Dave Willis enjoyed a well-deserved break from running Orwell Motorcycles by taking to the hills… on a motorbike.
Dave, former work colleague Rob Walters and two friends headed to the foothills of the Pyrenees in south-west France, near the border with Spain, for a few days exploring the off-road mountain routes and riding part of the Trans Euro Trail (TET).
While Rob and Tony rode down through France over two days on their KTM 1290 Super Duke and 990 Duke, Dave and Richard took KTM enduro and adventure bikes in a van.
Dave was using a four-stroke KTM 450 EXC-F and Rob and Richard had two-stroke 250 EXC TPIs.
Richard also wanted to find out how his KTM 890 Adventure R performed on off-road trails.
Dave said: “He found it was so capable off-road that he didn’t use his enduro bike.”
They broke their journey through France with a night at a biker-friendly hotel and campsite, Route 66 Hotel at Val-d’Oire-et-Gartempe, between Poitiers and Limoges, which has secure bike parking and is home to Harry’s Bar named after its fine host.
Their final destination was the Hautes-Pyrenees, staying near Tarbes in the foothills of the majestic mountain range, for four days of off-road adventures.
The first day saw Dave, Rob and Richard take to the wealth of local trails while Tony took in the spectacular scenery with road rides.
“They were lovely trails, many along abandoned rail lines,” said Dave. “There had been a storm so there were a lot of trees down and we were negotiating rivers.”
The second day of riding saw them venture further afield taking the motorbikes in the van to Payolle, about a 45-minute drive. It is between two peaks, Col d’Aspin and Col du Tourmalet, both of which feature in Tour de France cycle race climbs.
“We had a wonderful day making our way up the Col d’Aspin on trails and tracks and a bit of road work in beautiful sunshine.”
They also rode to the Col du Tourmalet to tackle trails and ski runs.
The next day they ended up in Bagneres to ride a section of the TET.
Dave said that they were riding between 100 and 150km a day which was a long way on off-road trails.
Their last day in the Hautes-Pyrenees saw them return to the trails near Payolle.
“We did it again because it was an uphill climb that was gravelly and really very good,” Dave explained.
All riders came back unscathed despite Dave having a couple of low-speed spills and Richard getting stuck in mud.
They planned their trail rides using Wikiloc outdoor navigation app that lets you track your hiking, cycling and more activities with GPS and navigate along 78,933,716 trails worldwide. Once planned, they exported the GPX file to the sat-nav.
Find out more about the biker-friendly Route 66 Hotel at route66hotel.com
