Husqvarna 701 on the Spanish TET – riding it my way

This video details my experience of riding sections 20, 21 and 22 of the Spanish TET. The trip was planned with a strong emphasis on TET trails but turned out to be an offroad/onroad adventure.

[Music] hello everyone welcome back to the workshop today I want to talk about my recent trip to Spain to ride some of the Spanish tet um I’m going to go through uh what my plan was um how the bike performed uh on and off-road um how the luggage performed cuz I used the Rhino walk uh throw over frameless bags um how I managed for accommodation because I didn’t book anything ahead and what problems I had and there were problems um and what the conclusion you know what would I do differently and also talk about the next trip so the plan was to get a ferry to Bill baell uh with the Britany fairies from Portsmouth uh which is sadly a two-day uh two overnight um trip which is a pain in the neck um get to Bill baell ride down to Alan which is on the east side of Spain um and then overnight and then start doing the TCH from alanes which is only about 10 km into section 20 of the Spanish tet and then but my plan was to just keep riding the Tet until I got to a point where I needed to start thinking about getting back to the north of Spain to get the ferry back home so um in terms of the trip um my my sort of my dream if you like my vision was that I would be riding along in the mountains on a trail and I’d be enjoying the vistas of um Spain you know which you can only do from the top of a mountain and and I thought that would be amazing having done some of the the Tet in the north of Spain in October where I sort of got to the top of mountains and stopped and thought wow this is bloody amazing U my plan was to do exactly the same thing but on a different part so my plan was to ride down the East Side get to sort of Granada keep going and see what happened anyway got the ferry um two overnights on a on a Britany Ferry is not recommended uh I could have gotten one overnight which would have gone from Plymouth but Plymouth is 200 mil Portsmouth is only 165 so I opted for the shorter route in the UK um got to Bill Bill baell never been to Bill baell Bill baell was lovely actually um I mean you you you got the north mountains literally on the edge of the town it’s it was really nice and I I rode up into the mountains and went to alanes where I was overnighting it was about 400 odd kilometers no motorways I’m not interested in motorways and um and I overnighted in a parador uh because and I’d stayed there before I’ve stayed there a couple of times uh it was very nice I mean parador you know what you’re getting uh breakfast was great uh and substantial and then the next day so this was the um I left on the 7th that was the nth so on the 10th of April I headed for the uh tet in alanes and um I found I found the route um after a bit of faffing around um it’s not always easy to follow the TCH but anyway I found the route went down a couple of tracks that were completely not the right route and then got into the groove and I was riding the TCH and it was it was good um weather was great uh up to this point I have not had a single drop of rain from the moment I left home here to where I am on the T right now um I no rain at all um and I did did some riding and i’ got got to um a point where I needed to book an overnight Hotel because on this this particular trip I have not booked any overnight accommodation the only overnight i’ booked was in alenes and my plan was to ride get to about 3:30 4:00 think about how far I needed to go and then book a hotel well um so that’s what I did and I I got to a hotel overnighted carried on now I’m on Section 20 of the Tet and then I’m moving on to section 21 and then section 22 now um on section 21 and you’ll see from the picture that’s on the screen there is a star a little red circle with a white star in the middle now that means something um obviously it means something um otherwise they wouldn’t put it there so um I I was riding up on this mountain and and it was a pretty tough Trail you know I mean it was you know it was reasonably challenging but you know you could make good progress and the bike was doing fine and um and on the screen appeared this this note that said easy go back point now I have no idea what easy go back Point means um I’ve never had never seen this on the screen before but also I don’t know what what does it mean does it mean easy go back point if you’re going the that way or easy go back point if you’re going that way so I already done a reasonably tough bit so I thought well maybe bear in mind I’ve got no idea what this actually means and it’s all very well saying easy go back point but where’ you go back to um so I thought well I’ll just carry on so I did carry on and I went over a couple of mountains um you know over some big ridges and some you know pretty interesting stuff and I got to a point where I was going down um you know I could see this Valley this this quite steep um mountain in front of me going down to a valley and you could see trees and you know wood you know a meadow and um I got to a point where I was basically in a track about maybe a meter and a half wide and it was it was I mean all you could describe it as is a storm Gully um because it had extremely steep sides and in the middle of this sort of V were big boulders and small Boulders and gravel and loads of like stuff that you didn’t really want to Ride On and On The Edge was literally about two Tire widths wide of relatively flat ground well there’s no way you could ride on the slopey bits because it’s too steep if you go on one of these you might go sort of 20 m 30 m 50 m and realize actually you should be on this one and then you got a right pain to try and get across so anyway I got to this point and I’m I sat there and I’m looking down this very very steep Galley thinking well this is this is interesting uh so I switched the engine off and I sat there for a moment and I thought well I can’t turn around I mean turning around really isn’t an option certainly on my own you know if I was with three other people or two other people you’d think right let’s let’s all work to get the bikes turned around and and we’ll go back but I was on me own so um anyway I had no alternative to go down so I left the engine off and um and I basically paddled with my feet down the middle of this Gully um with and I didn’t need the engine I mean if I’d been on tick over I’d have been going too fast um there was absolutely no point the engine running so the gravity was just sending me down this down this slope and it went on for I mean 500 M you know cuz I mean I’m at the top of a mountain and I’m going to end up at the bottom of the mountain so obviously it’s a blooming Long Way um and it just went down and down and down pretty much in a straight line I mean there were very few Corners uh to to negotiate and and even though they were only just slight slight bends in the road or track or Gully so um and I got to the bottom and I was thinking oh that was a bling um tough one and I you know I thought to myself well if someone had been going in the other direction there I I would estimate there’s probably only a dozen people in the whole world that would be able to get up that slope um because getting down it was extremely difficult getting up it would have been I mean like I say there’s probably a dozen people globally that could do that uh and I’m certainly not one of them so I was thinking well that’s a relief got to the bottom of this Valley uh lovely Meadow there was cows grazing and trees and there was a little river it was very pretty and you think well actually it was probably worth it just to get to this bit and then I sort of found me way out you know I was still on the TCH I was still on the route and I carried on anyway overnighted next day um and I’m on the east side of Spain which is dry and Dusty um and it’s there were a lot of flat bits on this bit of tet you know there are I had my Garmin um with me as well as my um rugged phone which is the one I was using to navigate the Tet on and I had the Garmin on at the same time and very often the would be showing that I was in the middle of nowhere which I in in you know a lot of times I was but other times I’m riding on the Tet on a on a gravel track and it’s saying well actually you’re on a road because you were on a road it just didn’t have any tarmac on it it was an unpaved Road um and um after doing that for a couple of days um the challenging bits were very challenging um and those Road the sort of the unpaved roads were just boring um and so you’re you’re riding along if you’re on a challenging bit all you’re watching is the S of the next 5 to 10 m of Road that’s all you’re focused on because you’ve got to so you can’t look around um and when you’re on the um gravel tracks you can’t look around because although you can go a bit faster the gravel varies you know it varies from a reasonable surface to quite deep Gra gravel um or there’s potholes or um so I mean you’re focused all the time on what you’re doing and bearing in mind I’m on my own so you know on the Tet website there’s there’s a whole sort of um disclaimer um before you can download a GPX file that basically says you shouldn’t do this on your own um you’re doing something exceptionally dangerous we take absolutely no responsibility whatsoever um if you decide to do this good luck um so so bearing all that in mind you know my focus was on staying staying upright and and I’d be pleased to um tell you that I did stay upright for the whole for the whole journey um I had a couple of dodgy moments I mean I stalled the bike um probably about 20 times um never never fell off um stopped on a very steep slope and nearly sort of Sid backwards several times but generally it was fine um you know the t is a wonderful um thing because someone’s actually taken the trouble to create it and and be being privileged enough to be able to use it is a lovely thing but and it’s a big but it it can be a bit dull and and probably there will be people maybe watching this that will think dull how can you say the Tet is dull but it is dull simply because you’re not seeing what you’re going through unless you stop because you can’t you you you cannot see where you know enjoy the vistas that you will be riding through because you’ve got to focus on this 10 5 to 10 MERS in front of you and my sort of um my my enjoyment of touring and and if you followed the channel long enough you I love touring as you as you will know um is to see places I I want to explore places and you know I love riding through little Villages and and seeing some wizened old girls sitting on a bench talking to her neighbor and and stopping at a little bar for a for a coffee and you can sit outside and watch the world and and I like that sort of thing and I found that being on the Ted because you’re largely in the middle of nowhere um you don’t have that same experience now I’m not saying it’s it’s it’s bad I’m just saying that for me I didn’t want to do as much as I i’ plan to do because my plan was eight days doing the TCH two days back to the north of Spain to get the ferry well after I did um 5 500 kilometers on the Tet so I you know I gave it a fair crack I did three sections 2021 and 22 and um and by then on the after sort of three days or four days whatever it was three or four days of riding the tech I’d had enough so I decided to change Tac and turn it into a road trip uh and so I I basically I was I was not far from Granada and so I basically rode west across to get to nearer to the Portuguese border I didn’t get to the Portuguese border on not on that day but um I I wanted to get more to the west of Spain I mean I I I know Spain quite well I’ve I’ve ridden a lot in Spain I love I love Spain I I just there’s almost nothing I don’t like about it apart from the East Coast which is crap because it’s full of tourists um but um yeah my plan I thought right I’m going to go I’m going to go west and I’m going to get over to the west side and I’m going to just do a road trip uh you know i’ I’d done me 500 km on the tech and I had enjoyed it but i’ I’d had enough of it um you know and I think um you know in future I’ll do it differently but I’ll get to that later anyway so I rode across to the West went up the West Side went into Portugal uh just to um because I wanted to just see a bit of Portugal because Portugal is a nice place stayed in my favorite hotel in vizu which was absolutely lovely uh and then I went off to the Northwest side of of Spain which in my view is the is the most beautiful bit of Spain there is um you know when you go out the west side of Spain and you’re going through the region called extrem aora um I’m sure I’m not pronouncing that right um and then you sort of carry on up into the Northwest it is just spectacularly beautiful um really really lovely so and that’s what I did and then I went back to s Tander and to get the fairy home I had some amazing um experiences I had wonderful hotels to stay in I um had some fantastic lunches um Absol you know like 12o lunches in a little out of the way town where nobody goes and you’re supporting the local economy which I’m very keen on doing um lovely people just just very very nice experiences so so that that was broadly how the trip went now in terms of the bike how did the bike go now this was my first trip away on the husk vanana 701 um so you know i’ i’ done about I don’t know 1500 1600 miles on it um before I left and i’ i’ put a gel pad in the seat cuz you know otherwise it’s like sitting on a board um had the luggage on and the bike was set up it was set up for what I wanted to do I wanted to do the off-road and I wanted to be able to ride onroad the bike was very very good um I mean it was Bloody good I mean as a as an off-road bike it’s it’s absolutely brilliant although my skills need to improve although I’m I’m not a bad Rider I I think and there were times when I either need to lower the gearing or I need to ride more aggressively Offroad to to like push it a bit harder and you know give me a bit more experience and and I’ll I’ll be doing that but the bike performed brilliantly at never never missed a beat um I did uh hold on I did 2,724 Miles door too which is way more than I was expecting to do um so it was a pretty long trip um to to be honest with you on husana um you know I was away for two weeks so so that that was pretty good um bike went went really well um the luggage the Rhino walk luggage now um the Rhino walk luggage is cheap I think I paid £120 for two and I think I think they’re 14 lit bags each um but I I’ll put put a little video on the screen and walk around of the luggage and how it was on the bike I mean obviously I was traveling light there’s no point in having a light off-road bike if you’re then going to fill it up with 60 kilos of luggage I mean why would anyone do that unless you ride a GS of course um so the the luggage worked extremely well U I know some PE you know it’s it’s not Moscow luggage or anything like that or Adventure spec it worked fine um and it never fell apart it stayed on the bike it was very convenient it held everything I wanted it to um I have absolutely no problems with the Rhino walk luggage um riding Offroad I mean obviously when you’re riding off road the bike is you know bucking around a lot um and I did find that there were times when I needed to tighten the straps because pardon me because um it basically the shaking around was just loosening things but I mean I’m I’ve no idea if you’d get that with other lug other luggage excuse me um but that’s what I got with this one and it wasn’t a problem you know you’d stop I mean you’d be stopping anyway um and just make sure the straps are tight and everything is fine no problem at all with the luggage uh accommodation my normal MO is to plan and book hotels in advance before I leave England um on this particular uh trip because I didn’t know where I was going to be when I was on the Ted I thought well I I’ll I’ll book as I go and and with I think that that was a mistake um simply because I love like to make sure I’m staying in a nice place and it takes time you know when you when you do a trip like this there’s a hell of a lot of planning involved and you know part of that planning is making sure that you’re going to stay in a reasonable place and it I just simp you know sitting arride the bike in under a tree to keep out the sun on my phone trying to find a decent hotel was not easy because I mean there’s loads of hotels and you could well why don’t you just stop at any hotel well I don’t want to bloody stay at any hotel I want to stay at a nice hotel you know because I want because I can and I want to um so I’m not going to stay in a hostel I’m not going to share a bed with a Romanian trucker um whatever her name is um so um you know I found that a pain I found it flipping nuisance and and I in future I will book hotels ahead I’ll plan better um so that was why but accommodation what I mean I stayed in some lovely hotels I stayed in a couple of not good places and and that was um you know that was a consequence really of doing it on the on the Fly uh problems uh were there any problems well for number one do not underestimate how difficult the TCH can be um there were bits of it that were absolutely lovely and easy but there was bits of it that were extremely tough um I mean you know they you’re going up often very steep loose Rock um and the you know the chances of you falling as High um there was only one section that I decided I would go around it um and I was I i’ done a bit of a like a fire Trail uh through a forest come onto a bit of Road up in the mountains somewhere um and I did about 500 M on on the road and then it was taking me Offroad again and there was a it was a very steep slope with a lot of um big gravel when you get this sort of fist sized gravel on the trails it’s really difficult because with little gravel it moves obviously but only moves like a millimeter or two or five or 10 well when you’re on a fists size bit of gravel and there you know the whole sort of track is like you move a lot you know you could move a whole tires with and when you’re going trying to push up a hill it can be challenging and there was this one section fists size gravel bits of rock Boulders and the only bit that you’d really want to ride on was on this left side and it was about sort of this wide say I don’t know 30 cm wide but to the left of it was a sheer drop into a Ravine and I thought well if I go up there and I get it wrong I’m bugged so I thought do you know what and I walked up it I walked up it to see you know where it was going to go and you know how could I do it cuz I wanted to do the te you know I wanted to do the the route anyway I decided um that um it would be prudent not to do it so I didn’t and I I rode about a kilometer down the road and then the the GP the GPX file was saying well if you turn up here you can get back to where you know you can get back to where you want um and I did and that was tough uh but I didn’t have a ravine on my left to fall into you certain death um so so that that worked fine um so yeah do not underestimate how tough it could be um I mean on on the tech website you know it tells you you need to be physically fit and I’ve I’ve said that in my previous video about the October tour you know you you do need to be fit it’s it’s very very tiring it’s tiring simply by um focusing constantly on staying upright um you know I mean that that is tiring but it’s physically tire and you know the bike’s moving around constantly stuff like that it’s um you know be careful um other problems the bike um the bike did not have a problem I had a problem with the raid garage auxiliary fuel tank um which um is here um because it’s not in the bike for a reason um it it leaked um it leaked from the not from the banjo bolt but from the actual mounting in the in the tank and it leaked from day one when I installed it um and I thought that it was simply um it was I could smell this petrol um I couldn’t see any leak when I fitted it I you know I fitted it filled it up with fuel and and I smell pet I thought was just a consequence of maybe spilling a bit but I I had this constant sort of fuel smell and I wasn’t sure well is it because I’ve got this um yeah you know is it because of this you know this this breather that is the reason why I can smell the fuel um and anyway I I then um the other thing I noticed when I was on the TCH was um my fuel range was not as good as I expected it to be now when when I’d finished doing the off-road and I started doing the onroad bit uh my fuel range was poor and and I thought well it it should be I mean exceptional given the additional tank and the reason it was poor is cuz I was losing fuel anyway um um got back and took you know the tanks off I’ve been in touch with raay garage they’re sending me a replacement tank you know which is fantastic um I mean when I dealt with raid garage over the tank initially they were extremely um responsive and I I sent them an email yesterday this morning there was an email waiting for me I’ve ordered the thing it should be here in 4 days so I’m I’m sure it’ll be absolutely fine and this is just a a oneoff but that was that was the only problem I I had with the uh with the bike um uh the the other thing in terms of problems but it’s not really problems it was the accommodation because you know as I’ve said it’s I for me it’s better to book in advance simply because you spend too much time um trying to find a hotel you want to stay in on the on the road and and that’s a waste of riding time you know it could be done much better by doing it in advance so uh in conclusion what would I do differently well first of all I would absolutely definitely ride some more of the Tet um I think trying to do uh eight days tet or planning to do8 days Tech was was way too ambitious simply because it it’s too tiring it’s it’s too boring um you know you’re not really seeing much of where you are um so I I I think next time when I do some and I will do some uh and I will do some in Spain because you know I love Spain um I I would basically I’d say do two days tet and then do a couple of days row to move to a different part of Spain to do some different trails and then do another couple of days Offroad or something like that you know do a blend of um onroad off-road rather than just focusing on the tech I mean um one other thing to mention is the um when you’re riding on your own um you know you you you are sort of mindful of well what happens if um something goes wrong you know what happens if there’s a problem and I always thought well um if if I’ll have phone range you know I’ll be able to to phone um but if I don’t have phone range then it’s possible someone will come along now when I was um I mean in the 500 km I Rod I only met one other person on the Tet he was an Austrian chap he was on a crf300 and he’d taken five weeks out to ride from um bzel in Switzerland down to Portugal um all through France through through Spain all on the tech I I don’t know where he was in in you know in terms of weeks of his journey probably had another week or 10 days to go but he said the same thing he his view was if I’m on my own if I get into trouble someone will come along well they they they won’t or they almost certainly will not um because I I literally saw him and and he said to me he I was the first person he had seen in 3 weeks of tech riding so and and you are absolutely in the middle of the no middle of nowhere when I finished section 22 and I was I and I thought right I’m I’m going to leave it here and I’m going to head West I got my phone and I had a signal and I put on to Google Maps you know where I wanted to go and and and and I kept sort of scrolling out to see where I was and I was literally in the middle of absolutely nowhere it was lovely but I it said um yeah the ne go down this road for 72 km and then turn right and I thought BL me you know if you’re going to go 72 km and you’re not going to turn at any point then you must be in the middle of nowhere you know and it it was amazing it was absolutely beautiful beautiful countryside um but yeah you know if you’re doing it be careful be careful go or go with someone you know I mean I I do it on me own and I’m happy to do that and I’ll I’ll take care so uh yeah what I would do differently i’ I’d blend it I’d book accommodation I’d plan better plan more uh now that I’ve done it a couple of done the tech a couple of times I’ve got more experience of of how it works I can I can plan better with that experience so um in terms of the next trip now I mentioned on my previous video that um my next trip was Sweden and Finland on the Tet now having done this thing and discovered more about how the Tet works and how it is for me I’ve decided not to do that um I had various books and I’ve changed one of them and the other one I I’ll just have to eat it um but I’ve decided not to do that and part of the reason is because my wife and I are going to spend some time in France and we’re going to be spending the summer in France and we are going I’ll be doing trips from uh the French house um and so I will be doing more videos about troops but I’m just not doing the Sweden and the Finland one and the other thing that I am thinking of doing um and and I I wouldn’t mind some feedback on this is I I having done I mean 10 probably hundreds of thousands of miles touring and and shared them shared some of them with you I think it would be a nice thing to do to arrange a tour in Spain for some other people so my my proposal is that I will arrange I will plan a tour okay for maybe six days in Spain for people that perhaps um have wanted to do a tour in Spain but maybe haven’t had the confidence to do the tour um so I would be leading the tour um we will stay in parador uh because they’re not stupidly expensive and you they’re a good standard um we would plan the the route to the parador to between us um each morning and we would then ride 250 350 miles you know I always think around sort of three 300 400 kilomet is is a good sort of daily thing stop somewhere nice for lunch stay in a nice place um and and I would I would plan the route um so if that’s something and I would do this in September so if that is something that you think you might be interested in doing then put something in the in the messages and I’ll put um well actually you could send me an email I’ll put an email address on the screen and you could drop me an email uh and just say you know yes you’d be interested in doing or no you wouldn’t um well actually you don’t need to tell me if you wouldn’t because I there’s no reason to tell me that um but if it’s something if it’s something that you think you might want to do then let me know because I just like to gauge interest um and just just see you know that’s that something what that people might want to do I mean I’m not doing this as a business I’m not doing this to to start you know some uh you know money making scheme I just think it would be nice to share and to encourage people to enjoy what I enjoy okay so so that that’s what it’s about so that’s it um when I get the tank from raid garage I will do a video about swapping that over and and some of the things that I discovered when I when I had the problem um but in the meantime um I hope you’ve enjoyed this video I hope it haven’t gone on too long it sounds like it might have done um and ride safe and um I shall see you next time so thanks for watching and bye for now