Spanish Pyrenees: May 28th - June 1st, 2012

[Tramp]

Wow simon :woohoo:

you`ve been busy in the organising dept ...

so we need 4 riders per group for safety reasons- yes

We need to carry a couple of maps and a compass and know how to use them ..

You say sat nav`s are useless? is that the routing from village to village as most off roaders use a detailed pre chosen gpx route? If so can you pre do one for each of the 3 trails with waypoints etc so we can down load and then have a look on goggle to check the ground conditions.

What is the trail surface like? gravel trails with river crossings or glorious mud? and are the turns on the trails 180 deg turns with gradiants . And the accent you say is hard how about a picture come to think of it maybe some of the trails too

just so people know what to expect etc and then we can decide , how about fuel availability? and how long in km are the trails and how long do you think each would take , allowing for stops and pics and getting lost....yes we do lots of that. :whistle:

regards the camping prices - so 2 bikes and 2 tents and 2 people on 1 pitch cost 20euro? is there a cash point in the local village in case we need more money.

And what is the weather typically like at the end of may? and I take it that with being in the mountains the nights are cool..

cheers for the info ..sure its welcome by all.

[PHILinFRANCE]

Easy Tiger !!!!!! It's a couple of days off yet............but it all looks GREAT to me.
Phil

[Tramp]

Phil.. what you smoking man :whistle: :whistle:

what couple of days off? more like months away..

its just i like to no what I`m signing up for

[Simon_100]

Hi Guys,

You're dead right Phil - all in good time! Meawhile you can get some ideas from the zooming in on the Google map or better still check oit the Catalan Cartographic Insitute's maps online: http://www.icc.cat/

Simply key in the village names - be ready to select the correct one, most are in Pallars Jussà county or Pallars Sobirà further north. Not only are the maps infinitely better than Google - naturally! - buy you can use the 'Layers' options to get much better satellite images too. Nb don't forget to chose the English version!

One my jobs for the winter is to use this to create waymarks for the routes - as I don't have a satnav to capture them 'live' so to speak. I have yet to work out the best way of distributing these as I'm a bit of as duffer at hi tech - typical Mac user of course :laugh:

The surfaces vary considerably between the three routes: the Limestone areas are loose gravel, shale etc. with patches of fine sand which turns to a vile sludge when wet. Trail two is predominatly on granite, so the trails are packed but have lots of lose boldery bits whereas water crossings are a fine silt. Trail three is seriously muddy as at mid altitudes there is plenty of vegetation to produce a humoussy tilthe.

I'm going to keep adding details to the main map, including fuel stations of course and when I start doing the routes full time (depending in part whether the rally loks like happening) I'll do a dedicated map for each of them with ideas about length, etc. As you the time it's a question of how long is a piece of string really as so much depends onthe rider, bike, photo-maini, etc. But in all cases the routes interswect with tarmac roads and lanes at intervals so you can give up and come back again the day/week/year later at will!

To get a sense of scale - Tremp and la Pobla de Segur are about kilometres apart as the crow flies - I've added a scale bar to the map.

Yes, the camping works out at 21.8' Euros per night, but there's 25% discount for staying four nights! There are plenty of cash points in la Pobla, which is more a town than a village despite its tiny size, and the Camoping takes payment in plastic too.

Must go - serious work at the dentists for me

Simon

[Delboi68]

Hi People,
Im a relative newbie to this adventure riding lark but not off roading. So after a recent trip to the Pyrenees at the beginning of last month i was more than a little disappointed( through my lack of knowledge )that I didn't get off the Tarmac as much as I would of liked. However the trip was amazing and if there is 1 thing that I gained out of the experience is that I want to go back.
So if you chaps have got the room I would love to tag along.

[PHILinFRANCE]

Phil.. what you smoking man :whistle: :whistle:

what couple of days off? more like months away..

its just i like to no what I`m signing up for

You should know Russ, a couple of days out here in rural FR can be WEEKS :laugh:

[Tramp]

Hi Simon,

As for gps routing on the Garmin anyway which most people seem to use : we use the GPX format and then import any routes done by third parties into Garmin Mapsource then export to the sat nav so it is used as a way pointed route rather than a talked route which is for road use only.

Maybe try posting a short route so we can try in uk side before going full hog and it not being compatible...


As long as we have a base map loaded onto the sat navs the route appears as a overlay , and also using the satnavs we get pinpoint co-ordinates of where we are as long as the sat nav is set for the coutntry co-ordinates. Dont know what spain uses but sure thats not a problem.

IF I AM TALKING DRIVEL- just put me right :whistle:

Just a big thanks for all the hard work your going to be doing to make what I`m sure will be a great week as long as people get involved too :cheer:

Does the spanish map have a ISBN number so we can use that to order pre trip to highlite the routes as a back up.

Ta .

[Strobingred]

Hi Simon and you Phil,

This is looking very interesting but just a bit early for me to commit. Will keep an eye on it all.

Do you intend to cap the numbers??

cheers

clive

[PHILinFRANCE]

Hi Simon and you Phil,

This is looking very interesting but just a bit early for me to commit. Will keep an eye on it all.

Do you intend to cap the numbers??

cheers

clive

Hey up you old goat, how you doing ? If you do come down you can always stay over at ours on the way down
Phil

[Strobingred]

:laugh: Old goat be damned.

Yep a night on the piss at your place, with the other dogs, may be on the cards.