Colombres Rally

I can vouch for the flavour, yes, it was good.

- Mick Ayriss

Thursday was the first official ride of the Rally, "The Cider and Blue Cheese Route", just a short ride of 76 Km (47 miles) from the Colombres Town Square via Cabrales for a lunch stop. Now the rally entry fee includes food and drink, so at each lunch stop one of the support vehicles brought along sandwiches and cold drinks. Today it was blue cheese rolls and local cider which is traditionally poured from a great height. Well, I suppose it depends on how long your arms are. They tell me this is to encourage the flavour. I can vouch for the flavour, yes, it was good. An alternative of soft drinks or San Miquel beer was also on offer so everyone was catered for.

Scoop of the day for us was when sitting by the village stream on a stone bench right next to the village grocers shop. What was it? a pair of kingfishers darting back and forth. What a great place to enjoy your lunch.

Returning back to Colombres in the company of three 1950/60s Triumphs we had coffee at La Parra and enjoyed a conversation on the merits of 1970s Triumph twins with another couple of Triumph owners before returning to our hotel for a wash and brush up.

Helen spent quite some time looking across the fields from the bedroom window because, as you may have guessed, she is a birdwatcher. There is always something to see. Today and every day a buzzard perched himself on a telegraph post and waited for his dinner to arrive until the sun dropped to low for him. You see there was an advantage to this hotel after all!

Petrol was needed ready for the morning so we filled up on the N634 at the junction of the Noriega and the La Franca road. Gasolina in Spain is cheaper than at home so I treated the Velo to 98 Octane at €1.18 per litre (84 pence).

This Thursday evening was the Rallies first get together held in the Colombres Sports Pavilion at around 9pm with Espicha (cold buffet) which gave us the chance to catch up with Mick Bemrose, Simon, and Ernie from Leicester. It was here also the riders were booking in for the big challenge of the Rally, "Ruta Las 5000 Curvas" or in English, Route of the 5000 Curves.

- Mick Ayriss

Next page: Friday