Here's some pictures of our recent trip on the FJR. I'm not the most prolific photographer but here's some of the Pyrenees, the Alps and some random ones. The icing on the cake at the end of the Pyrenees is Barcelona and the Circuit de Catalunya. Sadly Luis Salom lost his life in Moto2 free practice on the Friday. All three races on Sunday were superb and experiencing the atmosphere of a Valentino Rossi win at Montmelmo was the highlight of the trip. Throughout the Pyrenees the traffic was eerily non-existent. A lot of the passes in the Alps were shut but we didn't have much time left to do them anyway. Front Discs on the FJR developed a warp in the Pyrenees and as usual the new rear tyre was trashed by the time we got home. Note to self: Need more time - trying to squeeze 3 weeks riding into 2 weeks is pointless, an awful lot of long days on mind numbing motorways getting to and from the fun bits. Pamplona
Quite a big trip then, and the pictures do give the impression of there being no one about ! What kind of rear tyre was it that you wore through ? Did you choose places to stay as you went along ?
Great pictures - lovely to see some very familiar passes of the Pyrenees. Can I ask where the wooden replica bike was - there is one in Val d'Isere and wonder if there are a number in the Alps / Europe to spot so to speak? The route from Vielha you post are some of my favourite routes - we normally start near Ax Le Themes, head over to Sort onto to Vielha then do that loop back to sort and home to A.l.Themes. Its certainly been a late / long winter for the passes with the Col D'Iserane only opening this week, but some years it will be open end of May.
Tyre was a Bridgestone T30 GT. The tyre is still on the bike and is just about legal but fairly badly squared off due to all the motorways we did due to time constraints. We got the Ferry from Portsmouth to St. Malo with our first stop in La Rochelle. This was booked in advance and so was the 4 nights in Barcelona for the MotoGp. The rest of the stops we booked as we went along using booking.com. Have been doing it this way for a few years now and find it allows us a lot of flexibility.
I'm not 100% sure about the location of the wooden bike but I'm fairly certain it was on the French side of the Little St Bernard Pass. As usual I had a great route planned on the Sat Nav and as usual it screwed up. Need to get back to using old fashioned maps - the technology is great when it works but need a back up. My wife and me stayed at Ax Le Thermes over 25 years ago and we passed through it this time on a run from Vielha. We tried to squeeze too many miles into too little time. The loop in the photo as you'll know was fairly short but was probably the best day on the bike - superb roads all to ourselves
