From the beginning I planned, barring unexpected events, to drive back to Prague by road. A quick highway move to “finish” the tires. On Monday morning, April 1, I left Porto and had over 2500 km to go to Prague. I expected to drive it for two to three days.
The first morning was rough. I wanted to take a different highway in Portugal than the one towards Porto, so I took the A-75 into Spain via the unassuming Sierra Cabrera Baja. It was a very nice road, but it went up to 1500m where there was snow even on the motorway, rain with snow and a brutal 2℃. Well I froze pretty badly.
Up to Burgus the road stayed above 700mnm and the temperature below 10 degrees. Only further on we dropped into the lowlands and a pleasant 16 degrees.
An earplug flew off in the wind at one of the pumps, so I lingered near San Sebastian looking for an open pharmacy (which was more difficult than I expected on Easter Monday) and arrived at the B&B HOTEL Périgueux Boulazac about 100km east of Bordeaux around 21:30. A nice motel with almost private parking. I rode about 1250 km in 13 hours.
I skipped breakfast in the morning and around 8:30 I was sitting on the bike with a plan to try to make it to Prague today. The trip was going fast and I also knew that I didn’t have to save my tires that much. Although 1250 km at 130-150km/h pace was noticeable on them, but not as much as I was originally afraid.
It was about 9 degrees in the morning, the inconspicuous highlands of the Monts Domes brought rain and a further drop in temperature, but by around midday I was riding in sunshine and pleasant warmth again. The journey was fast, especially on the French motorway, there was little traffic and I rarely had to slow down below 140 km/h.
In Germany the traffic thickened rapidly and I had to weave through a traffic jam for about 10km around Karlsruhe, but after turning onto the A6 it was better.
316km without a detour (actually + another 150km or so to Prague) I haven’t had this trip on the sat nav yet.
Waze’s arrival estimate was pretty accurate, and I arrived home at 10:05pm, surprisingly pretty cool, relaxed and without significant fatigue. It didn’t hit me until the next day.
Mitas E-09 Dakar after a 6500 km trip, of which 2400 or so offroad and 2500 very fast highway riding turned out like this. I definitely can’t complain about them
Bonuses
The first video is a short clip from the trip back.
The second video is an unabbreviated run-through of part of the ACT Portugal Section 3 route.
And finally, the whole trip in one longer video