Last September me and eight friends decided to go on a motorcycle tour, travelling from Reading in the UK down through France and over the Pyrenees into Spain. We were going via Andorra then down for a day's rest in Barcelona before travelling across northern Spain to Santander where we were going to take the ferry back to England.
Our party consisted of a number of different machines, two Honda Deauvilles, a BMW GS 1200, a Honda Hornet, a Kawasaki ZX 9, a Bimota SP6, a BMW R1150RT and me on my Triumph Rocket Three.
I had bought the Rocket Three just two months before leaving for this trip and had only covered 345 miles on it prior to the 2200 miles we were planning for the trip. To this end I had a number of extras fitted to the bike, including fog lamps, heated grips, a small summer screen, a backrest and sissy bar, fuel gauge and clock, leather panniers, and a riders backrest. Of all the above options it turned out that the best accessories I had had fitted were the heated grips and the riders backrest.
The 2.3 L Rocket is an amazing bike to ride. You can ride it in a very relaxed manner if you want to, but on the big open French motorways you have the opportunity to really open the engine up, which is like being kicked in the back with a sledgehammer. Therefore the backrest is a really good idea as you feel that you are actually apart of the machine not to mention the fact that you no longer feel that you are having to cling on to the handlebars for dear life!
The ride from the ferry down to Millau had been mostly on these main routes, however Millau was today are starting point for our Pyrenees mountain phase with a stopover in Andorra. It had taken as three days to reach Millau, and the third day had been a ride through torrential rain. The third day had also see us reach heights of over 1600 m which meant a reduction in temperature and combined with being soaking wet meant that the heated grips were a real comfort.
As we headed into the Pyrenees themselves the roads are quite easy, with sweeping bends combined with long straights through farm country. The entire time one is gaining altitude and the farm country changes to sparsely inhabited mountain areas with the roads becoming a series of bends with little or no straight sections. Given that the bends are generally lined by cliff faces on one or both sides it is virtually impossible to know whether or not the bends tightens or straightens.
On a sports bike this is difficult enough, but on the vast Rocket it becomes very difficult indeed. I knew the Rocket would not be the best handling bike in the mountains, but I was unprepared for how difficult it would be.
My Rocket was the Classic version, i.e. with foot boards. I have never owned a cruiser before and maybe it was poor riding technique but I found that to corner sharply in the manner required on mountain roads meant that I was literally pushing down on one side of the handlebars whilst lifting up on the other side to make the turns. The result was that after about three quarters of an hour's riding in the mountains my triceps were becoming quite painful and I was being left behind by the rest of the group.
The Rocket is a fantastic bike on the open road and even minor country lanes; it had also been fantastic in the wet, completely planted and stable even when overtaking large trucks which inspired confidence. However, I was completely embarrassed in the mountains as I simply could not maintain any sort of speed. As I have said, this may simply be to a lack of experience writing this type of motorcycle, but I reached our hotel in Andorra that night having already decided that the next day I would simply take the dual carriageway to Barcelona and let the others have their fun in the mountains.
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