The 6 Days Rally 2025 – France, Spain and a little bit of Portugal

When this event was announced end of 2023, I immediately enrolled for it. Although I had a very successful rallying year behind me – a gold medal, top twenty finish of the notorious Iron Butt Rally in the US and three rallies won in Europe, among them the first and probably last 12 Days Rally in Europe – I was very keen to ride this 6 day, multiday rally through some of my favourite riding area in Europe. I kept my opinion pretty to myself, but I had not been very happy how the 12 Day Rally had turned out. So I was chuffed to learn that another multiday rally would take place again so quickly. So far, my track record was quite positive after a rough start:

• European Tour 2014 (6 days), in the virtual first place, my gearbox atomised in Spain – DNF!
• European Tour 2016 (6 days) – 1st place
• Alpenbutt Rally 2017 (6 days) – DNS as I was the rally master 😁
• European Tour 2018 (3 days) – 1st place
• 12 Days Rally 2023 (12 days, obviously) – 1st place

Another reason to join this rally announced for 2025 was the fact that Gerhard Memmen-Krüger would be the rally master – a sign of quality, promising a high level event with many interesting places to visit.

Two days before the rally, I had a chat with Arjen, one of my strongest competitors. We talked about our preparations and casually, Arjen mentioned that he already had his route ready. I was flabbergasted – the route ready? But we would get the rally only the evening before the start to do our planning? It turned out that when a link to some test files were sent four weeks earlier, an ominous file with a strange file name was also present in that folder. I did not look at these example files, after 47 rallies I deemed it not necessary anymore how the data provided would look like – this was more for rookies. Well, this superfluous file in fact was a draft file of the rally book ready for printing. How it ended up there was a mystery, but I guess it was simply by mistake, typical copy/paste problems. Shit happens.

The real problem was that not everybody was aware – this disturbed the level playing field. A message to all would have been the right choice. I had almost no time to look at the file, a working day and my delayed preparations left no time no analyse the supposed rally book in detail. What I could deduce was, as expected, that the challenge would be to create a big loop through the three countries scoring as many combos of locations as possible, this seemed to be the centre of the rally. But there was no time to have a closer look, this would be a task for the regular planning after the riders meeting. What’s the opposite of ‘head start’? I guess a good answer could be ‘handicap’?

After more than 19 months of waiting, the riders gathered in a hotel in Metz in early August 2025. After the usual paperwork, we had the riders meeting where many details were revealed. After dinner, we received the rally books and….as expected, there were little changes to the leaked version. But anyway, it didn’t matter. Let’s see this with fresh eyes. My usual routine to transform the data into the appropriate format for my planning took longer than usual as the high number of points had introduced a formula error that haunted me for one hour until I could locate and correct the problem. When I finally had all the data in the right format, it appeared that my initial idea about the rally was correct: there were many points scattered over the three countries, there were the expected combos that seemed important and the basic challenge was to do a loop through Spain and especially Portugal, picking up as many combos and high value locations as possible. Unlike in other rallies, there were no alternatives, no “should I chose route A, B or C?”. It was really “how much can you bite off AND swallow?”

The highest combo with a additional points value of more than 38.000 pts was the ‘Pilgrims’ combo, riding along the Camino de Santiago starting at the northern end of the Pyrenees all along North-Western Spain to Santiago de Compostela and the coast in Finisterre. A massive challenge, as it consisted of 19 (!) individual bonus point locations, lined up like a pearl necklace. The rally master confirmed my guess that this resembled very much the “Pony Express Combo” in my first Iron Butt Rally 2013, challenging the riders to visit a lot of small points under time pressure without making a single mistake. This combo was a “must”, both the individual points of the locations and the extra combo points resulted in more than 60.000 points, too many if you wanted to get a good result. The problem with it was that, not by coincidence, some daylight bonus locations made the planning difficult, as they can only be visited at daylight. A critical point for day 1 was a daylight point south of Pamplona. If you would not bag this one in time, you would have to wait until the next morning, actually losing time, as the to-be-documented, mandatory rest break per night was five hours. As there was darkness from about 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., you would lose three hours, waiting for the sun to come up.

The challenge for day 1 was clear: get as quickly as possible to Pamplona! However, there was another twist: in order to be a finisher, riders had to visit at least five points out of a selection of locations. It appeared that two of the locations were more or less close to my route to the Spanish border, so I had to incorporate these two spots in my plan; other locations I had to leave literally left and right. The big prize for day 1 was to get to Pamplona at daylight and decide what to do there, depending on the time. I could stop for the night in Pamplona or continue, as the next locations were all-day, which means I could visit them also in the night and maybe plan a rest in Burgos: hotels should have a 24h reception, if possible, also a secure parking, and an open petrol station nearby to document the rest break. This can be best done in a larger city, so Pamplona or Burgos were first choice. For the rest of the rally, I would have to plan on a day-to-day basis at night. The basic idea was to get to Santiago, go down to Protugal and scoop up all high points before entering Spain for Sevilla and Granada. From there, it was direction finish with some possible detours, picking up more combos. In any case, this would be a 8000+ km ride, this seemed challenging, but doable.

Day 1 (Metz – Burgos)

The next morning, after breakfast, riders were ready for a “late” start at 8 a.m. This was the right time, after all there would still be 150 hours of rally time ahead of them, so there was no need for an early bird start. After many farewells, riders set off in perfect conditions and good mood. More than six days (actually 6.5 days) were ahead of them and all kind of experiences could be expected. Will the bike endure everything? Will the rider endure everything? Do I have a good plan? What mistakes will I possibly make? How hot will it get on the Iberian peninsula? What’s my back-up plan? Etc etc etc…These are possible questions that might haunt the leaving riders. I for my part, had a relatively simple task for day 1: Get to Pamplona before sunset and make small detours for three locations next to the road or in the case of Bergerac, a 20 km detour from the motorway. That’s it. Enough to focus on. Think about the coming days later in tonight’s planning session. Go!

We rolled out of the parking lot and everybody headed for the motorways. As usual, I tried to get away from the pack as quickly as possible to go at my own pace. So this was a day for rolling on the French highway. Luckily, the BMW has a cruise control that would ease the need for constant speed. I took the motorway to the south towards Nancy and Dijon, picking up one location along the way, a memorial in the countryside on the top of a hill. Interestingly, the tablet suggested a bumpy road that saved a few minutes compared to the daily plan. I zig-zagged to the south-west, only interrupted by my second monument in Montceau-les-Mines. This was rather uncommon for rallies in Europe, riding for hours without a bonus point location. Four hours later, I left the motorway near Périgueux and rode towards Bergerac. This was the only larger detour from my route for day 1, but 4150 points were too many points to be left aside. It was quite hot now and I had to waddle to the statue of Cyrano de Bergerac to take a selfie.

I headed back to the motorways to pass Bordeaux and to ride through Les Landes towards the border with Spain. Next to Bayonne, after a quick 10 hour ride mostly on motorways, the rest of the day on secondary roads was about to start.

I started my ascent to the Pyrenees and crossed the border to Spain soon. I still have my lowered footpegs on the K1600 which makes riding more relaxed… until you ride some twisted roads. The footpegs very soon were throwing sparks! I needed to change my riding style and had to apply a “hanging-off” style. I spotted a flag on the GPS screen that I hadn’t expected. Was there a location I had overlooked? I stopped and had a closer look…yes, indeed there was! Next to the highest point, there was a church right next to the road. Well, this was an unexpected 1450 points, because the GPS had chosen a different route than the Basecamp software. When I look at my track now, I wonder why it differs so much from the plan, apparently the on-the-fly navigation wasn’t so bad as I was slightly ahead of my plan to get to Pamplona. I liked riding through the lush Basque Country, it is very different from Castilla to the south. I had enough time to enter a small supermarket in Aoiz at 19:30 (Sunday evening!) to get me water and some sandwiches that I could eat after having bagged that crucial daylight point south of Pamplona.

I had done it! My riding against the clock was successful which meant I did not loose some hours in Pamplona waiting for the sun to come up the next morning. After 1330 km and 12.5 h, I was only 24 min behind my very ambitious plan for today. I could ride on and visit a lot of places in the dark as there were no vital daylight points for the Pilgrims combo anymore today. The question was: where would I do my mandatory, documented rest break? There were two options: Logroño, the capital of the Rioja region or Burgos. I would reach Logroño in one hour before 10 p.m., meaning that after the five hour break, I had to start at 3 a.m. Not my preferred option, as I like to use the hours before midnight when I’m not yet tired and to have little riding in the dark in the morning when the brain still ask angrily why the hell I had to leave the bed so early in the morning. A riding time of more than two hours to Burgos seemed to be the better option. So I reserved a plush hotel not far from the centre and the last bonus point location; a petrol station for the electronic ticket to document the rest break was also near by. This went well!

The next stop was a pilgrim statue next to the road not far away, next to one of the many pilgrim hotels. As it was still before sunset, I could include a daylight bonus that was not part of the pilgrims combo. It was next to a wine museum and a monastery and I had to find the right spot. Finally I found it…it was a fountain, but not just a regular water fountain. It was a wine fountain! Publicly accessible!

I had to try the wine, it was a young and fruity one, not bad actually. It is free to drink, but you should pay if you carry some away. Onwards! The next location was another pilgrim statue in the centre of Logroño in the last rays of daylight. So my choice was the right one.

The hotel was only a few metres away, but I had to get an electronic receipt first. Shouldn’t be a problem. I had spotted a petrol station only five minutes away, but apparently the card reader did not work. Argh. There was no other fuel station in the vicinity. Well, I could go for an ATM…and I found one, withdrew some money and got the ticket…I remembered an issue I had during the 12 Days Rally in Spain. Spanish ATMs don’t issue receipts with an address, but with numeric codes that identify the bank and the individual ATM. With the same codes on the start and end ticket, the same location of the tickets was demonstrated. That’s how it was accepted in 2023. Just to be on the safe side, I phoned the president and asked for confirmation which he did. Great, now to the hotel. When I was just to enter it, I received a phone call from the Michiel the president: the rally team had discussed and the rally master had insisted that an address was necessary. I was pretty miffed, I had to find another petrol station now! I found one at the other end of the city and got my ticket. I was quite angry, because I had lost 40 min, rules should not change from one rally to another and the word of the president is always the last resort. Well, I was finally in the hotel, but had to park the bike in another place in the street, unfortunately no hotel parking was available. After a well-needed shower, I sat down and planned my second day. This was tricky, as I wanted to do a detour to the Picos de Europa, a big combo in the famous mountainous region of Northern Spain. But before that, I had to pick up some more locations in the dark.

Day 2 (Burgos – Santiago de Compostela)

The alarm went off at 4:15 and my breakfast consisted in some cookies I carried as a reserve and some coffee from the capsule machine in the hotel room. After the tough day, I took it easy and managed to get the start ticket, vulgo the documentation of the first rest break, 14 min later, i.e. my rest break lasted 5 hours 14 min. In order to get the combo points for the rest breaks, all six breaks had to be documented properly, less than four properly documented breaks would result in disqualification. In the e-mail that contained the picture of the ticket, the correct code had to be used. It could be easy to mix up the 12 different codes in the week ahead, so I had to 100% focus when doing this, maybe in a tired state of mind. This explained the relaxed, but safe attitude.

The route for this day was not easy to plan as all of the Picos de Europa Combo points plus one extra high point were daylight points. Sunrise was only at 7:09 a.m. and the shortest route to the first location was less than an hour. Solution: in a zig-zag way, I included two locations of the Pilgrims combo before I would head north into the Picos. Nobody was on the road when my burning lights cut through the dark night. One pilgrim sculpture in Frómista and one pilgrim statue in Carrión de los Condes later I rode north to the famous mountain range. Slowly daylight disappeared and I began my ascent to the first Picos location up on a mountain, at the fountain of Chivo I took my picture and headed down again. In the small village of Brañosera I took a picture of a memorial that commemorates the first declaration of city rights in Spain in the year 824. I enjoyed the winding road in the early morning sun, stopped at the Mirador “Alto de la Varga” for a combo picture and rode along a barrier lake before turning northwest again. Up on the Collado de Llesba I had to park the bike and walk up to the bear monument as the rally master had introduced a new category “T” in the rally book: “touch” means that the rally flag has to actually touch the object, not just to be in the foreground. This meant I had to walk uphill and had to fix the flag somehow with stones as the wind was strong, despite the blue sky.

The panorama was scenic, but I had no time to lose: I had again a long day in front of me. I wanted to reach the end of the Camino and stay in a hotel in Santiago for the night AND do a detour to the Northern Galician coast. Quite a programme. The next location was not part of the combo, but a very high (5590 points!)’normal’ location in the heart of the National Park: Caín de Valdeón. Basically a cul-de-sac where the road got smaller and smaller, becoming a single track road. The scenery got impressive with towering rocky mountains left and right. The intense traffic stopped me from taking touristic pictures, so I rely on Google Maps:

I took my picture, enjoyed a quick look around and rode back on the small single track road, thinking for the n-tenth time “I should come back here one day”. Which I almost never do. At the end I turned left on the national road, heading back the same way I had come from, thinking that I was finally on my way south to the Castilian plains.

Indeed, I had missed one point when I transferred the points to be visited from Basecamp to my to-do list. &!%#1!!!! I had done the same error again as in the 12 Days Rally when I lost two combos because of one small transcription error. Even when finishing the planning at 1 a.m., I have to stay alert and do a double check after having established the list for the next/same day! I turned around, swearing and lamenting the lost time. At least I had spotted the mistake in due time. I went to another valley with a nice small road, applying the hanging-off technique, until I reached a large, actually gigantic memorial plate in a rock. Well done, now let’s head south!

In Riaño, next to a lake, I finally found a petrol station. My plan to have a little lunch break was hampered by the fact that there was no seating area, so I had to choke down a soggy sandwich of the poorer kind, to remove some clothing and to continue the ride. I left the mountains behind me and descended to the drought-stricken plains of Castilla-León. An hour later, I took a picture of a pilgrim statue in Sahagún. I started to sweat now….temperature rose to 35 degrees…welcome to Spain in August…who would have guessed that? I headed westwards to the capital León where I had to enter the city centre…there it had 37 degrees…cosy! I rode to a large square in front of the Convent of San Marcos. Where could I park the bike? Ah, there were some trees at the side of the square…

I photographed a pilgrim statue in Astorga, in Molinaseca and Pedrafita do Cebreiro. In Cebreiro, I met a resting female pilgrim, for a change. Later I turned onto some very narrow singletrack roads.

When I had passed the border to Galicia in my ascent, soaring temperatures dropped a bit and the landscape turned greener, what a relief. In a little, remote farm I found another pilgrim statue in the yard. The next rural locations were in O Alto do San Roque and Samos where I picked some more pilgrim statues. Next, I had to divert from the Pilgrims Combo again and had to ride to the Galician North coast. The closer I got, the lower the temperatures dropped. But first, I needed another petrol stop. This would be the last one before the rest break. But maybe I had waited too long? Suddenly it seemed that I ran out of options…would I find one on time? Ultimately, I spotted a station that came to my rescue. I thought it was time for a little snack as I hadn’t had a proper break that day and the day still would be long. When I was munching my sandwich, another rider was entering the petrol station. It was John Gann from Switzerland. This surprised me, but what I didn’t know at that point that he not opted for the pilgrims combo. We exchanged a few words before I headed for the high point location (11950 pts) that was worth all the detour. It was actually cool now, I was riding down to the coast. I could see my destination in the distance, this was a very scenic place.

After my hiccup in the Picos, I was suspicious about my daily list and wanted to douple check with the rally book…indeed, this was a selfie location! Almost another error made! &!@%!£!!! I really needed to check every single location from now on, just as I did in the Iron Butt Rally 2023, too many miles/kilometers to loose many points. I asked some tourists to take a picture of me as the wind was too strong. And there was already John approaching, he had the same issue, so I took the picture for him. The next location was very close and also a quite high one (8650 pts) and I had to leave the coast and ascend to the mountain between the coasts. But when I arrived at the parking point, I was surrounded by a massive fog, visibility less than 5 metres. Whiteout! I had no idea what to do now? Where to go?

The points were bagged today and I had to book a hotel in Santiago de Compostela…Found! The question was…would I still be able to ride to the Finisterre, the end of the Camino AND do the daylight location in Santiago? Or only next morning? But then it would still be dark…complicated….I had enough time while riding towards Santiago. My pondering was interrupted by the scenic views in the evening lights: I made a mental note that I will have to make a longer visit to Galicia. One day. No, really! I mean it!

I decided that I had done enough today and was not keen on a night ride to the Westernmost point of the Iberian peninsula. I could still get the daylight point in Santiago, start my break, have maybe some dinner and ride to the West in the next morning. I had some issues finding the access to the pilgrim statue in Santiago, in the end I rode uphill off-road across a parc, which is quite daring with such a big bike. I found it, and in the last rays of daylight, I bagged this point that closed the shop for this day.

I had purchased some food for breakfast and thought to look for a restaurant to have some dinner, after all it was just 22:15, quite a normal dinner time in Spain. I rode around in the quarter, but could not see anything that would provide a quick meal or would be appealing enough. Well, maybe I could get something in the hotel? When I arrived there, I parked the bike in front of it (no parking again) and went to the reception. I saw the restaurant/bar was full with people, so I asked if I still could get something to eat. Well, the restaurant closes at 22:30, but I could always have some snack. No problem. Oh, good. So I went back to the BMW, locked it properly, fetched my bags and went to the restaurant. “Can I have a table, please?” “Oh, I’m sorry, it’s 22:35, the kitchen closed right now.”. “But I can have a snack, can’t I?” “No, the kitchen is closed”. I learned the hard way that Galicia is different from the rest of Spain…no chance. I had stopped early for the break, and then this? Angrily, I went to my room, had a part of my breakfast as dinner, had a shower and planned the route for the next day, carefully double-checking my list for day 3.

Day 3 (Santiago de Compostela – Lisbon)

In whatever manner I wanted to connect the dots, there was no easy way to combine them in a straightforward way. The tricky point were the daylight locations. I couldn’t find a solution to visit them at the right time. I sensed that this was precisely what the rally master had in mind…During the whole day, I kept adapting my route on the fly until I came up with the solution: I had to use “brute force” tactics. In this context, it simply means to “go the extra mile”. In other words: “ride your socks off“. But the details were not clear to me yet, I needed to adapt depending on my progress during the day.

In Aveiro, I left the motorway and crossed the coastal village of Barra to take a picture of the Obelisco de Barra at the harbour. It is actually a huge sundial. Onwards! More of the zig-zag, my next location would be 2.5 hours away. I had to cross the whole country west to east, but before that, I needed to fill up. You want to approach the lesser populated areas of Portugal with full tanks, just in case. Anyway, at 11 a.m., I had done my first 600 km already.

I had to ride 50 min back to the motorway, it was seriously hot now, approaching 41°. I took a turn to the south and recognised the motorway that I had ridden in 2022 on the way to the Ride to Eat, which was the some location I was now heading: the highest point of Portugal, the Torre station in the National Park Serra da Estrela (2000 m). A touch of Alps with nice views and scenic views over the land below. I wanted to get out of this heat and pushed the bike on the motorbike before exiting to the town at the bottom of the mountains, Covilhã. I encountered some traffic there, but was startled when suddenly the main warning light turned yellow. Huh? What was going on? I noticed that the coolant temperature was very high in the display. Gulp! I was going on the motorway and now I was trapped in traffic in the town, going uphill at 40° with little cooling wind and the ventilator turning desperately.

Finally I saw a lay-by next to the road where I entered and immediately switched off the bike. &§$%!!!!! This had never happened to me with the BMW! Was there a coolant problem? Not likely, I just had picked up the bike from the service. Or maybe a leak? What to do? I was trapped here. Well, it would take ages in this heat to get the bike cooled down. The whole motor block was a big hot piece of smelting iron. The only hope: let the bike roll down with shut-off motor to cool down a bit. So I did. I rolled down about two kilometers and saw the coolant temperature drop a bit. I waited until any cars passed by, switched on the motor and went up in a low-rev speed that would get me reasonable headwind. The yellow warning light was still on, but the temperature did not max out anymore. I rolled up the mountain, hoping for cooler temperatures. But even when I reached the top plateau, it was still 25° warm. I rolled to the radio tower that was worth 16010 points, parked the bike and took my picture.

Time for a short break. I entered the souvenir shop and passed the delicious looking cheese and sausages that were offered in too large quantities. I purchased a lot of water bottles and some snack. It was time to use the cooling vest under the jacket that needed to be filled with one litre of water. And there came Dave Winter, IBA veteran from Lancastershire, on this veteran FJR. We chatted a while and exchanged past itineraries. I rolled down the mountain again and enjoyed the views before the heat enshrouded me again. I would nervously watch the coolant temperature the whole day; even in the flat and with enough headwind, the temperature was quite elevated. But on the other hand, the air temperature leveled off at some cozy 41° for the rest of the afternoon.

During the break on the mountain, I did some replanning. I decided that it was impossible to do another loop to Badajoz, but I could pick up all the locations along the border. In the evening, I would have to decide what to do next, where I would spend the night. The next location was in the middle of nowhere, a church in white and blue, La Capela de Nossa Senhora dos Reméidos. Blistering heat.

When I arrived there, I had to take care of business first. With 90 min of daylight to spare, my plan had worked out so far. Check the rally book, get the flag, place it on the object, take picture, send picture, then take care of the other things. Like taking touristic pictures, snacking “dinner”, pondering over where to go next and where to sleep.

In the end I had a plan. I reserved a hotel near the BP location point in Lisbon that I would visit after another point on the way there. With a significant detour. A 242 km evening ride, with very little motorways. Let’s go and enjoy the evening light before riding in the night! Riding in the last rays of sunlight was nice and the landscape provided a perfect background. In the upcoming dusk, I reached the waypoint at Montargil, taking a picture of a milestone with a view over the Albufeira de Montargil. Some cheeky kids in a swimming pool were taunting me – I must have appeared like an alien in my black suit in this heat. For a split second I envied them.

Day 4 (Lisbon – Granada)

The longer sleep was very much appreciated after the tough day, more than four hours! The temperature was rather cool when set off at the petrol station at 05:43. As I had planned to do all locations in Portugal, this was the time to make a cunning move to resolve the zig-zag jigsaw puzzle: I had to go north first before I would go south again! So off I went. Mostly on motorways until I reached the exit to Nazaré. Like many times, I was totally unaware where I was in that moment. It would only be later when I would realize. I rode close to a parking near the beach. The famous beach of Nazaré, the surfer paradise.

We set off together and would ride a while together before he would turn east and I south. I could see the difference at the toll booths when he rode through with his toll device, whereas I had to stop to put my payment ring against the card reader. This cost me 40 seconds per toll booth, but I still was convinced that I did not need such a device as on a 6 days rally, the extent of this advantage could be considered negligible. After a while we parted and I passed Lisbon again, this time going south. My targets were two locations along the Algarve. First, a weird statue in a very touristic town called Vila Nova de Montes where I also filled up. I had “only” done 400 km this morning yet, but there were not so many fuel stations around, it seemed. After another 120 km, I reached one of the highlights of this rally. The last Bratwurst before America. A German sausage grill at the south-west tip of Portugal near Sagres: “Letzte Bratwurst vor Amerika”. Worth a whopping 16050 points. It was only open in a small time window during the day. I followed the instructions: buying a sausage, receiving the certificate of purchase and taking a picture of the takeaway with the bike. Real stuff from Thuringia, the sausage was delicious.

This was literally the turning point. The most distant location of the rally. Only very few people would make it here, if at all. Now it was time to turn north-east again. I had done it. I was going to visit the last location next, and then I had visited all Portuguese BPs!

Timewise, I made good progress, I visited the “museo del chocolate” in Estepa and another location in Antequera. When I filled up, I enjoyed a break in the air-conditioned fuel station, drinking a large bottle of water. My cooling vest was doing a great job again. I checked my plan again; was it possible to go up to the Sierra Nevada at daylight? If yes, I could save some time in the morning and leave early. My GPS told me I would have 30 min to spare before sunset; Let’s go! I passed Granada and started the ascent to the Sierra. In the evening light I reached the top at 2550 m sea level, la Hoya de la Mora. I had to take a picture of a hut and enjoyed for a short moment the views over the mountains, plains and ski lifts.

Another literal highlight of the day. I rolled down the mountain road and took a picture of a welcome sign of the national park for another 2750 points. Mission accomplished. I rode to a petrol station next to the hotel and got my rest break start ticket already at 21:28, the earliest in this rally. It was still very hot (35 degrees) and sweat was streaming when I locked my bike and walked to the reception.

Today’s ride was “only” 1237 km in 15h 40 min. Late start and early end.

The next morning would be special, I would ride through the Alpujarras south of the Sierra Nevada, but due to some tricky daylight locations (the rallymaster’s twist!), I had to get east to the start of the Andalucia combo first before heading west and then north again. But a late daylight point meant that I could only leave late, this meant I would have another, now even 8 hour long rest break. Luxury!

Day 5 (Granada – Salou)

I enjoyed the late start and set off at 5:30 in the dark and rode onto the motorway towards Motríl and further on to Almería. I made good progress and after one hour I exited the A-7 in direction Berja. It was still dark but the black slowly turned into a dark blue. In Berja, I stopped at the central square to take a picture of a church. It was a Thursday morning before 7 a.m., but there were many young people on the streets, like looking for something. Weird. I rode on, towards the hills to the west. Before turning away from the valley, I looked back and was stunned. This view in the dusk of the coming day looked like from a different planet. I stopped and took a picture. What did I see here? Later, I realised what it was. As I was not far from El Ejido, I saw the extension of the massive greenhouse area that is even visible from space. Not comparable to the real thing next to El Ejido, but still unexpected. The young lads in Berja were day labourers looking for a job.

The next location, only 10 min away, was the first daylight point, a stele next to the road. I was riding through some of the typical white Andalusian villages in the arid landscape in the early morning. In Cádiar, I took a picture of another wine fountain. I was riding on larger roads now and made good progress. When my satnavs were disagreeing again, I stopped and had a closer look. I thought I was on my way back to Granada as I had collected already all points of the Andalucia combo. I spotted on the map that I had not listed a high 5650 points location. Another mistake duly corrected! I had to ride up to the village of Cañar on a winding road to take a graffiti picture….and ride down again.

Now it was time to head north again, basically back to the finish in Metz….with some detours. A lot of detours. I passed Granada and exited the motorway to take a picture of one of the famous Osborne bulls. Back on the motorway, I rode north and after an hour, entered the town of Bailén to photograph a mural. Back to the motorway and further north. The next series of locations belonged to the “Cervantes” combo, worth some 8.000 points. The first bonus were the windmills near Consuegra, situated on a small ridge. The classic Don Quixote windmills. Then back to the south to Puerto Lapice where I visited another windmills on a hill. Down in the town I had to take a selfie with Señor Cervantes himself. It was time to fill up for the first time today and I decided to have snack lunch break in the cool petrol station. I needed to plan/check the rest of the day. My next destination was Valencia where I had planned to make a family visit. From there, I would head north towards Barcelona. But first, I had a few more locations to visit.

My next bonus were more windmills, but in the picture, they had to bet inside a frame that is situated in the middle of the arid landscape. This meant I could could claim the Cervantes combo, the second combo of the day. I went east to the A3, the motorway leading to Valencia. Before entering, I visited Castillo de Garcimuñoz, where I photographed the…Castillo de Garcimuñoz! Onwards. About an hour later, I exited the motorway and rode down a neglected side road at a dam lake to take a picture of the concrete dam. The bridge marked the border to the Valencia autonomous region.

An hour north of Valencia, I visited a modern sculpture at the beach of Castellón. I remembered how during the European Tour 2014, my BMW gearbox atomised at night in an orange grove in the vicinity of Castellón. I hoped for a different outcome this time. The next location would be in the Delta of the Ebro river. At 20:40 p.m., I took my last picture for the day.

Right, how far do I want to go today? I could push through to get to Barcelona in less than two hours, there’s plenty of accommodation. But why hurry, I had started to like these “let’s finish early” days. Maybe I could even have some dinner. So I selected Tarragona and was looking for hotels….but the combination of a hotel not too far away from the motorway and an open fuel station nearby was difficult to figure out. So I changed the plan and selected Salou as stopover point. Salou is a touristic town at the Costa Daurada with plenty of hotels. So I made my reservation there. The hotel was a bit far from the fuel station next to the motorway, but at least I had a plan. At 21:37, I received my rest break ticket, again a very early rest. I spotted a trucker restaurant next to the petrol station and peeked inside.

I rode to Salou and the hotel. I entered the lobby and was flabbergasted to see about 40 tourists in front of the reception. I had no other option than to wait until it was my turn. After check-in, I parked the bike in the underground parking lot. The usual routine: strip the smelly clothes, take a shower, sit down and plan the route for the next day, transcribe the plan on my daily list and go to bed.

Day 6 (Salou – Lyon)

It was more than an 8 hour break again. I had made good progress and although the first locations were not daylight bonus points, I set off late at a quarter to 6 a.m. I felt quite confident that my performance so far was quite good and there was no need to push to the max. I felt that despite the rather long rest breaks, I had ramped up a lot of points. It was the same strategy like 2023 in the Iron Butt Rally and the 12 Days Rally: longer breaks, more rest, keeping a continuous flow with the right amount of indulgence.

My first stop was soon in Tarragona; at the end of the new Rambla, I took a picture of a statue of Roger de Lauria. I followed the Costa Daurada into the dawning day. In Vilanova i la Geltrú, I rode to the beach and realised that I had to park the bike and walk across the beach to a sculpture. It turned out it was worth it. This is what I saw:

Weird and beautiful. But it gets even weirder when you know the backstory of this sculpture. It is entitled “Pasífae” und is based on the person of Pasiphaë in Greek mythology.

Pasiphaë was the daughter of god of the Sun, Helios. Pasiphaë was given in marriage to King Minos of Crete. Minos was required to sacrifice “the fairest bull born in its herd” to Poseidon each year. One year, Minos refused to sacrifice the animal, and sacrificed another, inferior bull instead. As punishment, Poseidon cursed Pasiphaë to experience lust for the Cretan bull. Ultimately, Pasiphaë went to Daedalus  and asked him to help her mate with the bull. Daedalus then created a hollow wooden cow covered with real cow-skin, so realistic that it fooled the bull. Pasiphaë climbed into the structure, allowing the bull to mate with her. Pasiphaë fell pregnant and gave birth to a half-human half-bull creature that fed solely on human flesh. The child was named Asterius, after the previous king, but was commonly called the Minotaur.

I exited the motorway at Blanes and was looking forward to one of the riding highlights of the rally: the Costa Brava coastal road. But first I had to get to the harbour in Blanes through the morning traffic; I took a picture of a steel sculpture of musicians. The road from Blanes to Tossa de Mar via Lloret de Mar is always very crowded and slow. But then I was ready to ride my favorite road in Spain: the coastal road between Tossa and San Feliu de Guíxols. 20 km of pure pleasure. Excellent tarmac (most of the time), one bend after the other, up and down, perfect radiuses, and if you find the time, gorgeous views on the Mediterranean Sea. I haven’t managed to make a video on my own yet, but this on-board video gives you a good idea. Pure motorbiking heaven.

You can understand my surprise and frustration when I found the road covered in tons of liquid asphalt covering small cracks. This was absolute madness and super dangerous for motorbikers, even in this bone-dry conditions. It totally ruined this riding highlight. I suspected it was done on purpose to reduce the heavy motorbike traffic, and indeed, almost no motorbikes were to be seen, very uncommon in August. Yes, there were many small cracks, but there were not affecting the road surface. And unlike in a more northern climate, no freezing water in the cracks in winter does damage the tarmac. Overkill. When I look at the Google Maps pictures from April 2025, just four months earlier, nothing was to be seen. Luckily this madness stopped at the communal border between Tossa and San Feliu at the Cala de Salionç, where the cracks were not filled. At least 15 km saved from this barbarism (well shown here).

There was nothing more to do for me in Spain, but there was another big joker bonus that I should take care of: “You will receive an additional 10,000 points if you successfully complete the #500 bonus point (High Noon)…BP500: 12:00 Noon – find a clock on a public building (e.g. train station, town hall) and take a photo at exactly 12 noon.” So in total a whooping 15.000 points.

I had not the time to take care of it so far and I did not want to postpone it to the very last moment in Metz. So while riding, I tried to figure out where I could find a public clock at the border or beyond. I concluded it would be too risky to try to find something in the village of Le Perthuis. The tablet indicated some traffic jam across the border between the border and the toll booth in Le Boulou. So I selected a church tower in a village….but despite all the pesky traffic up to the motorway near Figueres, I was a bit faster than expected. I crossed into France at 11:05, so I changed my plan to the railway station of Perpignan. I arrived at the station with 20 minutes to spare, perfect timing. I purchased a sandwich for lunch and spotted a suitable clock where I took the picture at noon. Ka-ching!

After that, I went around the Étang and walked (again!) to the end of a pier in Port Leucate. From here, it was more than two hours two the next bonus point in the National Park of Grands Causses. Near Narbonne, I rode through a stretch where the forest left and right of the motorway was burnt. Some days ago, we had been warned by the rally team that wild fires were raging here! Only a week later, Spain, especially Galicia would be terribly engulfed in flames again.

Motorists in rural France have recently been astonished to see thousands of road signs at entrances to towns and villages turned upside-down. The name-bearing roadside plaques have been unscrewed, flipped, then meticulously screwed back on. It was campaign by farmers to draw attention to what they say is their increasingly precarious way of life.

Not far away I took a picture of a small Liberty statue in Saint Affrique (sic) on the Place de la Liberté. It was a replacement for the 1889 miniature copy of the American original that was smelted in 1942. The next location and the first of the Cevennes Combo, was not far away and supposed to be situated next to the famous Millau bridge. So I had to cross it, pay road toll and exit. But apparently, I was in the wrong lane and could not exit there. I had to continue to the next exit and turn around. Aaargh! Finally, I reached the parking next to the valley where I parked the bike and had to walk (again!) uphill to the sculpure. I understood why it was another “T” (touch) point: you really had to walk up there, so nobody was tempted to stop on the motorway and take a picture from there. However, it meant that I was drenched in sweat…again.

I had to ride a large detour to actually get to Millau under the bridge from where I started the long haul across the Cevennes. For the next four hours, I rode on a mixture of lovely, winding country roads or very bumpy narrow, almost single-track roads, all depending whether I was going in an west-east or south-north direction. The next point seemed to be a bust of a man or so I thought. Next to the Grotte de Dargilan. Parked the bike at the parking lot and scuffled down the road to the tourist centre. There was a visitor centre, but I couldn’t see the bust.

It was 5 p.m. now and I had to make up my mind where I would stay for the night. I was 30 min behind my daily plan. I HAD to do the remaining six locations before sunset and only 180 km to go. Should be easy, no? Not so fast! The plan also told me that I had to ride at least 3 hours. At least I had enough petrol in the tanks. It soon was revealed where the estimated arrival time came from. These roads were slow. Sloooow. And bumpy. Bumpybumpybumpy. Although the road layout was nice and the views scenic, these sunny evening hours were tough. With mixed feelings, I remembered my accident 23 years ago, with a separated shoulder and subsequent operation in the hospital of Mende, not far from this area.

At 8 p.m., I reached the Ardèche Valley, normally crowded with tourists. But now, I could do some “canyon surfing”, enjoying the beautiful views, such as the iconic Pont d’Arc. The locations in the valley were quickly bagged and at the last point I had collected all the points of the Cevennes Combo. I made a little break, had some snack and chatted a bit with a funny couple that was enjoying the sunset with a little dance around their camper van. I had ridden the plan of the day. Now I had to get to the motorway and ride to Lyon where I had one last location before I would ride to the hotel that was situated in the centre of the city.

If there would be with a better route and performance, so be it. Well deserved. Congratulations. But I decided not to risk a DNF for the last 1 %. 99 % are ok as well. Write the short list, prepare everything, good night.

Day 7 (Lyon – Metz)

Wait a minute. A 6 Days rally and there is a day 7? Well, yes, there was a seventh day, or rather half day. We had started at 8 a.m. on Sunday morning and had to return before Saturday 2 p.m. So actually it is a 6.25 Day rally.

I finished the rest of the platter and set off from the petrol station at a quarter to 6 a.m. It was still dark, but traffic was absent and I quickly could leave Lyon behind me. It was a relaxing motorway ride on a sunny morning. After two hours, I entered the empty centre of Dijon (Saturday morning!) and walked across the pedestrian zone to a gate to take my picture. The next location was one hour to the north. I had to park the bike in a parking lot in the fields and walk through a small forest to a little stone arch that marks the source of the Marne river. Another 90 min to the north, I stopped at a church with some kind of statue next to it. Actually, it was the Basilique du Bois-Chenu and the statue was about Jeanne d’Arc. The bike had to be in the picture (!) but I managed this. The village nearby was Domrémy-la-Pucelle, the birthplace of Jeanne d’Arc, as a memorial stone revealed clearly.

This was the last bonus point location of the rally. The location west of Verdun was definitively out of question now so I had quite some time on my hands. I stopped at a rest area between Nancy and Metz with two hours to spare and 30 km to go. I needed to sit down, have a snack, relax and run through all the sent pictures. I checked every photo whether the subject line of the picture was correct. The picture in Tarragona had the wrong BP number so I sent it again. This was the only glitch I could detect.

Then I decided to calculate my expected points….meticulously. When I did sum up all the points, I was genuinely surprised: more than 518.000 points! Wow! This seemed a lot. But how much would I lose at the scoring table? Actually, there was one more, very last point:

506 25.000 pts Best Western Plus Metz: take a photo of a specific member of the Rally Team (tba) holding your rally flag. This bonus point is available on Saturday, August 9, 2025, from 12:00 to 13:45. The photo must be taken not later than 13:44. If you arrive late and/or the queue is too long to take the photo in time, then it’s your bad luck. No exceptions, take it easy. First the photo, then stop the clock.

At 12:50 p.m., I rolled onto the parking lot of the finish hotel, picked my flag and had the very last selfie made with Giel and Michiel the President.

With more than one hour to spare, I stopped the clock. I was glad to have taken the last half day quite easy. When all is over, you really feel what you have been going through. The first six days had been quite a long, hard slog. I was pushing from mornings to late evenings. Had there not been the need to adjust the route and the timing to daylight points, I would have had shorter rest breaks, barely over the minimum of five hours. I didn’t indulge in any breaks during the day and outside rest breaks with the exception of one hour of family visit in Valencia and I had twice a “proper dinner” during rest breaks in Spain. This was the only downtime when I was not riding, planning or sleeping although I also planned while eating, as usual.

So this meant that during these 150 hours, I had no time to relax, except the two to five hours, on average four hours of sleep every night. This doesn’t sound a lot of sleep, but actually it is not bad for multi-day rallies. With a mandatory rest break time of five hours, I would normally have less than three hours of sleep, given my rallying style of staying in comfortable hotels that require some more time to check in and out, but offers a more relaxing rest than the “Iron Butt Motel”, i.e. sleeping anywhere, in the ditch.

Considering all of this, it was no surprise that I was very tired now. At least I had done all my checks yet, so I could proceed to scoring soon.

The Scoring

When I entered the scoring room, I was greeted by the scoring triumvirate composed of Michiel the President, Gerhard the Rally Master and Bob the software engineer and operator of the Scoremaster software program to where we all had to send our e-mails with photographic proofs. They presented me the printout of the calculation of the software with a total points value of about 440.000 points on it. Wait, what?? That was almost 80.000 points less what I had calculated! This could not be! Well, have a look at bonus point location 262….I opened the rally book and looked at my picture that I sent:

Well, that’s the right picture….the flag is in the picture….oh, wait…..what’s this? The logo for “selfie”? This was supposed to be a selfie picture? Oh no! I immediately realised what the consequence was: as this was a location of the “Pilgrims” combo, I would not get the combo….and lose 38.950 points plus the 1.250 points for the location, in total 40.200 points less…this was massive! I had started my rigorous double-checking with the rally book after this point, so this one had slipped through. &%@?%!!£*#!!! Ok, I kept my cool. “OK, fair enough, my bad. But I’m still missing 36.000 points“.

What followed next was a demonstration how a good preparation can save a lot of points. I took the score sheet, put it next to my list and went one by one line. Every now and then, there was a claim missing on the scoring sheet. For every single one of them, I could prove that I had sent the correct picture. And for every single one of them, Bob had to admit that the picture had been received correctly, but had not been checked for evaluation. I could keep all my other points, including some combos. I had always been very critical about electronic scoring. This showed that the calculations may be right, but the human factor might still be the weak link if not all data are considered correctly.

In a way, this was not a bad result. After all the hiccups and near-misses, after all the mistakes I had spotted in time, there was only one tiny, single mistake among 97 claims! But it was a massive one, costing me the biggest chunk of points you could earn in a rally. In the Iron Butt Rally, this would mean that you’d lose many positions in the ranking. But would the remaining points still be enough for a top-tier result? In a few hours we would know more…

As usual, there was a lot of talk and banter in the lounge, all riders had a lot to tell. Anecdotes, mishaps and funny stories are shared and it just goes to show that riders had enjoyed this week very much. I heard from Arjen that despite all his efforts to save the Pilgrims combo, he missed one location and didn’t get the extra points either. We went “all-in” and we failed both to get this one right. But we knew it was a high-risk challenge without alternative. I checked into my room, had a shower and relaxed a bit.

Later, we gathered again for the ceremony and the subsequent dinner. After some summarising words, the ranking was revealed and riders received their certificates in ascending order. In the end, there were only three riders not called yet: Arjen, Marcus and I. So the podium looked like this:

I was flabbergasted as I had genuinely not expected such a clear WOW! outcome. First place with a staggering result. We quickly moved to the restaurant where we continued sharing our tales, and there were many. What a great crowd.

Conclusion

The next day, I had a relaxed day riding home and had a few hours to muse about this rally. In my short speech at the ceremony, I had already summarised my first impressions. In essence, it was a fantastic rally, carefully crafted, with a clear concept. The mandatory minimum combo made it not too easy, so riders had quite a challenge to overcome. More than six days, many in southern heat was also a factor that could rival the conditions of an Iron Butt Rally. Comparing these two rallies seems somewhat implausible to do; a 6 Days rally here and a 11 Days rally there. BUT, it’s not just about the lengths and distances. Yes, the IBR may set the standard here, but rallying in Europe is so different from rallying in North America. Especially in this rally, a lot of locations were in remote places and roads are small and slow. IMHO, this makes riding so much more exhausting than in the IBR.

I had said it in the ceremony: I don’t know if this was the “best” rally ever, but it was definitely the most beautiful rally I have ever ridden. The locations were (almost all) spot on in terms of correct coordinates, a lot of special places in stunning locations and many motorcycling highlights had to be visited. This was not by accident, Gerhard the rally master and the rally team had carefully selected the best of the best. They also set a few snares, mostly in the form of daylight points that made planning more spicy. Brilliant work.

I have the impression that I never could keep the tension so high over so many days than in this rally. This was probably my best rally performance ever. I had a big plan and I could put it into practice, but also showing the flexibility to react adequately on the fly. I resisted adverse situations and remained cool, even when my BMW was close to a meltdown. What helped to motivate me was the knowledge that I could not linger about. Fellow rider Arjen has developed into a strong competitor over the last years. Knowing that he can perform very strongly made me show me my best performance. Competition is good for business.