Trip to Barcelona. Meeting with Yamaha and Midland

Last Tuesday, April 13th (what a day...) Joan traveled by motorcycle from Alicante to my house in Cuenca. We had arranged to prepare things for the meetings we had with several companies in Barcelona interested in collaborating on the project. We had a lot of work to do. Printing resumes on good quality paper, outlining the route on google maps, preparing the presentations and the documentation for the Mongolian visa, etc.

We had spent the whole day working and it started raining in the afternoon and didn't stop all night. We were not yet aware of what we were going to go through the next day, 600 km of a motorcycle ride to Barcelona.

I had a hard time sleeping, I had already been talking to Joan about the rain and the bad weather. We even talked about going to Barcelona in the car... But the life and spirit of the biker are different. Besides, we have to get in shape for the trip. We had to go by motorcycle.

We got up and had a good breakfast, the weather was still closed, and the humidity was such that it was difficult to walk. We didn't say anything to each other, we finished breakfast, we put everything on the bikes and not too soon, around 10:30 am, we started the half-adventure that I am about to tell you about.

The rain gave us a small lapse of time to adapt to the road (very wet, by the way). We headed towards Carboneras, stopped to refuel and then took the N-420 towards Teruel. It starts to rain cats and dogs, but we had appointments in the city of Barcelona and, unless the destination said a resounding NO, we would go ahead.

Mittens are a great invention and on a day like this, I can't imagine riding along with a pair of gloves. Joan put hers on the bike, but not having hand protectors, with the force of the wind, they began to press the brake and clutch levers. You can imagine how uncomfortable it was, raining cats and dogs, at zero degrees and with the fingers of the hands like sticks to prevent the mittens from pressing the brake...

We continued our trip, "relaxing". We could see a lot of water in the ditches of the road and adjacent mountains and then we saw snow..., the temperature indicator kept blinking, indicating to me that there was a possibility of ice. The day was complicated, but well, happy to go on a motorcycle, we comforted ourselves by thinking and dreaming about the possible outcomes of the meetings we were going to have in Barcelona with the sponsors.

Before arriving in Teruel we went through a small mountain pass of more than 1000 meters high, there was some snow on the road, so we decided to stop a little to take advantage of the magnificent day. It was necessary to leave a photographic record of the moment. It is very nice not to go alone on route, the sorrows, are fewer sorrows when you are accompanied.

Between Teruel and Alcañiz we made a stop, it was cold and the relentless humidity excited our nasal taps incessantly. A good lunch, based on a pork loin sandwich with cheese, left us almost perfect and with restored spirits. Too bad it was still raining, but we had to continue on our way along this beautiful road towards Alcañiz, Caspe, Fraga and Barcelona.

Passing Alcañiz we stopped to fill the gas tank, things changed somewhat, it was still cloudy, but the rain stopped. More straights, and more endless straights, we went over the bridge that crosses the Ebro and arrived in Fraga. The rest is already history, a good Colacao in a roadside bar after passing through Lérida and boring straight stretches of the highway until we reached Manresa. It was almost seven o'clock in the evening, there was little left to reach L'Ametlla del Vallés. The last kilometers of mountains and the regional road we did like zombies with flat encephalogram. Too many kilometers on the same day, but at least the scenery was a pleasure. Beautiful mountain moors that reminded me of Galicia, what a great green, it's fantastic north of Barcelona!

We stayed at my friend Ignacio's house, a great guy who took good care of us. He is a real biker and very ingenious with the DIY of motorcycles. He installed some hand protectors that Joan no longer used to fix the problem with the mittens. Thank you very much, Ignacio, let's see if we see each other soon and go back to ride around with the motorcycles.

Meeting with Yamaha, Midland and other formalities

The next day, Wednesday, was a very good day, we didn't stop doing things. The most important was the meeting we had with the management of Yamaha Motor Spain. Although we don't want to talk too much about it because we are still in the negotiation stage. If in the end, we reach an agreement, there will be time to tell you about it in detail. For now, we can only say that they like the project very much and that we are doing our best to encourage them to collaborate.

We also visited our already confirmed sponsor, Midland. They will provide us with walkies and intercoms so that we can always be well communicated =) David was very kind to explain to us all the advantages (which are not a few) of Bluetooth technology, which allows us to have two-way conversations at the same time and be able to listen to the sound of the phone, GPS and MP3. A marvel that can not be missing to any group of bikers who intend to make a long trip.

In between the visits to the sponsors, we also took the opportunity to start the visa procedures for Mongolia. It seems that everything is in order and now we just have to wait for our passports to be returned. Then we went to visit some motorcycle stores and have some good beers in the best biker pub in Barcelona, the Paddock. A fantastic Guinness, with great friends like Federico-Varadero and Ignacio-Tíger and all those nice people with gasoline in their veins who frequent this great biker corner. Thank you very much!

We sold some t-shirts for the trip, thanks! and we also decided to have a small party, if everything goes well, on June 6th at dusk, being already started the route to Japan and taking advantage of our passage through Barcelona.

And so end these intense and pleasant days, a lot of bike and emotions, about 530 kilometers there and back, with good friends, happy to travel by bike and work to make our dreams come true. Take care of yourselves and see if you can get us T-shirts, we need your help, thanks in advance and a big hug to all of you.