Picos de Europa tour

[Rich TT]

Just on the way home from a weeks riding both on and off road in the Picos de Europa with a mate on his Tiger 800. The T7 was yet again the perfect bike to be on. We did well with the weather and had no rain whilst we were riding but the roads were very sketchy in places with leaves, cow poo, cows themselves, crushed chesnuts, moss etc. All great fun and good for the riding skills. Did a couple of off road routes including the brilliant run from near Sotres to Espinama. This went up to around 5,5500 feet.  Stayed at a place called Llanes, which was a lovely seaside town. People were very friendly, weather was ace and the scenery was spectacular.

 

We deliberately chose to ride the tiny small roads for added fun. Bend after bend after bend with ups, downs etc.

 

I'd recommend it.

 

Rich

Edited November 4, 2021 by Rich TT

[Rich TT]

[Rich TT]

[Rich TT]

[qInvention]

thanks for your great pictures ! looks like lots of fun 

[slawmir]

Beautiful landscape.

[paulmc]

Hi,

I hope to do the pico mountains this year on my T7 and travel through Portugal and Spain to Andorra.

Can you recommend a good  off-road/ road route to take through the Picos?

[Ray Ride4life]

47 minutes ago, paulmc said:

Hi,

I hope to do the pico mountains this year on my T7 and travel through Portugal and Spain to Andorra.

Can you recommend a good  off-road/ road route to take through the Picos?

When are you planning to go? I'm heading that way the 17th of September.
Have to tweak my initial route as the TET al the way around and then from the end back over the Picos will take me a week more than i have for vacation but i hope my boss will grant me that for once. Normally i'm not allowed to take more than 3 weeks per vacation and i'm also planning on a 1,5 week trip to Serbia end June, early July.

[paulmc]

I am planning to do the ABR festival and travel on from there on the 25th of June.

 

[Ray Ride4life]

Cool, i start my trip from Discover Ovarland.

[paulmc]

Are you using the TET routes?

[Ray Ride4life]

Yes but i will mix in a bit of road sections and probably some other dirt tracks to buy some time in case i can't get more time off from work.
In the Garmin XT there are also topo maps and i made a physical drive with a copy of the Garmin so i don't need to connect the device to use them.

[paulmc]

Cool, have you tried any of the ACT tracks

[Ray Ride4life]

No, never heard of it and i see you have to have a paid membership. It's just €0,99/m but that's a dangerous trend nowadays, it's a euro here and a couple of cents there but with all the apps and whatever it adds up so i'm very selective.

[Rich TT]

4 hours ago, paulmc said:

Hi,

I hope to do the pico mountains this year on my T7 and travel through Portugal and Spain to Andorra.

Can you recommend a good  off-road/ road route to take through the Picos?

The Picos is a national park and there is only one legal off road route that I know of from Sotres (see my post above). But the roads themselves are awesome. One thing to try is WikiLoc. I found some amazing off road routes in the Pyrenees that we did a few years back. You could easily plot your route using these trails that people have put together. Also the TET website is brilliant and there is a great route west to Portugal. Hope that helps. 

 

I promise you will enjoy the scenery, food, hospitality and the riding.

 

Cheers Rich