After breakfast, we set off and after a few hours on the fabulous N-260 road, we were still 3 hours away from the night’s stop. Sadly the cafe we stopped at wasn’t serving food due to a staffing problem, so it was just a Coke and a water for now (plus one of Alison’s Rice Krispies bars).
RT roadside in Boltaña
Then it was on to our next Parador, the Parador de La Seu d’Urgell with the mileage now up to 637km so far having enjoyed all the sweeping bends of the N-260 today.
Secure parking for your motorbike is always a bonus, so I was pleased they even had a special shed for motorbikes too, which is nice. Luckily they don’t do Aperol Spritzes either…
The food was good, but not as good as the night before, sadly.
Day 2 dawned bright and early as we had to be up and out of our cabin a half hour before docking into Santander at 8.00am and we wanted breakfast before as well.
I had already planned a route and imported it into the pitiful BMW Connected app and set it to “Winding”. That setting gives you three options: “Min:, “Max” and a middle setting. and I assume – because there’s no help file – that Min means it’s not too windy and max means it’s going to take you all round Will’s mother’s.
So off we went. And yes, it decided that what we really wanted to do on an RT touring bike on road tyres, two-up with luggage was to use gravel tracks… And that was when it was actually keeping Connected. I think BMW Motorrad are taking the piss calling it that, because for any navigation you have to use their app. To do so, you have to pair the phone to your bike – woe betide you if you want to use your phone with your intercom on any other bike, because the bike has to be the intermediary and you have to unpair your phone and intercom.
Once you’ve connected via Bluetooth and planned your route, you tell the app to navigate and then you have to set up an additional wireless connection to the RT just to see the maps.
So far, so good(!), but at a random – or many random – points on your journey, that wireless connection will drop out and to top it off the Bluetooth connection might also randomly drop out, leaving you to have to stop by the side of the road, open the storage compartment, re-establish the connection – which may or may not mean restarting the RT – and then get going again.
Later on, the RT decided it might just reboot itself completely, leaving you with a blank screen without any speed information, let alone any navigation.
It is utterly pants. It’s not even like the navigation system properly displays POIs or warns you of safety cameras, for instance. Indeed, at the start of Day 3, I was very low on fuel and the Connected (cr)app was telling me the nearest petrol station was 87km away when there was actually one showing on Google Maps and Apple Maps 3/4km away. But you can’t use those apps on the RT because BMW are too stupid to get CarPlay working on their bikes, whilst it’s working on their cars. It Connected or nothing!
Anyway, whinge over, we set off and then rerouted manually to at least see some scenic roads and stops for coffee along the way to our first night’s hotel, the Parador de Sos del Rey Católico.
Now I’d first heard of Paradores on the wonderful Harry’s Garage YouTube channel from some of his road trip videos and unknown to me to start with, this particular Parador was featured in Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’t excellent series, The Trip to Spain.
After a shower and a freshen-up – it had been quite a warm ride with us seeing 37°C at one point – we decided that wine and generous gins on an empty stomach would help help…
Before dinner, we headed off into Sos del Rey Católico itself for a little exercise despite it still being pretty bloody hot. The place is very hilly but very picturesque.
And then dinner: local food cooked to a very high standard. Very much recommended.
And finally, a little bit of footage from on the bike:
The original plan was to have a long day in the saddle, heading up to the Milau Bridge and the Gorges du Tarn, but herself was beginning to flag a bit, so I instead set a course along some nice-ish roads from Banyuls-sur-Mer to Castillon-du-Gard in Provence, where we were due to stay at the delightful La Vieux Castillon.
This was the hotel that Channel 4’s First Dates show had used for their summer holidays the first few series of First Dates Hotel before they moved to one in Italy, I think?
Anyway after a very hot day – 38°C – we reached 1,175km and were ready for a rest day the following day.
By the time we reached the hotel, it was still 32°C at the pool. They let me leave the RT outside Reception which was a weight off my mind. And yes, it’s a fabulous hotel, every bit as good as we had hoped.
We had booked their gastronomic package, but sadly the restaurant was closed the two night we were actually booked in for, having shifted the dates. So for our first night we enjoyed a lighter meal from the bar menu.
The next day was a rest day, so we spent it mainly by the pool, although we did go for a wander around the streets of Castillon-du-Gard.
Dinner was at Joio Restaurant nearby which is managed by the chef at the hotel and opens when he’s not working at Le Vieux Castillon. We ate their signature starter and main and a couple of cheeky glasses of wine. Very reasonably priced too as well as delicious.
Out of Spain into France. So that was the Atlantic Ocean over to the Mediterranean Sea then. And goodbye Spain, hello France. 910km so far, riding the BMW R1250RT along the N-260 (and others) from La Seu d’Urgell in the Spanish Pyrenees to Banyuls-sur-Mer on the French coast. We also diverted up to ride the infamous Gorges de Galamus.
Once we got to our hotel and parked up – after the BMW Connected app decided we should approach it from a footpath above – we checked in to our room.
I have no idea what that clicking is in the video, and no, I didn’t mean the old biddy walking down the corridor…
Food at the Côté Thalasso Banyuls-sur-Mer exceeded expectations; the tasting menu was superb with the beef and dauphinois potatoes a high point before this dessert. A lovely local red wine too.
So Banyuls-sur-Mer was better than expected and they were kind enough to let us keep the RT parked outside reception where they could keep an eye on it. We decided to pin it to win it to get to our next stay, but first we explored the harbour.
The first major overseas trip planned for the RT was to its birthplace: the BMW Motorradwerk in Berlin.
I knew this was going to be a pretty boring trip as my past experience of Northern France has always been that it’s the area you have to ride or drive through to get to the interesting bits, which is why this July’s trip starts with a ferry down to Spain…
Anyway, I checked the Michelin maps I’ve got for that trip and saw that I could actually have some ‘scenic’ stuff in Belgium on the way (given that I’d planned a two stop strategy on the way to Berlin, two nights in Berlin itself, and then one stop on the way back in the Netherlands.
So at around 6am on Sunday 9th June it was off to LeShuttle at Folkestone for our fixed time trip out. On the way there, the truly irritating BMW Connected app had frozen on the A3 but fortunately I knew I was using the M25 and turned off in time, rather than continuing as the app was pretending to tell me. As we arrived to check in, I realised that I’d left my wallet at home so I’d have to try to pay for everything with Apple Pay on my Apple Watch or iPhone 15 Pro…
It froze a couple of times in France and Belgium which meant we had to go a slightly different route towards Liege than I’d planned, and threw my trust in the app off even more. I can see why some other owners have given up and ditched it altogether in favour of a mounted Garmin one (which also has the added bonus of showing “safety” cameras). Why BMW don’t let us use Apple CarPlay is beyond me.
Still, at least I got a bit of footage in Dinant in Belgium, which was indeed scenic:
We stopped along the way in a lovely little town called Florennes for a salad for lunch.
RT parked up in Florennes
We got to the Mercure at Liege and checked in, asking if we could book a table in the restaurant. “No,” they said, “it’s not open on Sundays”. Well that’s not what it says on their website! We decided to get a drink in the bar anyway, but again, we were told that’s also closed on Sundays. We weren’t best pleased… We did, however, find a little Italian restaurant nearby where we could eat.
The next day was a bit of a wet one as we headed towards Hameln (or “Hamelin” where the Pied Piper hung out. I’d booked us into the Hotel Stadt Hameln and frankly didn’t expect much, but the room was large and comfortable and the restaurant was absolutely outstanding. We also wandered into the old town to see if we could get some cash out on Alison’s Supplemental American Express Platinum Card, but sadly that service isn’t offered any longer. This meant we had no cash for tipping.
The Klim Latitude and Altitude clothing, our Alpinestars short boots and our gloves had all performed brilliantly keeping us dry as a bone, and with the heated seats, grips and waistcoats we’d been warm as well.
We then headed on to Berlin and two nights at the outstanding Hotel Adlon Kempinski at the Brandenburg Gate. I could definitely get used to champagne and caviar for breakfast every day! At least we could use their temporary gym – the normal one is being renovated – to burn some of the calories off.
We also visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe; very poignant.
On the Wednesday after brunch we went off to BMW Motorradwerk for an extended factory tour in English … except the English-speaking guide couldn’t do it, so the German one press-ganged a Polish(?) tourist into translating for him, which sort of worked but was a tad unsatisfactory.
Thursday morning after a workout and brunch we headed off to Eindhoven, seeing 207km/h or 129mph on the autobahns. Well that was irritating! One minute, you’re on an unrestricted stretch of dual carriageway in Germany and the next moment it’s the same road in the Netherlands with a 100km/h speed limit! The next morning was the same when we left the Netherlands and hit Belgium: the same road but now with a 120km/h speed limit.
The Park Plaza in Eindhoven was again comfortable after a really long ride but it featured the slowest lift in the world ever!
After breakfast we packed and headed back to Calais and then on to home. We’d booked flexiplus on LeShuttle so after ordeal by UK Border Agency as usual – including the jobsworth insisting we took off our crash helmets for no reason at all – we had lunch in the lounge before getting on the next train back to the UK and home by mid-afternoon on Friday: four countries in one day!
So yes: 1,418 miles with a maximum speed of 129mph and still averaging 47.8mpg for the trip.
At the last minute I’d added a Kriega US-40 Rackpack for our shoes and heated vests to go in, fixed to the frame and rack and sitting on the top of the top case (plus we had the top case and pannier liner bags to use).
After a week or so’s seemingly incessant rain, the forecast for last weekend looked fairly good and coincided with a rideout arranged by Bahnstormer Motorrad from their Alton branch to Whiteways Cafe outside Arundel.
So we swapped over our rest days from the Sunday to the Saturday – I’m trying to get fitter and Alison’s in training for a PCA bikini class bodybuilding competition – and got up a little earlier to breakfast and head on down to Bahnstormer for a coffee and to join the other riders. In total, there were 29 of us! Take a look at Bahnstormer’s video of us leaving Alton:
Oh and there’s a longer version with some added expletives here:
When we bypassed Goodwood because they were having a members’ meeting and our route was blocked, we ended up on a flooded road with bonus mud from the fields, so the RT got absolutely filthy.
Once home, I got the pressure washer out and cleaned it up, but noticed I could see the rear suspension from the left … because the small side cover was missing. A couple of phone calls and a visit today and they’ve sorted me out without any fuss. I truly cannot recommend them any more strongly than I do and of course they’ll get my order for this RT’s replacement when and if.
I just must stop myself from impulse-buying an M 1000 XR by mistake in the meantime…
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