Scramble Out of Spain

In my 12 years as a professional photographer, jobs hadn’t come much more perfect than the one I had lined up. I was to photograph five luxury glamping accommodations dotted along Spain’s and Portugal’s southern coasts. The weather in Wales had been positively awful for a month, so a trip to one of the sunniest parts of Europe couldn’t have come at a better time. To add the cherry on the cake, I would be taking my BMW R100RS along for the ride. The ferry would get my bike and me to Santander, Spain, and the rest was all motorcycle travel.

This particular 1982 RS was showing just shy of 50,000 miles (80,000 km) on the odometer and had been no stranger to travel. Over the past eight years, I have ridden my RS during visits to almost half of Europe’s 44 countries, getting as far north as John o’ Groats in Scotland and as far south as the hills of Albania.

Back in the late ’70s, the RS was dubbed the ultimate touring machine, and 40 years later the basic needs of a touring motorcyclist haven’t changed a lot. Blistering performance and the latest gadgets are bonuses, but, in my opinion, all you really need in a touring bike is comfort, reliability and a bit of character that’ll keep you interested when the days on the road are long.

The team in Bavaria engineered this bike not for quick cheap thrills, but for longer, more meaningful journeys. Saying that, turn up the wick, tuck behind the screen and there’s nothing boring about hitting 190 km/h with ease on a 40-year-old machine.

A Leisurely Mountain Ride

I had allowed three days to travel from Santander to my first job, in the Algarve region in the south