Tag: Spain bike tour

The Lisbon Six

Posted on by Ryan

From Segovia to Lisbon we had the option of a 7 or 6 day ride, we opted for the bigger mileage 6 day ride to give us extra time in Lisbon to sort out bikes and other stuff for flying to the US. Another wild camp on the cards as there were no accommodation options as we continued on the plateau amid the mountains we had been riding for a couple of days. I’ve been getting lazy with taking pictures so bug me and I will pick the effort up. We passed through the town of Avila which had a city wall to match Segovia (no pictures) and continued on to an unknown destination. When it got to 9pm and our surroundings were still corn farm fields I began to get a little concerned over finding a prime quiet spot away from the road. A few miles later the trees started picking up, we stopped midway up a hill to check out an area behind some bushes which had some old flattened tracks, turned out to be the local tipping ground. We settled on a thistle riddled patch of grass just of a layby, barely out of traffic view but it was getting late and we would leave early. Always remember to check the ground isn’t moving when trodding through this kind of bush, don’t want to step on any snakes like some of the flattened ones we have been seeing.


Ate breakfast and brushed teeth by the roadside like a pair of bums and breezed along happily to Fleet Foxes. A glorious morning, the kind that reminds me how lucky I am. When your stinking, hungry knowing you have 70+ miles to ride again somedays it can be hard to ‘saviour the moment’. So much happens everyday, long days outside with your eyes taking a million pictures and brain thinking about where the next rest, accommodation, food and drink (all kinds) is coming from, whether that squeek on your bike is going to lead to something serious, lots of uncertainties. Its often the case you don’t appreciate something until its over, so its nice when you do get that happiest feeling of where you are and what your doing that it puts me in a great mood all day and I can just enjoy the ride.

This day was made even better when we met Javier, a local who is an accomplished bicycle tourer, loaded and unloaded he now runs rides for http://www.ibericactc.com. He joined and chatted with us all the way up a climb, took us to a water fountain in a small town to fill our bottles up with the delicious cold water from the surrounding glacial lakes. On the other side of the pass he pulled us over to some cherry trees, the areas local economy, then stopped in a town after and epic descent and bought us some drinks. It was great to have a local guide like Javier, if it wasn’t so hot and he didn’t have to ride back up over the mountain I think he would have joined us all day. He gave us some good route advice which unfortunately we could only follow for a while to Caceres as we didn’t find many camping options online for the rest so ended up sticking to our original planned route. Thanks Javier, I will come back one day and see the rest of the route you told us to take.



It took them a while to pick up but Spanish campgrounds are great. Staying at mostly municipal ones that adjoin the public swimming pools, perfect for a post ride dip to cool off if not to actually swim. The Caceres one in particular was a highlight, each tent spot featured its own small building which housed a personal sink, shower, toilet. It even had table and chairs! Simple pleasures but we are used to sitting on our air mats outside on hardground as our poor tired thighs threaten to cramp up. I was accustomed to wooden benches on each plot whilst camping in the US but these chairs were the first we have had in the whole of Europe.


Since Segovia we have been on the 6 day countdown, something about getting towards the end of a section has triggered a natural reaction to speed up and ‘get there’. After crossing the final border to Portugal we had to deal with a few dog chases guarding the strange mix of orange and tobacco fields. In the town of Elvas we witnessed a local custom that we saw in France in which a post wedding parade consists of 20-30 cars doing laps around town beeping their horns, we road alongside and got big smiles and happy toots, a good place to be. The final approach to Lisbon wasn’t so good, our route would take us North and than descend south towards the city in a zigzag to avoid the major roads, it took us through mostly industrial estates and busy roads still but the end was in sight. 5 weeks since leaving home riding to the ferry then trekking from Belgium through Ardennes to France, into the Alps of Switzerland across the vineyards of southern France, over the Pyrenees towards the heat of Spain and finally beautiful Portugal.




So we are in Lisbon with days to spare, but those days were needed. We spent a full day and lots of walking trying to locate 2 cardboard bike boxes to package our steeds up and 2 big sports holdalls for our panniers. Lisbon is a nice city but we have had so much to do getting gear cleaned, sorted and ready for the USA section of the trip I haven’t taken any pictures, a wiki link will have to suffice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon. To Boston we go hopefully with a safe flight for luggage and bikes, I cannot believe I am going to be riding my bike across america AGAIN! 😀

 

Truck Stops And Hotel Hops

Posted on by Ryan

We maxed out the uber breakfast in Hotel Calatayud. After inhaling about 3 cups of coffee I also managed a bacon and egg sanga, bowl of cereal, pastries, water melon and more. Hotels for the next couple of nights too until Segovia still no camping options but they do pick up from there right through to Lisbon, we will probably try our hand at a few more wild camps before then.

From Calatayud we headed to Almazan, flatter terrain but Spain continues to surprise from hot rocks to woods. The smell of hot tree bark seeping from the dried out forests lining the roads is an odd favourite of mine, it reminds me of Idaho. The next day to Villarejo was started early as we had a 77 mile ride to make our booking at the Mira sierra and more importantly the England – Italy game on the evening which I won’t dwell on.

The following 35 mile ride to Segovia was a breeze, we nailed it in about 2 hours 30. We only made 2 brief pitstops at our beloved Repsol petrol stations. Not exactly glamorous but they are our absolute lifeline, we would struggle to complete some days without them. Particularly the past few days when towns have had nothing we rely on petrol stations to restock water and get our sugar kicks. They usually have a vending machine out front too which is great for getting rid of change. In the supermircados its not always easy to understand how much a shop has cost when the assistant speaks fast and there is no screen. So I normally play it safe with a note, like on a night out in a loud bar, which usually means finishing up with a pocket full of shrapnel.

The day off in Segovia was much overdue, it was actually the first day since starting I didn’t look, sit or ride on the bike. Its a pretty place, a world heritage site in fact, with incredible historic landmarks littered on every corner. Definitely the type of place to take a girl rather than the guys, but me and Eal will enjoy a few beers. For some reason almost every tourist in Segovia was American, mostly young teenagers. I think an entire state must have funded all schools in its counties to take a trip to Spain, you can reach Madrid via a high speed rail line in 30 minutes.

We’ll enjoy the comforts tonight, another wild camp followed by 5 campgrounds until we reach Lisbon, getting close.

¡Viva España!

Posted on by Ryan

We miss our French pastry breakfast, Spanish breakfast is coffee and a bread roll with jam, unless you can score a Spanish omelette, then your cooking. The trusty road we had been following all day directed us towards a tunnel which passes through a mountain, Tunel De Berga. The tunnel was dark, there was no shoulder or indication of how long it was and cars were cruising through at 70. It would take us to Berga, but was it worth the risk? The other option was riding around and up into the mountains probably a 2 hour detour. After much umming and arghing we psyched each other up, donned hi-viz jackets and lights, waited for a break in traffic and raced into the tunnel. We road hard and fast for about a minute until the light appeared at the end of the tunnel, relief. Remember to take chances sometimes.

It turns out the only rain in Spain is not just on the plane as we had a light sprinkling which soon gave way to sunshine which is now forcast to last for the next week at around 100 degrees, no weather worries. Spanish scenery is so unsettled, mountains give way to false plains which then roll back to mountains over each hill and around each bend. Sometimes one half of the road is lush green with trees whilst the other half can be baron and parched with mesas and red rock formations running along the roadside. I love the variation to look at from the saddle.

We arrived in Lerida hoping to pick up a campground within 10 miles only to find the closest was 50 miles away! After scouting around town without success looking for wifi to verify there was no camping we ended up finding a hotel, not such a bad deal in the end with breakfast included. The spanish economy being what it is at the moment everything has seemed pretty cheap, a can of beer for about 30p and decent hotel rooms for £15-20 each.

One thing we now know is that this part of Spain does not do camping. We have rode through fairly affluent areas all trip for the most part but leaving Lerida we passed by several sun bleached run down towns, no crops growing in the dried out fields and no shade from the sun, who would want to camp here? That pretty much explains it. It means for the next few days we will have to stay in hotels, for the night between Lerida and Calatayud however there was abosulutley nothing. We decided to ride until sunset, pull off the roadside and wild camp for the night. It must have been around mile 75 we thought it was time. We walked the bikes 2 minutes off-road into some trees and setup camp. I took a baby wipe shower (I can’t be the first?) and hit the sack. Best motto for wild camping is arrive late and leave early, you can’t be sure who’s land your on so thats what we’ll do.

The sound of trucks on the road woke me up, I kept having visions of a spanish farmer rolling down in his tractor with the dogs I could hear barking in the distance. I shouted eal, we packed up and left at about 5:30am, straight onto a climb out of the valley the first 30 minutes we got to take in a full sunrise, they never get old. A long hard slog in the mountains, hair still matted to my head from the night before. After multiple siestas we hit mile 85 as we arrived in Calatayud, the town camping was closed and looked liked it had been for sometime. Another hotel, classy joint too ah well we’ve earnt it!

 

Pyrenees Ahoy

Posted on by Ryan

It was always going to be a late start leaving Montpelier as we couldn’t pick the bikes up until 11am, nice to have a lazy morning for once anyway. We do still need to get to Lisbon for around July 3rd to sort out boxing the bikes for the flight to Boston on the 5th. It was a case of see how far we can ride before it gets too dark to find a campsite or we get too tired.

Eal’s bike was still skipping one gear and his left pedal had developed a squeak whilst the shop who had replaced my rear tyre forgot to replace the cap on the valve. Not big issues but pretty sloppy job from the friendly guys at the shop which had seemed really good. After about 70 miles we had gotten to Serignan not quite as far as we had hoped but there was camping by the beach and we resolved an early start tomorrow to make up a couple more miles. The camping direction signs kept highlighting the fact it was “Camping Naturiste”.

When we got to the front reception I saw a few old guys strolling around in speedos. Now everybody already knows that mainland Europe is yet to discover the “swimshort” but for some reason I had visions of us entering a nudist campground. This wasn’t helped when we navigated towards our plot for the evening and saw those same guys sun bathing in deck chairs. From a sitting point they looked naked, when one guy went to stand up I almost fell of my bike. It turned out to be a nice place, sort of like a Butlins in the sun, the evening was spent on the beach staring out at the Mediterranean.

New bar tape!

An uninspiring but direct day followed, we hopped on the N9 almost all day a primary road made suitable for riding by its proximity to a major highway which runs alongside it the whole way past Perpignan. Not pretty but direct, good to bag some miles quickly for a change.

We had seen the Pyrenees on the horizon for several days. Last time I had seen them was skiing in Andorra 2 years ago, slight difference in temperature this time. The border to Spain is at the top of Col d’Ares at around 5000 feet, I’ve cycled higher before, Hoosier Pass was 11,500 feet. Today however we would be starting almost from sea level, a mammoth task on a loaded bike.

It was sweltering hot. The sweat pouring from face into my eyes and dripping from my nose was causing me more problems than the actual climb. My chocolate bars had melted so I resorted to spooning them over my last bread for sandwiches. Midway up things started getting steep to the point at which your going so slowly clutching onto the handlebars that your defenselless against flies who have free range to buzz around your head and land where they please. Pulling round one bend there was a Col sign which seemed a little too soon to be the top, it was and we were actually only about 2/3rds up.

The final climb and the following descent into Spain left a smile across my face that just wouldn’t budge. Even on a long tour you only have a couple of days like this when there is a massive obstacle in the shape of a day long climb to overcome. When you reach the top still smiling, sun on your back with epic landscapes all around, they tend to go hand in hand with a mountain pass, that’s when you achieve the importance of feeling strong which I talked about. Buzzing.

I don’t really know what to expect from Spain, I’ve been to Portugal/Spain/Spanish Islands over a dozen times but always to the British tourist areas so inland Spain is a bit of a mystery to me, great start though.