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kwh


kwh Avatar
Member Since: May 30, 2010
Membership Level: Explorer - score: 129
Region: Mid Wales, United Kingdom
Motorcycle: K1200GT SE
Best Route Ever Ridden: N152 Collada de Tosas
Users Website Address: http://www.cix.co.uk/~kwh
Latest Entries by this user:

D98 St Tropez to Pas de Courtin (France)

June 19, 2011
This road was a complete surprise to me - I'd ridden the coast road south of Cannes (see elsewhere on here) and then negotiated the coastline to get round to St Tropez just so I could get a photo of the 'Welcome to St Tropez' sign, and then I wanted to get to my hotel in Marseille by the shortest possible route. The GPS sent me this way.... It was quite a shock to discover that this was actually a really nice, fun, fast, flowing, challenging road. Obviously it lacks the jaw dropping views of the roads in the Pyrenees proper, in favour of tree cover, but the terrain of the foothills is plenty interesting and the road twists and turns aplenty as it follows the terrain. There are less zeros on the heights of some of the drops, but you still wanted to ride off the unguarded edge of the road in some of the twisty sections, the only thing to stop you plummetting to the distant ravine bottom would be a very solid tree or several. Actually, it's good to bear that in mind on the way in - it is because I was in 'transit mode' rather than 'riding challenging unforgiving roads' mode that I found myself unintentionally having so much fun that I was dragging the centrestand round corners, 3 feet from the edge of an unguarded 500 foot drop. Given the many epic delights available within 50 miles of this road, in summary I'd certainly not make a special trip to ride this road, but it was still a pleasant surprise. It also handily links the Alpine magic of Route Napoleon and the coast road south of Cannes with the joys of the Pyrenees via a half decent road.

N116 : Mont Louis - Villefranche de Conflent (France)

June 19, 2011
I used this road on my epic European megatour last year, and the scenery is jaw dropping, the road spectacular, punctuated by little villages clinging to the mountainsides. I venture to suggest that on a day as hot and sunny as the one I rode it on, it would be possibly up there with the best biking roads in the world, for sustained length, variety, challenge, jaw dropping setting etc. Lots of precipitous drops, steep climbs and drops, etc etc. But I say 'would be' because unlike some other epic roads, this is a main arterial route and when I rode it, it was jammed with French holiday makers dragging sheds. That and the commercial vehicles meant that traffic was moving at a crawl, and really I spent almost the entire trip looking for leapfrog overtakes, slipping the clutch through the blind bits trying not to overheat my head or the bike and very occasionally greedily gulping the short stretches of empty tarmac between the queues... pity. If I'd caught it closer to being empty I'd no doubt be raving, but until they build a motorway next to it, I doubt I ever would. Still worth it for the views, and because it's a great appetiser for the delights of the roads in the Pyrenees beyond...

N20 / N22 / CS240 / CS340 (Andorra) L'Hospitalet-Pres-L'Andorre - Andorra La Vella (Andorra)

June 18, 2011
The scenery is jaw-drop spectacular, the drops off the edge of the road precipitous, and if you aren't plumetting a few thousand feet to oblivion you are slamming into a cliff, so try and stay on the black bit and it delivers the full 'high pyrenean pass' riding experience. Just one thing: If it is dark or raining, take the tunnel, your sphincter will thank you! Probably not much fun if there is any risk of ice, either, so early or late in the year could be scary.

A4069 : Brynamman - Llangadog (United Kingdom)

June 18, 2011
This is what I wrote about the A4069 15 years ago when I first rode it: Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Black Mountain run, the road the deities created specifically so they had somewhere to thrash their ethereal chariots on sunny days. If you want to find the Black Mountain run on a map, take a look at South Wales and trace the A40 east from Carmarthen. Equidistant between Llandeilo and Llandovery, and just to the south of the A40, you'll find the village of Llangadog, where starts the awesome A4069. One look at the map should tell you all you need to know, but I'll just add that when you take into account the oscillations of the road and the huge changes in altitude as you snake your way over the Black Mountain and down into Brynamman, the experience lasts for some 25 miles, and for a good 15 mile stretch in the middle I didn't have the bike vertical for as long as ten seconds even once. In fact, on the top 5 mile section, you can reduce that to three seconds. As you snake your way out of Llangadog, the road starts by lulling you for half a mile, before suddenly BANG, over on your ear and the rollercoaster begins with you fighting your way up a River valley, through trees, swinging this way and that, climbing inexorably and working throttle, box, brakes and concentration hard, while the odd corner tightens or a narrow humpback bridge over the river intercedes in between opposing ear-slider-optional corners. There's miles of this stuff which the Road Atlas isn't of sufficient scale to spot, and it's exhilarating beyond measure; your speed is limited by what you can see most of the time, and the scenery looks pretty unforgiving. More than a couple of times I was left feeling very glad that I had restrained my natural exuberance in favour of sensible caution. And then you emerge from the trees just in time to cross a cattle grid.... whereupon all hell breaks loose. You wouldn't want to ride this road in the wet, or in the dark; without the faintest shadow of a doubt you'd die. Here is bare mountainside, and a road that struggles to climb it. The limiting factor is not visibility, it is bottle and skill. Concentrating the mind wonderfully, as the road lurches sickeningly away to the left from beneath your front wheel, then slams back upwards and to the right, is the fact that the run-off on one side is lumps of jagged rock that would shatter bone and rend flesh, and yet go the other way and both you and your machine will cartwheel to fragmented oblivion down a thousand feet of rock and boulder-strewn welsh mountainside. Corners follow corners, every one a near death experience since without fail it will either tighten up, change elevation or alter camber; often it will do all three simultaneously. Additionally, if you come to a crest, even if you can see the road a few yards ahead, you can safely assume that it dives off into some fold of the mountainside in the gap and delivers you a vicious hairpin. As you attack the Black Mountain, the suspension loads and unloads hard while you crank first one way and then the other, eyeballs out on stalks and heart pounding, pushing as hard as you dare, pegs decking momentarily as the dips coincide with apexes, and then suddenly you are at the viewing point on the summit. Time for a fag break and a few Zen breathing exercises, and also to let tortured brakes and smoking tyres cool down. There are others up here, pausing for breath as they ride the Black Mountain, and I chat to them as I puff; the road claims a few bikers a year, and indeed an incautious Fireblade owner put himself in hospital and his bike in the Total Loss register only last week. I imagine it would be easy to do...Âยน Back in the saddle, it's time to ride down the other side. There's more of the same here, but with the added excitement of a downhill straight bit ending in a hard 90-degree right hander about half way down; overshooting this corner will gain you air-miles, with a halo and wings shortly afterwards. And then you've hit the bottom, and the last section is a nice blast through some lovely, sensible fast sweepers... and then it's finished. For today... If life is looking drab, and colours are looking pastel, then go ride the Black Mountain. Everything seems more vibrant after my sojourn up there today.

N124 / R124 : Cortelha - Cachopo (Portugal)

September 5, 2010
This road goes all the way from the N2 to the river that marks the Spanish border - theres a footbridge across to Spain - but Ive only ridden it as far as Cachopo, a lovely little town with typically Portuguese roadside cafe bars, ideal for a spot of lunch and something cold to drink before either pressing on to the river or turning round and enjoying the ride back the way youve come to the N2. This road is lightly trafficed, even by Portuguese standards, and youll need to watch out for any detritus washed onto the surface if it has rained, and speaking of surface, its mostly good but with the odd defect just to keep you on your toes. The challenge of this road comes from the topography - its as twisty as you could possibly want, with many elevation changes, and many complex sequences of challenging corners, some with excellent visibility, others blind.
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