucho]

They were a large number of old abandoned farmhouses. Sometimes we’d stop at one and take a break.

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[Bucho]

First nights accomadations were interesting.

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Yes, that is correct. We stayed at Trials World Champion Jordi Pascuet’s training facility and guest house. They had kind of dorm rooms and we’d share 2-3 to a room. They had someone to cook dinner and breakfast for you.

Pascuet wasnt there to hang out with.

[Bucho]

Even more beautiful in the morning when we got up.

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[Bucho]

Day 2, now with several different riders in the group.


Later in the day I swapped bikes and road this old twin shock Honda XL. It didnt feel too bad till we were going down a steep road into a hairpin and the ancient drum brakes didnt really feel like they were slowing you down much. Kinda terrifying

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This is Austin.

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[Bucho]

This was Louis, a Scottish fisherman. One of the younger guys. Riding a mono shock XL

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The Enfield had a flat tire. They hoisted the front end up from a tree branch.

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Buena vista!

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[Bucho]

This was a GREAT section. Storms had washed parts of the road away. Massive ruts, super muddy, and steeper than it looks.

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So our group was going down this road. The other group had taken a slightly different route and was coming up. This is where we met.

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One of the guys took a minor spill into the giant rut in the middle. Everyone jumped in to help. (The nice 4x4 pickup had been abandoned. Not sure if he was trying to go up or down this)

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