Motorcycle Explorer December 2014 Issue 3 | Page 48
Pushing On
W
e left Pau the next morning under clear
blue skies and with the sun beating down,
launched ourselves at the mountains like reckless
frontiersmen chasing mysterious cities of gold.
After a few miles of enthusiastic riding I realised
Bob had disappeared completely from my mirrors,
but the road – the D937 – was so enticing that I
couldn’t bring myself to ease off. Besides, he
knew we were heading towards Lourdes for a spot
of biblical sight-seeing; he’d catch up eventually.
So I pushed on, tucked down on the tank as the
landscape hurtled past, the brain frantically
attempting to process too much data as the howl
from the airbox increased.
“What happened to you?” Bob had pulled up at
the petrol station about twenty minutes after I’d
arrived, but I was still a sweating mess of sun-
stroke and adrenaline. I could practically see the
grin through his crash helmet and it was obvious
he’d enjoyed the roads as much as I had, albeit at
a slightly slower pace, largely dictated by his
raked out forks and non-existent brakes. “I
thought you said we should savour each step of
the journey” he laughed. I explained that I’d been
doing just that; savouring each individual bend,
the likes of which couldn’t be found within an
hour’s ride of my home in south London. “Dude,
it’s about the journey, not the destination” I said
with a grin and Bob, who has an allergy to lazy
clichés, was immediately and violently sick.
If You Build it…
W
e reached Lourdes at about midday,
after riding the rest of the way in tandem. Bob still
wasn’t ready to give up his Marauder but for the
time being I didn’t mind. The Ninja was in its
element. At that moment there wasn’t another
bike on the planet I’d have rather been riding.
We parked up on the outskirts of the commune
and made our way towards the impressive Rosary
Basilica, the three-pronged structure that
dominates the skyline and defines most people’s
impression of this fascinating, if bizarre religious
retreat.
Lourdes would be just another pretty little town to
ride through were it not for a young French
peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous. In the
mid-nineteenth century (1858 to be precise)
Bernadette claimed to have become the unwitting
ear-piece to the Virgin Mary, who in a series of
visions, requested Bernadette facilitate the
construction of a cathedral at Lourdes. Word of
Bernadette’s miracles spread and pretty soon the
inhabitants of this once small town couldn’t move
for pilgrims and worshipers.
Despite our lacking any religious conviction,
Lourdes proved an interesting, if somewhat weird
place. It has a nice view and a strange history, but
we weren’t looking for miracles, unlike the vast
majority of the estimated five million other
tourists who flock there every year, driven by
religious zeal and, in many cases, the hope of
divine healing.
So we soaked up the atmosphere for a while,
trying to comprehend the sadness and
desperation that would drive people from all over
the world to trudge - or be pushed or carried or
herded - up to this Disney-like castle in the
foothills of the Pyrenees in the hope of a divine
intervention. Then we headed back up into the
mountains, where we spent the night in what I can
only describe as near artic conditions. The next
morning, cold, tired and miserable, we packed up
our gear and decided to head back down the
mountains and to never go up them again unless
we were heading towards a very warm and
welcoming hotel. To make matters worse, the
weather had turned overnight and we now faced
the unpleasant prospect of riding down steep and
treacherous roads in truly horrible conditions.