7/9/05 We set off from Pau heading towards a small town called Colliure (spelling???) which is just north of the Spanish border on the Mediterranean. We drove through allot of great little French towns one of the nicest being Foix, I would like to go back and spend a few days looking around. Everywhere we went there were signs for the tour de france, apparently we are about a week early to miss this section. We came across some great windy roads with some amazing tarmac, I guess that is why they do the tour de france on these roads. I really did miss my Honda today as she would have enjoyed these roads. As we came out of the Pyrenees and the elevation started to drop the scenery changed as quickly as the temperature. The scenery quickly went from trees and very green to a more brown and vineyards. The temperature climbed quickly and there was almost a taste of salt in the air. I have always been fascinated by the Mediterranean, just always seems like such an exotic place so with that in mind it may have been my imagination that I could taste the salt in the air since we were still 30-40 miles from the Med. It was quite an amazing site when I came over the hill and the land gave way to a beautiful blue body of water. We all pulled over and enjoyed the sun and the smell of the ocean, realizing this was one of the moments that we live for. We found a campsite on the beach and settled in for a relaxing nights rest. Today’s Specs Weather: 80 Distance: 120 miles Pau (France) to Colliure   7/10/05 This morning was a beautiful sunny morning and first thing on the agenda was to get my new knobbly tires put on the bike. But before any work could get done I had to go for a swim in the Mediterranean scrub the undercarriage. After floating around and washing up Geoff and I headed into town to find a gas station with a compressor so I could change my tires and Geoff could change his sprocket and chain. We found a little shop about a mile from the campsite and the owner in typical grumpy French hesitatingly let us work off to the side. As usual the rear tire was quite a battle and every know and again the grumpy French shop owner would come over and get upset watching me and push me aside and grab the wrenches and lend a hand. He would get me on to the next step and walk away after a few minutes he would come back over and watch again till he couldn’t take it and jump in again, the whole time with a sour look on his old wrinkled face. All in all I think it went very smoothly and we were all changed and back in the campground in less than 90 minutes. I had worked up quite a sweat during this tire changing business and apparently there were some topless ladies down at the beach so it seemed like a proper thing to head down and go for a swim/perv session. I love European beaches. Once we got camp packed I was able to convince the campground to store my side panniers and extra tires for a week since it was too much weight to take. After that was sorted we stopped and picked up some salami/bread/cheese and had a quick lunch by the beach before setting off on the dirt track. Well it took a while to find the dirt track but after Ian got the road book sorted off we set up this road that I would have had trouble walking up, let alone on a 680lb motorcycle. Well with Geoff right behind me I set up and made it about 20 feet before falling over, shit this sucks. Geoff with a smirk and a look that he was finally more in his element than the road riding of the last couple days helped me lift the bike. Alright I set off again and quite impressively made it about 30 feet before having a get off. Well as Geoff gladly helped me lift it again Ian had gone up and turned around and came back down. He pulled up with a smile and said this isn’t even the right road. Well this is where the bike finally earned her name. Ian in his perfectly dry sense of British humor smuggly says ”HHMMM how are we going to turn the battleship around” I said no worries, no determined not to look like a complete ass, ughhmm Josh not to inturupt but pretty sure you passed complete ass on the first get off, shudd-upp. After taking a deep breath and concentrating I made my way up the hill and even turned around and made back down looking somewhat skillful. After another 10 minutes of riding around we found the right dirt track that was much less challenging and I decided the best place for me was at the back of the pack so I wouldn’t worry about how fast I was going and holding up Geoff. I felt much more relaxed with them ahead of me and was able to concentrate on my bike. Well the next several hours of riding was absolutely amazing scenery of vineyards going up the side of a mountain overlooking the Med. The rest of the day was spent enjoying the scenery and enjoying and dirt roads. The roads became more and more technical but as I became more comfortable on the battleship I was doing quite well and I was quite glad I put knobblies on instead of the road tires. At the end of the day we found a little cantina that was opposite and old castle that was right on the border of France and Spain. The owner let us set up camp and served us sandwiches and wine. Being such a beautiful night I decided to sleep under the stars, we found a great overlooking the castle on the next hill and settled in for the night. As I was drifting off with thoughts of years of past and what had happened around this castle I felt a sharp pain on my hand. I quickly itched it and drifted off to sleep. I awoke a couple times in the night with the same sharp pain on my forehead, but to tired to worry about it I drifted back to sleep. Today’s Specs Weather: 100 F, Hot and Sunny Distance: 30 miles, Colliure to some cantina by a castle.