Motos (or lack of) on the Camino Frances

[grayland]

I have wondered about the lack of trail bikes or motos on the Camino Frances in Spain. This is a good thing but I have been surprised that it is not a problem.
Much of the south of Spain is overwhelmed with young people on loud motos all day and night. The villages are bad with the sound bouncing off the walls.

Do you see motos on the trails? I have not and really don't thnk I have seen any serious sign of them. I don't think there are many in the villages and towns in the north either. I doubt that just forbidding them would keep them out as that does not seem to work in any other part of the world. :wink:

 

[MikeB]

I saw a couple last summer on the Camino Primativo on the part you would have hoped was the least likely to see them - on the wonderful isolated part from Borres to Berducedo that passes via los Hospitales. There were two of them and of course, the sound they made was so out of place in the silence. I did just wonder though, if they were not actually using the path as a route to go to work, rather than for a day biking.

I saw and heard a couple of Quand bikes on the Chemin du Puy near Saugues and then I must admit my feelings were then not quite as forgiving - my walking compnions and I were hoping the Bête du Gévaudan would make a brief return! (If you have yet to walk from Le Puy, at the entry to Saugues, there is a huge wooden statue commemorating this mythical beast that was blamed for killing 100+ people in the 18th century.)

And this is the result of what motobikes can do to the Camino. This was taken about 6km before Sauveterre de Béarn, a day and a half before SJPdP in March 2008. So let us hope that bikes will keep to the roads where it is not for us to walk, and let us walk where it is not for the bikes to ride

 

[isabelle304]

I did not see any when I did the Camino Frances but I did come across them (trail bikes mainly, and quadbikes once) several times on the Via de la Plata, usually at weekends. To be honest they did not bother me that much.