“This is dumb. This is dumb. This is so freaking dumb. I’m going to die.” The words echoed through my head almost in time with the thrum of the engine. Part of me was excited about the ride. Part of me was terrified. And a small voice in my head was convinced that I was going to die. But that’s why I was here in the first place. Not to die, that is, but to do something outside of my comfort zone. With that thought, I rolled on the throttle and rode out into the rain.
I first got my motorcycle license in 2008 after a surprisingly easy weekend course. Shortly after that, I bought my first motorcycle, a Suzuki Savage LS650. It’s a great beginner bike; stable, comfortable, and not too much oomph in the engine. On a good day, it can handle highway speeds, although I kept myself to back roads and local routes. Despite my best intentions, I didn’t ride much, maybe 200-300 miles in a year at most. I was a fair weather rider, and even then, I generally preferred the comfort of my car to the bike. I think I liked the idea of being a motorcycle rider more than actually being on the bike.
During my year of travels, I briefly thought about renting a motorcycle and riding from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi in Vietnam. It’s a well-known route and popular among the riding community, but after a little research, I realized that it was way outside of my skillset, so I quickly dropped the idea. But I realized that I could do a similar ride in Spain with a lot less hassle. For example, in Vietnam, you have to buy the bike in one city and try to sell it at the other. In Spain, you can rent from one city and return to another shop in the same chain in another city. In Vietnam, much of the route is dirt roads, and some are one-lane roads on the side of a hill. If there’s a truck coming the other way, your riding skills are quickly tested. In Spain, it’s paved roads and multiple lanes. In Vietnam, I don’t speak any of the language. My Spanish, however, is good enough to get around, which makes things much easier. All in all, Spain made a lot more sense to ride. But I was still left with the idea of riding on my own. No matter how good my Spanish was, if I got flattened by a truck, I was going to be in a world of trouble.
With all of that in mind, I emailed some friends in the States who ride often, and proposed a group trip to Spain to ride and enjoy the Spanish countryside. Glenn is a very experienced rider, and John is even more so. Both of them are comfortable on bikes and routinely take their bikes out for a day trip just for the giggles. I figured that riding with them would be the safest way for me to go. And, since neither of them speak Spanish, they’d have a vested interest in keeping me alive.
After a lot of back-and-forth and discussion, we decided to schedule our ride after our trip to Stuttgart. We planned a route that started in Malaga, went to Gibraltar, where we’d spend the first night. The next day, we’d ride to Cadiz, where Columbus set sail in search of the New World. On day 3, we’d ride to Ronda. Day 4 would take us to Granada, and day 5 would return us back to Malaga to return the bikes.
5 days of riding, averaging about 100 miles per day. It’s not a lot of riding by any means, but we were planning on taking the scenic route, which meant slower roads, and limiting our riding to 3-4 hours per day, with short stops to stretch our legs and unwedge our pants from where they tend to get wedged while you ride. We decided that Glenn would lead and navigate and be in charge of rest breaks, I would ride in the middle, and John would be the tail. With the most experience, he would be best suited to handle whatever traffic situation we put him in (like running yellow lights and running more red lights than I care to admit), and he’d be in a position to stop and help if I fell off my bike (In case you were wondering, I didn’t fall off. I laid my bike down twice, but I never fell off.)
As with all best-laid plans, we got off to a slightly rough start. But more about that in the next post.
(It’s what we in the blogging business call a ‘cliffhanger’. Cue dramatic music.)
