Salomon Women Will Trans-Iberian Adventure

Still haulin' anchors with Radio Euskadi

2008-07-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

Very few people are as up on the movements of Spanish travellers as Roge Blasco is. Roge is the host of "Levando Anclas" on Radio Euskadi, the Basque regional radio station; and during the Trans-Iberian, we chatted on a weekly basis about how it was going and what the challenges were.

About a month back, we had a chat (in Spanish) that sort of summarized the entire trip, and it was funny to hear the recordings that he'd made and to think back to when we were doing the trip, trying to keep the panic out of my voice as we got blasted by every storm imaginable. As I mentioned, the interview is going to be in Spanish, and I don't know if it's going to be broadcast over the internet...but here's the entry about the interview, in Roge's blog:

http://blog.eitb.com/rogeblasco/2008/07/01/levando-anclas-13-de-julio-caballos-y-ch/

"Levando Anclas" is broadcast on Radio Euskadi every Sunday night at 9PM.

One more time?

2008-06-28T01:36:00.000-07:00

Careful, my father said when I got back to Madrid. You're going to have a tough time readjusting to being back after being on the road for a while. And he was right. As difficult a challenge as it was, being back has been an even bigger challenge: there are times when I'll be on the bus or walking somewhere in the city, and I'll look up, and my mind will temporarily timeshift and I'll think, God, not so long ago I was riding up over there. I was free, on my bike for six weeks.

It's been almost two months since I got back and I have to confess that my mind is still on being away. I've decided to go back and do the first half of the route in August, to be able to experience it and truly, truly enjoy it, doing it with friends and in much better weather. I don't know if this is going to become an addiction or just something that requires constant upkeep, but in any case, my mind is definitely set on heading back.

A couple of my favourite Pedalibre people are coming along for various parts, and during the week, it looks like I'll be able to have some days riding solo.

I've been staring at the Day Thirteen Route Sheet for the last three days and have maybe written a dozen words. Is it time to head out again?

Why aren't these railways being turned into greenways?

2008-06-25T22:50:00.000-07:00

A deserted cut in the forest. The shell of a formerly magnificent building, its dark-blue enamel sign dripping rusty ooze. Grass and small trees popping up among the rail ties.

Spain has almost seven thousand kilometres of railway lines that are no longer being used. I'm no expert on railways, and I know that taking on the role of activist in Spain has its limits and requires miles of patience.

But here are five chunks of disused rail lines which I've come across on my travels during the Trans-Iberian. I know the reasons that would be given for not turning these into rail trails (the usual suspect being money, money and money). But if any lines have the potential to be great destinations for cycling, these ones do. So, aside from money, where's the delay?

1. ARANDA DEL DUERO TO SORIA (about 300km)

This one, left, is the former line that used to unite the cities of Valladolid and Soria - a trail which would go through some of Spain's prettiest countryside, linking historic towns that dot the Ribera del Duero wine region.

2. BURGOS TO MONTERRUBIO DE LA DEMANDA

Another of the many railways constructed to bring coal to Burgos. According to to the nice folks at Burgos en Bici, this greenway has been "en proyecto" (under development) for at least six to ten years, but as you can see here, not much seems to have been done. This greenway would serve as an ideal complement to the Vía Verde de la Sierra de la Demanda; and, along with the Camino de Santiago, would give cyclists a perfect opportunity to visit the interior of Burgos province over the weekend.

I'm going to keep taking photos of these and I'm going to get in touch with the various tourist offices to find out what's going on with these. Not all of these railway beds could run through private property. So what's the holdup? Money? Lack of public accountability? A perception that no one gives a damn?

It's all right if it sucks.

2008-06-02T23:08:00.001-07:00

One of the things that kept me riding (and sane) throughout the trip was my weekly chat with Roge Blasco. Roge is the host of two renowned radio shows about travel, La Casa de las Palabras (The House of Words) and Levando Anclas (Hoisting Anchor) on Radio Euskadi, the Basque regional broacasting network. At the end of every week, after 9:30 in the evening, we'd talk for ten or fifteen minutes about how the trip was going. No one in Spain is as up on the movements of travellers as Roge is: you name the means of transport or the country, he knows someone who's been there and done that, but there's always a note of enthusiasm and jealousy when he interviews you. It's like at any moment you expect him to say, "Gimme a couple of hours, and I'll be there..." and for him to slam down the phone and show up at your hotel before sundown.

Yesterday we did a taping for an edition of Levando Anclas which will be broadcast in July, and Roge brought up the fact that a lot of the problems that we had on the trip were weather-related. And I thought about something that I read last week, which makes all the more sense now that I've got some space to reflect on the trip.

CNN correspondent Anderson Cooper is the cover story on this month's edition of OUTSIDE magazine. He's been a reader of the magazine for decades, and was inspired by the article to take a trip across Africa when he was barely out of his teens, and from there went on to be one of the channel's best-travelled journalists. For copyright reasons I can't clip the particular question and answer that moved me, but if you click here(http://outside.away.com/outside/culture/200805/anderson-cooper-2.html) and do a search for "It's supposed to suck", you'll see which one I mean.

It was a great relief to read this. It was a relief to see someone else say that it was all right if the trip didn't go perfectly, if the weather sucked or you realized that you were generally a lot happier when your travel companion went off on his own and you didn't see him for three days. It was all right to be awake at night, normally at 12:03 AM, obsessing about whether someone was going to steal your bike and leave you stranded in some lost town in Soria. (Funny, I never obsessed about breaking my neck - but the thought that someone would nick Ruby gave me more than one sleepless night.)

And Mr. Cooper is right. You learn a lot more about your own limits and your own sense of possibilities when things don't go perfectly. If you don't have adversity, you don't learn how strong you actually are, how resourceful you are and that it's all right to be alone. A woman travelling alone is not an automatic target for all the evil and crime in the world. As women we receive messages, consciously or unconsciously, that if we go down into the woods today, we're going to end up dead in a ditch somewhere, that we're just asking to be raped or attacked or God knows what. (I should get my mother to fill this part in.)

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't take precautions. But fear has limited value when undertaking something like this. If you're too fearful, everything is going to seem like a threat, rather than just crap that happens to everyone. You don't get bad weather because you're a woman travelling alone. You don't get pelted by hail because you're a woman travelling alone. Sometimes it is going to suck. You just can't take it personally.

You shrug it off, you learn, and you keep your head down and keep going.

ºººººººººººººººººººººººººººººººº

Roge Blasco's blog (in Spanish:) http://blog.eitb.com/rogeblasco/

Unfair fares: A warning about Iberia Airlines

2008-05-25T00:52:00.001-07:00

A word of warning for those of you who are planning to bring your bikes to Spain this summer.

Iberia Airlines has started charging travellers €150 (each way) to check bikes in as luggage, even if the bicycle falls within the traveller's luggage allowance. They started charging the fee at the end of April, and from what I hear, it's not being applied to everyone who tries to check a bike in - people who travel on domestic Iberia flights don't seem to be getting hit for the extra money. But if you're coming over for whatever reason - Camino de Santiago, cycling holiday, the Trans-Iberian - be sure to check with Iberia that you're NOT going to get nailed for the fee, especially if you bought your ticket before the end of April and you wouldn't have known about the fee.

In the meantime, I'm going to find out how to get ahold of Iberia so that we either can have the fee eliminated or have Iberia's ISO 14001 rating put under revision....

UPDATE: Bingo, here it is.

Iberia Airlines of Spain
c/ Velázquez, 130
28006 Madrid
SPAIN
Phone: (34) 91 587 8787
e-mail: prensa@iberia.es

Riding or writing

2008-05-22T01:33:00.000-07:00

Let this be a lesson for everyone who doesn't believe that you should backup your work: I'm still (yeah........STILL........) working on the Daily Route Sheets. Given that I'm also back at work (and having to make up for six weeks of not working), it's a slow process, and it's kind of embarrassing to admit that it's taking so long. Like my buddy César says - You rode it. Just write down what you rode! Ah, were it so, but for an agonizingly slow laptop which starts smoking every time I start up Google Earth....

Anyway, the first week is almost done, and for those of you who want a specific section of the route for your summer hols - feel free to write me and let me know. I'm just doing these in chronological order for the logic of going from start to finish, but if you need a specific part, write me and let me know, and I'll tackle that part next.

Here come the Route Sheets!

2008-05-12T23:56:00.001-07:00

As much fun as it was to ride the route, it'd be a mistake to say that the work's all done. In fact, it's only begun: After the writing comes the riding.

One of the key parts of the Trans-Iberian Express is the creation of a series of maps and route sheets, in both Spanish and English, that gives cyclists the chance to do the route for themselves. This is actually a LOT more work than actually riding the route, since I've got to go back and double-check information like the names and numbers of towns and highways, phone numbers and the like, so please bear with me as I get everything up and going.

I'm aiming to have all of the days written up and posted by the end of May. If things go well (and the weather still sucks this week), I'll probably have the first week's worth of sheets done today and the first three weeks done and up by Saturday.

You can see the entire list of sheets online at: http://trans-iberian.angelfire.com/sheetindex-e.html.

The first week is done....
Day One: Hondarribia to Errenteria-Lezo: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2925029/DAY-ONE-Final-doc
Day Two: Andoain to Lekunberri: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2928977/Day-Two-Andoain-to-Lekunberri
Day Three: Lekunberri to Pamplona: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2928961/Day-Three-Lekunberri-to-Pamplona
Day Four: Pamplona to Estella: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2928914/Day-Four-Pamplona-to-Estella
Day Five: Estella to Logroño: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3013992/Day-Five-Estella-to-Logrono
Day Six: Logroño to Haro: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3015364/Day-Six-Logrono-to-Haro
Day Seven: Haro to Atapuerca: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3140235/Day-7-Haro-to-Atapuerca-79-km
Day Eight: Atapuerca to Salas de los Infantes: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3012678/Day-Eight-Atapuerca-to-Salas-de-los-Infantes
Day Nine: Salas de los Infantes to Burgo de Osma:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3173717/Day-Nine-Salas-de-los-Infantes-to-Burgo-de-Osma
Day Ten: Burgo de Osma to Retortillo de Soria:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3186989/Day-10-Burgo-de-Osma-to-Retortillo-de-Soria
Day Eleven: Retortillo de Soria to Sigüenza
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3212864/Day-11-Retortillo-de-Soria-to-Siguenza
Day Twelve: Sigüenza to Brihuega (provisional - I need to find a better first half to Almedrones):
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3372111/Day-12-Siguenza-to-Brihuega-PROVISIONAL
Day Thirteen: Brihuega to Morata de Tajuña: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3829784/Day-13-Brihuega-to-Morata-de-Tajuna

Once the sheets have been done and translated, I'll then expand this website so that each page of the website has all the information that you need to do the route.

And, as always, please let me know if you find any mistakes or problems with the sheets!

More on the Rain: I wasn't imagining things

2008-05-09T00:12:00.001-07:00

AEMET, the state weather agency, just released data on April's weather. I wasn't imagining things: the weather in Spain was, compared to normal, far more rainy and humid. The monthly precipitation map is on the bottom of this page (the map with green tones.)

Looking at the scale ("H" is humid, "MH" is very humid and "EH" is extremely humid), it's wild to see how those lovely dark green tones happened to coincide with where we were. April 8th and 9th, in particular, were the rainiest days of the month - the days when we happened to be going from Aranjuez to Alcázar de San Juan.....

http://www.aemet.es/es/noticias/2008/05/caracter_abril08

Back in the saddle, and it feels GOOD!

2008-05-06T11:01:00.000-07:00

Just got back from being at my second day at work. One of my classes had no intention of working, so we took a look at the photos from the trip (thought: whoops! Hope I remembered to bring the pen drive home) and I think that there might be a chance of recruiting both César and Álvaro to come along for a weekend or two in July. Which would be cool: César's just bought a new bike, and Álvaro's always shown a bit of curiosity about cycle tourism, so one never knows.

Riding up to the north end of town today was GREAT! I never thought that I would describe riding in Madrid traffic as great, but I felt more sure and solid on the bike than I ever have in my life. It was brilliant. Nothing stressed me out, nothing made me angry, nothing freaked me out and I only had to mutter something to one pedestrian. Even got a cute traffic cop to say hello to me....The trip just whizzed by.

I wish I had the guts to try to ride out to the airport tomorrow, but I'm not sure it's such a hot idea, given that they're calling for more (insert your favourite expletive here) rain and hail tomorrow.

1,760!!!! WE MADE IT!!!

2008-04-26T03:46:00.000-07:00

...and for what it's worth, you actually can't go to the very, very, very southermost point in Europe because, as it turns out, the the very, very, very southermost point in Europe is actually military territory and they don't take it very well if you leave your bike there and take photos. I'm just sayin'.

So that's it: it's taken care of. It's not entirely finished yet, because I need to go back and re-sticker certain sections and take a look at other alternatives. But the ride is over, we made it safe and sound, and with the weather forecast looking good for the next couple of days, I think I'm gonna do some Tarifa-ing (i.e. park my carcass on the beach and do as little as humanly possible until it either rains or I have to go to Madrid.)

I'm not sure of what it should feel like to have done something like this. I'm not physically tired, really (although I'm glad to have a couple of days off the bike so that my hands can recuperate) but I'm not ready to go back to Madrid just yet. Mom asked me the other night if I was planning to ride back to Madrid; I said "no way", but it would be great to have the chance to try to make it back a different way. I just don't want to go back to my "normal" life yet. I don't want to have to deal with whiny students, traffic, the Metro, having to move in June, the bank, the internet provider....I just want to keep on riding, numb hands and headwinds notwithstanding....

Almost there

2008-04-25T04:07:00.000-07:00

The fabulous and quick Roman M., a native of New Jersey who's been in Spain for over eighteen years, came to join us today, and it was a good thing that he did, because I think that the three of us would have gotten a lot more disheartened a lot more quickly had it not been for the sight of someone quicker than us going uphill out of Bolonia. There's a Force 9 wind blowing through the Straights of Gibraltar today, and while it's invaluable for keeping the sky blue, it's a right royal pain in the ass, because, as usual, we're catching it full in the face. Aggravating.

But at the same time, it was a thrill to get over the hill at San Bartolomé and see the sandy curve of the Playa de los Lances lying in front of us, along with the distant blue peaks of the Rif Mountains on the Moroccan side. Even if we were all getting blown into the guard rails....

But it's Tarifa, and if there's one thing that the Campo de Gibraltar region is known for, it's for the incessant winds which blast the living hell out of the area almost daily. Years ago, Tarifa's claim to fame was its abnormally high suicide rate, which was blamed by many people on the relentlessness of the winds which assault the region. Luckily, the tarifeños have been able to make those winds work for them, attracting windsurfers, kite surfers and electricity companies in equal measure, giving the area a measure of economic stability. And at least we're not getting rained on with the weather....but it looks like the triumphant ride to the Punta de Europa might need to wait for a day, just to be safe....

UPDATE, 13 MAY 08:
I just checked the Weather Office stats for Tarifa on the 25th of April, and it turns out that it was a Force 7 wind, not a Force 9 wind. Still, that ranks as a Near-Gale wind on the Beaufort Scale. Scary!

Flat lines

2008-04-24T04:22:00.000-07:00

I was just waking up when Andrew came up and said that he and Randy were setting off.

"Do you know where you're going?" I asked.

"I think so," he said. "Someplace called Za-something."

"Just be safe and don't go on the highways," I muttered. And they took off.

Highways are a big problem in this part of Andalusia. The Alcorconales Nature Reserve cuts the Campo de Gibraltar area in half vertically so it's hard to get across the mountains, and while the A381 highway has removed a lot of traffic from the regional roads, there aren't that many ways of getting to the coast. Had Andrew and Randy been riding mountain bikes (and had they not been quite so determined to get an early start every day) I would have shown them the Corredor Verde de las Dos Bahías, an adapted transhumance route that links the Bay of Cádiz with the Bay of Algeciras. At 94 kilometres long, it's not the longest hiking and biking route in the area (the E4/GR7 hiking route trumps them all - almost 10,000 km between Tarifa and Athens) but it's a good alternative for non-motorized transit. On the Michelin map of Andalusia, it's shown as closed road, but it's nothing that a bike can't handle, especially if it hasn't been raining and you've got no particular desire to ride up to the town of Vejer de la Frontera.

The key to cutting this day short is to take the Corredor Verde westward just before reaching Benalup de Sidonia - Casas Viejas, cross the regional road and instead of turning left to go southward, keep following the cañada real straight on until you reach the N340 highway before Tahivilla. This cuts the day down from over 70 km to just under 50 - providing, of course, you're equipped for offroad riding. You go through irrigated fields of wheat and crops, and no one seems surprised or offended if you're on a bike (though a German couple attempting the route on a Vespa got some strange looks from the local farmers.)

One note, though - there's no shade whatsoever, so make sure you've plastered your shoulders well with sunscreen. I didn't. Ah well, at least I know that the sunburn will keep that sleeping bag toasty warm tonight....

Sorry, JR.

2008-04-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

Querido Juan Ramón:

Sorry, babe. After all the e-mails, phone calls and everything, it just didn't work out in the end.

We left Osuna shortly after nine and rode south towards El Saucejo, like I was saying I wanted to do back in 2004. The weather mostly behaved itself - there was wind and sporadic showers, but it wasn't anything scary - until we got to El Saucejo. Just before we descended into town the wind picked up (now I see why you've got that new wind farm just outside of the Barrancos Blancos mountain pass) and once we got through town, on the way towards Pruna, all hell broke loose.

Not only did the wind blow so hard out of the west that we couldn't get much velocity up (and this on a descent with a 6% grade), the storm that nearly knocked your electricity out came over that mountain pass in a black cloud that managed to devour the entire sierra. We had no choice but to turn tail and head back to the motorcycle rally at El Saucejo. I'll say this much - you have some awfully friendly and generous motorcyclists in your neck of the woods. Not only did they let us hang out in the beer tent while the storm blew through, they insisted on feeding us until we were about to burst, kept the Pepsi and beer coming, and were some of the sweetest people I've ever met.

So we finally got out of the beer tent at 3PM and headed over Terril. Walked over it, really. The wind picked up, the storms blew in, and it was just so much easier to push off the bike.

By the time I called you from the Ratones Coloraos bar in Pruna, we really didn't know what to do. If you'd been able to tell me that the Vía Verde de la Sierra was totally clean and passable - and I know from past experience that, 90% of the time, it probably is - we would have been there in no time. But I could tell from your voice that you were getting as clobbered as we were, that you'd probably had a number of cancellations too, and that you weren't in a position to guarantee safe passage to anybody.

I regret not being able to see you. I enjoy hanging out with you, listening to you talk about the area and hearing the passion in your voice when you talk about the beauty of the region. So I hope that I can make it up to you by publicizing the Estación de Coripe B&B and recommending it to everyone as a great place to stay and find out anything they want to know about the Sierras de Grazalema and Alcorconales. I hope that people take the time to discover the Estación, and get a chance to have one of the friendliest cups of coffee in Seville province.

http://www.estaciondecoripe.com

All the best,

P

ARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!! (Part 2)

2008-04-17T12:14:00.000-07:00

(okay, breathe... breathe...don't totally lose it before dinner....)

Right, then. Hang on a second. I'm getting a drink and something to eat and then I'll settle down and write this up.

(SFX: Sound of muddy shoes crunching across a tiled floor.)

After a particularly rough day, there's nothing like a glass of good wine and a nice tapa of fried aubergines in honey. Alcohol, sugar, carbohydrates. And now, some photos which I hope will show why I'm so exhausted and angry.

(Sip of wine.)There's no nice way to say this: Until someone takes responsibility for the upkeep and development of the Vía Verde de la Subbética, it's probably better NOT to use it. No kidding. Using the section of the Vía Verde between Doña Mencia and Lucena means risking getting bogged down in mud and clay, risking falling and/or bike damage, and possibly putting you off ever using a Vía Verde again.

I know, I know. One of the aims behind the Trans-Iberian was to develop the use of Vías Verdes, but it's useless to promote the use of something which isn't well cared for, where their use is risky or dangerous (or just plain disgusting), where tons of money is invested in creating something which is just left to go to wreck and ruin afterwards.

What we have in these photos, folks, are two of the seven mud/clay pits that we (literally) ran into today. Some were only three or four metres long. With others, we were forced to slog through 250 metres of crap. Three times we had to take out dull steak knives to shave the mud off the wheels, the mud guards, the pedals and frames which, if you'll excuse the expression, totally screwed up the bikes. Two times we were forced to totally unload the bikes and carry stuff to the closest safe or clean area.

I know that some of you are probably wondering, So what? You're cyclists. You're supposed to like getting muddy and stuff like that. My answer: Um..... NO. Let me give you another example why this is a bad thing. Given that the Vía Verde touts itself as having been re-done so that everyone can use it, "everyone" should include people with mobility problems, such as senior citizens and the disabled.

Take a look at those photos and then imagine that you're a secondary school teacher who's got sixty kids on a field trip, including two who use wheelchairs. At no point have you been warned that sections of the Vía are intransitable; you get there - and what do you do with sixty kids who have energy to burn? In the best-case scenario, the kids who don't have mobility problems will return home with mud up to their knees, which will not endear you to their parents. And what will you do with the kids in wheelchairs, especially if they can't go anywhere - or worse, their chairs get caught in the muck?

A greenway which is not accessible to all users cannot be considered a recuperated greenway. That goes against the rules of the FFE, the organization which approves greenways in Spain. Why were there no signs or no indications along the way that that section was screwed up?? Ultimately, who has the responsibility for guaranteeing the safe use of a greenway? And that's not even mentioning that the once-lovely Interpretation Centre in the town of Cabra has been left to wreck and ruin, with broken windows and graffiti, without any plans, as far as I was able to find out, to cede management to anyone else. (BIG sip of wine.)

Now I'm trying to find information on who actually has the responsibility for running the Vía Verde de la Subbética because I'd really like to give them a piece of my mind. How much money is that organization getting which is not, in turn, being invested in the upkeep of the Vía Verde? SHAME.

My vote for coolest youth hostel in Spain

2008-04-15T02:06:00.000-07:00

Today is our rest day and to rest up, I'm going to treat myself. I've decided to have lunch in the Parador de Santa Catalina (I'll post pix later) and then at 5:00 pm I'm going to go to the spa. In the youth hostel.

Yes, you read that right. Jaén's new youth hostel is not just a place to lay your head at nights. The newly re-done facility also has a full-on spa, with services ranging from hydrotherapy to massage services to Pilates classes and even chocotherapy (where you get wrapped up in it, not eat it.) I'm going to do a hydrotherapy session and then have a massage on my hands and elbows...with any luck, they'll stop feeling like they're going to fall off.

Jaén is great. It's a small city, but Andalusian to its very bones, and the people here are a lot friendlier than I remember them being. When I was here last time, I remember them being somewhat rude and not very friendly, but who knows; maybe it was the weather that was getting to them.

Less wind now. More rain coming in during the weekend. Figures.

UGH.

2008-04-13T02:37:00.000-07:00

Bad, bad day in a way. Tough. One hundred and six kilometres of constant uphills and downhills. We're in Úbeda now, a lovely Renaissance town on the northern end of one of the most beautiful areas of Andalusia, and all I want to do is collapse in the bathtub with a good glass of wine.

We started out from Torre de Juan Abad at 9AM. The ride into Andalusia proper wasn't all that bad (I saw a number of deer and Randy got chased by a wild boar, which he tried to photograph with his BlackBerry) and then the first 20 kilometres of Andalusia weren't that bad. The two groups ended up splitting up after Santiesteban del Puerto; Randy and Andrew tried the route through Sabiote and we came through Navas de San Juan. And no matter how you try to get to Úbeda, there is no way of getting around the climb. Either way, you end up having to climb some 400 metres from the reservoir and the river to the top of the hills of Úbeda. And it's rough.

I can definitely say that the A301 is not the way to go. No way. And certainly not on a Sunday afternoon, when a Spaniard has won the Motorcycle GP race in Estoril, Portugal, which ends up bringing out every guy with a two-wheeled motorized vehicle, ranging from a two-cylinder Honda chugger to a high-end BMW performance machine. And what is up with the BMW drivers? Does one have to hold a certification for idiotic, snotty behaviour to drive one of those cars in this country? Does BMW refuse to sell you a car if you're unable to show that you have no regard for other users of the roads whatsoever? Aggravating.

Randy and Andrew ended up pitching their tents in an olive grove by 7PM, and Moncho and I stayed in a small pensión in the centre of the town. Úbeda was lovely, and will definitely merit a return visit. Tonight, however, I don't really want to move anywhere that doesn't involve sitting quietly and drinking wine....

Off we go into La Mancha

2008-04-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

I have lost track of what day it is. I woke up this morning and realized that I'd left the packet of daily route sheets in with the folder of invoices I need to send to Salomon. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Well, at least it's all highways from here on in, and once we get to Jaén, it'll be like riding in my own back yard (if you could grow olives in Canada, that is.)

I can definitely vouch for the Castillo de San Servando Youth Hostel in Toledo as a good place to stay. For €15.90, you get a modern, clean room with a decent shower, breakfast; and, if you're lucky, a team of thirteen year-olds dressed identically that make you think of a group of kids in reform school. The only thing that was missing was the clank of ankle chains!! (Remember how mouthy pre-teens were when YOU were young? Things haven't changed.) Luckily, the youth hostel management has alternate accommodation for over 26's (the young 'uns get stuck in the top floor, where the old dungeon was, ha ha) so the three of us shared a room that had a view straight across the Tagus Valley with wonderful views of the Monastery of Santa Cruz and the Alcázar.

Today's ride wasn't that much of a surprise, especially since I'd ridden the route before back in December, so this time we knew that it wasn't worth the bother of trying to ride the Quijote sections after Almonacid de Toledo (most of the traffic now goes on the CM42 motorway, leaving the former national highway more or less clear of cars...though not completely.) We stopped for lunch in Mascaraque, in a restored 18th century posada which served excellent garlic rabbit (yup, they even gave me part of the head, too, in case I was interested.) Food is turning out to be a big part of this trip, and for anyone who's interested in doing this in the future, I'd suggest keeping the self-catering days to the absolute minimum - otherwise, you lose out on one of the most positive aspects of Spanish culture.

We DID self-cater for dinner, though, as we got to stay in what must have been the steal of the week - the Balcón de la Mancha rural hostal in Tembleque. For a mere €20 a head, the kind owners, Sagrario and Ángel, allowed us the use of one of their tourist apartments, complete with power massage shower, washing machine, full kitchen and nice, comfy beds. Wonderful!

ENOUGH RAIN ALREADY!!!!

2008-04-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

I haven't had a chance to post about the rain that we suffered on the way to Atapuerca (rain, hell, we got all kinds of precipitation that day) Well, we got it again today.

There's a big cold front that's blown in off the Atlantic and which is playing hell with the entire peninsula; Sevilla's famous Feria de Abril has been all but washed out, people in coastal Galicia are up to their armpits in overflowing rivers, and the poor farmers here in La Mancha desperately need the rain but it's not coming down in a way that would be useful - consistent, without wind and in large enough quantities that it would actually help the farmers. We didn't get it today. Riding down through Villacañas, grey curtains of rain would blow in and beat the hell out of us for an hour or so; then we'd get lovely blue skies. And then it would start all over again, never letting us get dry and warm enough to recover from one bout of precipitiation before we had to buckle down and get ready for the next one.

I can deal with rain but I am NOT good with wind. Never have been. And the weather predicition was for blasts of wind going up to 90 km/h. It never got quite that bad, but it was still bad enough for me to lose my temper and for Randy's wool cap, which he wears under his helmet, to get totally soaked.

Thing was, the route itself was actually pretty good today. Randy ended up getting applause from a couple of members of the gitano community in Villacañas, the surfaces of most of the trails weren't all that bad (save for a couple of muddy spots - but no clay, thank God) and the drivers were respectful and gave us lots of space.

I know how badly the farmers and people who live off the land in Ciudad Real must need the water. But damn, I am SO fed up with rain and wind that I feel like I might slap the next person who says that it's going to last for two more days.....

Aranjuez to Toledo: Thanks, JM!

2008-04-09T13:23:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest things about cycling is being constantly surprised at the generosity of other cyclists when it comes to offering food, accommodation, smiles and help in general. Doris Lessing once said that anyone who travelled on a bike couldn't be capable of evil, but what that quote doesn't capture is the capacity for good that most cyclists are willing to offer one another.

A living, breathing example of that is José Manuel Benayas (at right), a mountain biker from the town of Yepes, halfway between Madrid and Toledo. Back at the end of January, I posted a message on a Spanish-language cycling forum, publicizing the ride. Within two hours, JM had not only written, offering any kind of help, but spent over an hour on the phone with me, talking me through different ways that one could cycle between Aranjuez and Toledo (a section that Elspeth and I tried to do over the December long weekend.) And if that wasn't enough, he actually skived off work and came along.

The good news: It's not pleasant, but it's not impossible. Basically, what you need to do is keep cycling on the north side of the old Aranjuez-Toledo train line until you reach the highway to Mocejón. What Els and I did in December was to ride north into Mocejón and then go west along a regional road until we got to Toledo, but the big disadvantage to that was that once you get to Toledo, you've got to swing your way through a big cloverleaf of offramps and onramps before arriving in the city proper - pretty hair-raising. There's talk of turning the old railway bridge over the Tagus into a greenway. Let's hope so: it's a shame that one of the loveliest, most atmospheric cities in Spain is SUCH a pain in the patootie to get into if you're not in a train or a car...

POP this...

2008-04-07T04:16:00.000-07:00

I don't get how the weather office calculates the risk of precipitation in Spain. When we were riding in Navarra and got clobbered by the wind and weather, the forecast was somewhat optimistic. When we got to La Rioja, the forecast was pessimistic, but we had a pretty good couple of days - until we got clobbered again on the way to Atapuerca. And today there's a POP of 100% but the weather's been more humid than anything else. It's kind of like May in Ottawa, really. Does 100% mean that there's a 100% chance that something's going to fall at some point in the day? That there will be rain? I don't get it.

*************************

I'm at home now, having made a quick (I hope) trip into Madrid to drop off the cold weather gear that I was using and to get both the English and Spanish blogs up to date. This weekend was excellent, once I got to meet up with the Pedalibre gang - Antonios López (aka Crazy Horse) and Tirado, Alicia, Julián, Reinhold the Multilingual, Kim from Switzerland and Madame Mati. Accommodation in Brihuega was kind of tight, since Brihuega had its spring fair going on, so Alicia called in a favour and we got to stay in a storage space owned by her (friend? cousin? never quite got it) Antonio, who also brought us the ingredients to make a couple of kilos of migas, a kind of dish of sautéed bread crumbs, chorizo meat and cinnamon which is far more delicious than I've described here. The spring fair in Brihuega is more like a big family reunion than the no-holds-barred Spanish fiesta that most people think of, and since they'd all ridden up from Guadalajara that night, no one was up for cutting many rugs.

Saturday morning dawned clear and bright, and after a quick breakfast of churros and coffee, we hit the road at ten. We were hoping that some members of the Club Ciclista Yunquera would join us, but no one showed, so we took off at ten and rode down to Armuña de Tajuña, where we met up with a couple more members of Pedalibre, and rode off to try to scare up lunch in Aranzueque, where I'd eaten with Elspeth and Gonzalo back in October.

Neither of Aranzueque's bars had anything happening for lunch, so the self-catering members of the group stayed and picnicked in front of Aranzueque's town hall, while the rest of us headed off to Loranca del Tajuna, finally finding the one bar that did serve food.

The ride into Madrid was a bit of a surprise, after having been away for several weeks; I don't know how, but I'd kind of forgotten how aggressive Madrid can be. Close shaves with SUVs (more than a pet peeve of Reinhard's), one car full of teenagers who passed a group of vehicles on an uphill solid line...annoying. Luckily we didn't have to tolerate the drivers for very long, as we got on the Vía Verde del Tajuña, which follows the Tajuña River for most of its course in the area. We made it to Morata shortly before eight o'clock, and spent most of the next three hours stuffing ourselves full of carbohydrates, before collapsing in bed by 11:00 PM.

Claire and Mayte came down the next day to ride with us to Aranjuez, and the whole lot of us headed down along the Vía Pecuaria to the campsite, where we met up with Randy Castle, who's come from a very snowy and cold Minnesota to join us. Randy is riding a Bike Friday, a type of folding bike which fits into its own Samsonite which, in turn, becomes a trailer. Randy's bike was a total hit with the Spanish cyclists, who were impressed by its simple functionality (and the fact that it could probably be snuck onto a plane or train without much fuss being made.)

Pizza for dinner, wine and beer enjoyed by the side of the Tagus river, and then off to bed. And there's been a little bit of rain today, but not much....

How do you solve a problem like Sigüenza?

2008-04-04T03:12:00.000-07:00

I don't know what to do about Sigüenza. I just got into Brihuega after having come up from Sigüenza, and while I think I'll post the route as I did it, I have to find another alternative.

The easiest and most direct way to get to Brihuega is to leave Sigüenza by the CM1101 highway, go straight over for 25 kilometres, climb out of the Henares Valley and, once you reach the A2 motorway, take the service road to the turnoff that gets you onto the N204 highway. Under the bridge, on the roundabout, second road on the right and bam! Next thing you know, you're averaging 25 km/h to 30 km/h on a slightly hilly highway and, in less than an hour, you're there.

This makes it sound far, far more straightforward than it actually is. The highway that links Sigüenza with the A2 has a lot of traffic (and, admittedly, a fairly wide shoulder), but it's the climb up out of the valley just before you get the A2 that's fairly hairy. You are required to climb 200 metres in fewer than 4 km, on a highway where most drivers do not respect the speed limits (well, they do if they're driving older cars or trucks, but that seems to be more out of necessity than any sense of civic responsibility.) And -- there is NO nice way to say this -- the highway is FILTHY. The worst offenders? Bottles for water and soda which are filled with some kind of yellow liquid which I can only assume is urine. And since most women do not have the bodily control to emit into bottles like this, I can only assume that this means that guys are relieving themselves IN THEIR OWN CARS and flinging the bottles out of the window, for the rest of us to deal with.

I'm not saying that cyclists shouldn't go to Sigüenza. Rather the opposite. It's just that there has to be a much more pleasant way of leaving it....

I'm Dawn Quijote, the Chick of La Mancha....

2008-04-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

I know. Dumb joke, but I couldn't resist.)

Hey everyone!

Sorry about the delay in getting around to posting blog posts -- I never thought that it would be possible to go through so many towns where there was nary an internet place nor a Chinese restaurant (don't ask me why, but I've had the WORST cravings for Chinese food in the past few days.) At this moment, I'm in the lovely town of Sigüenza (made even lovelier by the fact that spring is beginning to hit big time here). In the next hour or so, I'll put up some more entries about what's been happening over the last week or so, but before I do that I need to put out a quick update: WE ARE NOT FINISHING IN ESTREMERA ON SATURDAY!! We're going to be finishing up the day in Morata de Tajuña, where we'll be staying at a hostal called the Libra II. I had some problems trying to get hold of the owners of the hostal (why, oh why, don't they ever answer their phones????) and I didn't want to risk bringing a whole whack of people into a town as small as Estremera without having some kind of sleeping arrangements lined up first. (I know, that's really anal and Canadian of me, but so be it.)

So on Sunday we'll be heading from the Plaza Mayor of Morata de Tajuña and heading towards Aranjuez. And like I mentioned before, anyone who's interested in coming along is more than welcome to, and if you live in Madrid but have never tried to make it to the Vía Verde del Tajuña, here's how you get there.

a) Take the Metro to the very southern end of Line 9 (Arganda del Rey.)b) When you get to Arganda, leave the station and turn RIGHT (west) out of the station and ride your bike for 400 metres, past the BP station and the merge on the left

c) After those 400 metres, you'll pass a white house with a bunch of cars parked illegally in front...just PAST that house, on the left-hand side, you'll see the red asphalt that marks the beginning of the Vía Verde. (Don't ask me why Vías Verdes in Spain are paved with red asphalt.) If you reach the roundabout, turn around and go BACK! You've gone too far!

d) Follow the Vía Verde to Morata - 14.7 kilometres in all. Don't kill yourself along the way! You do have to ride uphill after kilometre 4, but only for three klicks, and you get a nice, delicious downhill soon after (even though you have to pass that dumb cement factory....)

e) When you get to Morata, follow the Vía Verde to the Guardia Civil building and take the SECOND right going downhill: this should take you to the Plaza de la Constitución.

f) The route is pretty basic: Go WEST (=right) along the M313 for 10 km (and for a further three when the M313 joins the M404.) When you reach the town of Titulcia, don't go into the town itself; follow the highway to the second roundabout and follow the signs for Villaconejos. (If you're not riding a mountain bike or a hybrid you may find it more comfortable to head to Villaconjeos and then go down along the Tagus to Aranjuez.) Some 200 metres after that roundabout, you'll cross the Tajuña River and then IMMEDIATELY AFTER there'll be a turnoff to the right that indicates where the Vía Pecuaria (transhumance route) starts. (Look for the white signs with the cows on them.) We follow the Vía Pecuaria all the way into Aranjuez via the Real Cortijo de San Isidro gardens, and then we'll finish up in the Cámping Internacional Aranjuez campsite at about lunchtime. Feel free to bring your tent and sleeping bag if you'd like to make a quick getaway that night...you can take the Cercanías back into Madrid the next day.

Okay then....time to get to work on the updates of everything else that's been happening over the past week or so....

Day 11: 80 km, moving mountains

2008-04-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

I love Soria. At the same time, it frustrates the living hell right out of me. For a province that has so much going for it (amazing Romanesque architecture, wide open spaces, boundless heritage sites), it's so damn disorganized that if I didn't love it so much, I'd scream, frankly. Maybe it has to do with the fact that it's the least densely populated province in the country. And it shows. No sooner do you leave Burgo de Osma than you end up passing through towns populated with little more than feral cats and a handful of houses with collapsed roofs; long stretches of road dotted with dovecotes and dolmens; and the occasional towns, populated by silver-haired women in black who knit or fuss with their geraniums while their black-bereted husbands lean against the bar and knock back bottles of rough wine...if the town is lucky enough to have a bar that's still open.

Much of today's ride is rough, taking place on dirt roads that have been graded and prepared for tractor traffic but which isn't much good if you're on a bike that doesn't have hydraulic forks. But in a sense, it doesn't matter. Today is the first day we've had decent, sunny weather, and I'm willing to walk all the way to Atienza if it means being able to be outside when it's this nice out.

The biggest surprise is when we get to Montejo de Tiermes. One of the reasons that I wanted to go through here is because the SO-135 road was quiet and not particularly busy. Work has begun on widening the road, which is good news for the residents; but it's hell if you're on a bike. Aside from having to dodge an army of dumptrucks that are taking building materials to and fro, there's dust, there's nowhere to pee because of all the workmen (trust me, this is a MUCH bigger problem for women than for men)...annoying.

Then I get to Retortillo de Soria. According to the Junta de Castilla y León, there's supposedly a pensión in Retortillo. There's a campsite. There's a town hall, too, but I can't find anyone but a couple of the old-age pensioners who probably make up the vast majority of the 218 official residents of the town, plus a couple of Romanian workers who are rebuilding a house. The campsite is closed, I'll be damned if I can find the pensión, and the only person who seems cognescent enough to offer any kind of conversation is determined to warn me of the foxes that live in the Sierra de Pela, on the north side of town ... I don't exactly flee, but my last image of Retortillo is of an eightysomething resident with two teeth and a big cane, screaming, "If you get bitten, don't say I didn't warn you!!!" This is one of the things that is frustrating about Soria: the sense of wasted possibility. Retortillo could be beautiful, it could be a tourist centre, if only, if only, if only...........

So it's over the pass and through the fields, to Atienza we go, to stay the night in the Hostal El Mirador, run by the very amiable Miguel Angel and his family. Atienza is not exactly tourism central, either, but I know that with Miguel Angel and his family, I always have a bed and a meal at the end of the day.

Day 9: South, but not really south

2008-03-31T10:25:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how the Camino culture changes once you go south of the N120 highway. All of a sudden, the bone-whote churches with their fancy belltowers give way to squat, red-roof building that would seem more at home in Soria. Further to the south, the buildings seem tougher, stronger, built to last and if they fall down, that's that.

After a bit of futzing around in Arlanzón, we hit the Vía Verde de la Sierra de la Demanda, and start riding between the two most westerly edges of the Sierra de la Demanda, which must be one of the least-visited areas of Spain -- and somewhat unfairly, too, considering that it's one of the few areas in Spain where you could seriously forget that other people exist. There is nothing here except the sound of the breeze raking through the pine and oak forests in the lower reaches of the Arlanzón Valley.

I'd originally though about doing the entire Vía Verde all the way up to Barbadillo de los Herreros, but the truth is, I was starting to face by about 4:00 pm. Going uphill for four hours is taxing, even if the incline is fairly small, but when the bike's got all those bags on it, and with the loose gravel on the surface of the road, it made for particularly tough going.

The VV Sierra de la Demanda is pretty well organized, so it feels a bit churlish to complain about the two points that did give me trouble -- both of which were extremely steep uphill climbs over what were the disused (and, I suppose, caved-in) tunnels at Km 10 and Km 31. I know that the costs of rebuilding these tunnels must be exorbitants, but I'm not sure that making people perform some kind of hands-and-knees crawl up a hill with a 20% grade is not a solution, either. If I'd had more of a sense of humour about it I could have looked at it like something that they'd make you do on one of those wacko Japanese game shows. But it just seemed unfairly dangerous. I stopped biking two hours ago, and my Achilles tendons are still screaming. When I got to the Puerto del Manquillo mountain pass (1400 metres....the highest point in the trip, methinks), it didn't take much prompting to get me to take to the highway and bomb down the final 5km to Riocavado, rather than spend another hour fighting the gravel on the Vía Verde. And what a delicious downhill it was! When you're going downhill so quickly that the dogs can't even be bothered to bark...that's amore.

Now I'm Salas de los Infantes, which seems to be one of the few towns along the way that doesn't have a Chinese restaurant. Being that it's Monday, there isn't a lot open...but boy, a good beef with green peppers would go down a treat.......

Pushing

2008-03-30T05:07:00.000-07:00

There comes a time in every bike trip when continuing becomes less and less a question of will, and more and more a question of just putting your head down and getting on with it. Today was one of those days. Had we ridden yesterday rather than stopping in Haro, we would have had a lovely, wind-free day to head westward towards Aranjuez. No such luck. Windows of good weather tend to be very short at this time of year, and by the time we got started this morning, heading down to Santo Domingo de la Calzada to meet up with Julián (right), the wind had picked up, the clouds had moved in and the time to get upset about the weather had long gone. There was no other option except to keep moving westward as best we could.

And keep going and keep going and keep going. Even though it took an hour to cover the stretch between Santo Domingo and Grañón, which is just a couple of kilometres. Even though the skies opened up outside of Belorado and the rain fell horizontally, cold and icy, like having someone push handfuls of thumbtacks into your face. Even though hail (yes, again) provides you with a highly unusual but still good reason for wearing a helmet.

And there's nothing you can do but keep pushing on, really. Because what else are you going to do? You can't give up. You can't pack it in. You have a job to do and the only thing that you have to is keep going. Tears solve nothing (though it helps get rid of the rage and frustration at not being able to do more). You just keep moving and remember that you're not going to reach a bed, a hot meal, a place to change into dry clothing if you sit at the edge of the road and cry.

DAYS 2 and 3: 445+802+780 = one very surprised cyclist!!

2008-03-25T09:32:00.000-07:00

Your mind does some really strange stuff when you're on a bike. First of all, you're thinking, nah, thirteen kilometres really isn't all that much. We can knock that off and be having coffee by 4:00 p.m. Of course, you think that because you're 500 metres above sea level, but the cloud cover is somewhere around 600 metres and the snow limit is hovering somewhere between 650 and 800, so you really don't have much of a chance to see the challenge right in front of you. So you keep plugging on. And then your brain starts doing strange things. It starts bringing back old arguments that you had in high school. Then you find yourself chanting old songs like "Once I was the King of Spaaa-aiin..." at the top of your lungs because the odds of anyone being within earshot at minimal at best. There's so little traffic going up the side of the mountain that you end up stopping every car going up and asking the driver how much further there is between wherever here is and the next mountain pass. Then you start repeating the seven times tables, having an argument with an ex-boyfriend who's seven thousand miles away. Then the top of the mountain comes. Smile! You are in Spain! There are clumps of snow the size of small boulders on the side of the road but the chunks of salt haven't dissolved, and somehow that makes you feel better, even if your shoes are totally squishy from having absorbed so much water.

This is what it's like to climb a very snowy, very isolated mountain.

*********************

Considering we've had to do three mountain passes in three days, I don't feel that bad. Part of that may have to do with the fact that I did so much training on the treadmill before leaving that walking up roads with a 6% or 7% grade doesn't feel that weird (although when you're on a treadmill you don't have to push a bike alongside you.) The snow is strange, though. It's that strange sense of isolation that snow gives you, which makes you feel like you'll come face to face with some emaciated being hissing "My treeeaaasssuuuuuuuuuuree....." at any moment.

We've had it all over the last two days: Snow, sleet, rain, hail...it's been wild. The weather forecast has been crazy but it's supposed to get somewhat warmer over the next two days.

*********************

We're staying in the new Pilgrims' hostel in Pamplona, and I gotta tell you, it is a work of art. It's gorgeous - situated in the old Jesuit monastery, it's got capacity for 100 pilgrims, a huge kitchen, free washing machines and dryers for €1 a shot, huge hot showers, and an art gallery. The local council has done a marvellous job of converting the building, and I'm actually looking forward to staying there tonight, rather than just crashing and being up and moving at some ungodly hour. Oh, and the refuge has put restrictions on when you can leave in the mornings, too - the doors don't open until 6:30AM, so with any luck that'll put the kibosh on pilgims crashing and bouncing around at 5:30 AM to be the first out the door.

Over the top

2008-03-24T03:49:00.000-07:00

We'd checked the weather forecast before setting out from San Sebastián and the prediction was that we wouldn't have snow below 800 metres. Given that we were so far inland, however, there was no way of knowing how accurate that prediction was going to be

After taking the train down to Andoain (got caught out by the fact that Easter Monday is a holiday in Euskadi) and hit the Vía Verde del Plazaola. I'd already been up there a few days previous, on Maundy Thursday, when the weather was still relatively warm and sunny, and while the weather didn't hold out, the ride was still beautiful and, once you get a few kilometres out of Andoain, wonderfully deserted.

Wonderfully...in a way: the rivers of the region were still swollen with the run-off from the weekend's rain and snow, and it was a bit unnerving to get within a couple of metres of the rushing water. Eventually, after fifteen kilometres, the trail rises enough that the river becomes a constant companion, but not one that would threaten to wipe out the trail.

The problem was that the higher we went, the further up into the clouds we got, hence the snow. It didn't really become a problem until we got to the overpass of the A15 highway and the town of Leitza -- again, with almost of all of its restaurants and shops closed because of Easter Monday, but we did find a place ot have coffee and sandwiches, and people who could give us directions.

And that was the problem. To get from Leitza to Lekunberri, you've got two options. The first is to continue along the Vía Verde, taking the tunnels, including the Uitzi (pronounced WEE-tsi) tunnel, which is almost three kilometres long but subject to floody during rainy periods. The second, which was physically tougher but arguably safer in cold weather, was to take to the highway over the Uitzi Pass. The pass didn't have a lot of traffic, given that it was Easter Monday, but with knee-deep snow and a 6% grade in front of us, it was like having to decide between dying from too much sex and dying from having drunk too much Bailey's Irish Cream.

There comes a time when you realize that pushing a bike isn't as wimpy as it might seem. And when the temperature barely hovers above freezing, your bike's packed to the hilt and and your only other option may involve ending up knee-deep in water, pushing really doesn't seem like such an imposition.

======================

"Of course the Uitzi tunnel is fine," Íñigo harrumphed with more than a hint of frustration. "I went up there this summer with some heavy equipment and a dozen or so friends and we cleaned it up and fixed it ourselves."

In addition to being a construction worker and the manager of Camping Aralar, which his parents founded over thirty years ago, Íñigo is the secretary of his local Vía Verde association. He remains optimisticallly skeptical about the future of the Vía Verde del Plazaola: while Navarra is working to increase the number of tourists who visit, local residents get the feeling that the Diputación Foral, the regional government, are reluctant to invest money in the north of the area because the people there consider themselves to be more Basque than Navarrese.

Whatever. What I do know is this: the train line extends all the way down into Pamplona itself (I heard from more than one mountain biker that you can ride all the way down to Pamplona provided you're prepped for offroad riding), and there's the possibility of getting land back to re-establish its former connection with San Sebastian, to the north. Why didn't the Fundación de Vías Verdes work harder to get the entire rail line converted, instead of one chunk that only measures 40 km? If you'd like to show your support for extending the line, write the Plazaola people at info@plazaola.org. They'd be glad to hear from you.

=================================

How cold is it out there? Not cold enough to freeze (you can see in this video that the snow had turned to rain by 4PM: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=fpCBPebqt_U). But it's cold enough that the difference between the ambient temperature outside and the central heating inside our room is creating so much condensation that it's actually raining inside the room.

Day 1: Donosti-San Sebastian (23.8) km

2008-03-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it. It was touch-and-go for a while there, especially when the hail started bouncing down at 8:50 AM, coating the cars in the parking lot with little white balls. But in the end, it wasn't bad. The original path that we were going to take, which would have taken us around the coast, was way too soggy and wet to do properly (I've got a bike with at least 15 kg of gear on it, and I didn't want a repeat of last year, when I ended up having to dig the bike out of clay and mud on two different places.)

(Here's the video which shows the hail: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=CRCeBKpbLe4)

We took the GI-3440 for its entire length, right up from sea level to the Jaizkibel Pass (445m ASL) and it wasn't as icy and snowy as I thought it would be, though it was a wee bit nippy coming down (not helped by having wet feet!) But the payoff was that it was absolutely GORGEOUS. The cold helped clear the humidity out of the air and you could see deep into the Pyrenees, all sugar-and-snow coated like something out of a Christmas card. I only wish that I hadn't left my reflex camera at Stu and Jools's place, because it would have made for some stunning black and white shots. Oh well. Just have to live with only having the digital pix.

The descent wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. I'm not a a big fan of speed and tend to burn my brakes on almost every downhill that I do, but in the end, it was actually kind of cool, especially since the pavement was still bare and you could see the places where the Basque cycling fans had painted the names of their favourite cyclists two or three years ago, when the Vuelta went up Jaizkibel: (Iban) MAYO, (Floyd) LANDIS, (Haimar) ZUBELDIA...it was kind of like standing in the shadows of giants. (Or at least their tire tracks.)

So tomorrow we have to take the train to Andoain and then ride the Vía Verde to Lekunberri. The weather office is forecasting slightly warmer temperatures for the rest of the week, and it should be back up to about 16º-18ºc by the time we hit La Rioja next weekend. About time!

Up and at 'em........

2008-03-17T22:12:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning, 6:12 AM. The bags are all packed and it's still dark outside. Nothing to do now except jump in the shower and get going.

More later, when I make it up to Ordizia....

Should have kept my mouth shut

2008-03-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

So Andrew and I were talking the other night, and the subject of the weather and camping over the weekend came up, and I made light of the fact that the weather forecast for this coming weekend (March 21st to 23rd) forecast 100% precipitation in and around the coast between San Sebastián and Irún. I even went so far as to look at the isobar patterns online to see how bad it was going to be. And I thought, Naaaaaaahhhh....at best, it'll be a little bit of spit here and there, maybe a couple of cold fronts coming through every so often and maybe we'll get a good lashing for fifteen minutes and then we'll be all right.

I should have kept my mouth shut. The weather forecast for the weekend now shows 100% possibility of precipitation for Friday, Saturday AND Sunday (so much for camping) and the winds might max out at 40 km/h on Sunday...right as we're supposed to be going around those wonderful coastal roads between Irún and Pasaia Donibane. I'm hoping that the weather forecasters are erring on the side of caution. Meanwhile, I've written the youth hostels in Irún to see if we can get accommodation. Just in case.......

Thirty-six hours to go....and the jitters have begun!

2008-03-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

Started keeping a video diary of everything that was going on today... As you can see from this, the first installment, the reality is starting to hit home....!

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=NJZUC8fP-Ag

Tomorrow's installment: How (NOT) to pack your bags for a trip.

She who moves her legs moves her heart

2008-03-10T09:49:00.001-07:00

I love YouTube. Pseudo-techno-geeks like me think that this stuff of being able to put videos up on the internet is a fabulous idea, and while I know that a lot of people are ready to dismiss YouTube as being a source of dross and idiocy, there's one channel, in particular, that's worth pointing out.

The Fundación de Ferrocarriles Españoles (http://www.ffe.es/) is the main body behind the development of greenways in Spain, and two years ago, they started broadcasting mini-documentaries about the various greenways dotted around Spain. Some of the Vías Verdes aren't very long; some take various days to ride. But almost all of them are gorgeous, and even if you don't speak Spanish, these wonderfully made mini-documentaries are a delight to watch.

So here, in the order that we're going to be doing them, are the Televisión Española- FFE videos of the Vías Verdes that we're going to do. Unfortunately, we don't have online links of all the Vías Verdes that we're going to (they haven't yet posted the videos for VV Sierra de la Demanda or the VV Tajuña), but the ones that you'll see here are just stunning.

Enjoy!

VÍA VERDE DEL PLAZAOLA (March 24th)- Starting from Andoain and riding inland towards Lekunberri:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=tGJnWvI4A3s&feature=user

VÍA VERDE DEL RIÓ OJA (March 30th) - Starting from Haro and riding as far as Santo Domingo de la Calzada (be patient, the video doesn't load particularly well):
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=E96pvF89f1g&feature=user

VÍA VERDE DEL ACEITE (April 16th) - This is the eastern end of the Vía Verde de la Subbética, listed below:
Part One: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=1ozIc5Yow9E
Part Two: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=YIYi5V33qEA

VÍA VERDE DE LA SUBBÉTICA (April 16th and 17th) - Let's agitate to get the route completed all the way through to Puente Genil! Keep an eye open for the town that's in the background at the 3:10 minute mark - that's Luque, where we're going to be staying the night of April 17th.
Part One: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=ycIYdMpJMUM&feature=user
Part Two: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=uLIhLp-x230&feature=user

VÍA VERDE DE LA SIERRA (April 20th) - We won't be doing this entire Vía Verde, just going as far as Coripe before climbing and backing around to go to Ronda via the Roman settlement of Acinipo. But this video gives you an idea of how stunning the scenery is around the eastern part of Seville province; we'll be coming in from the east, through the mountains and around Zaframagón.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=lKvrWs3yu5I

Big grins all around

2008-03-05T23:45:00.000-08:00

There's a new moon tonight, and while I don't want to sound like a broken record (but what the hell! It's my blog), it's almost here. We set out on the morning after the next new moon, and I'm SO ready to go.

I got the last of the clothing last night. Salomon sent some really lovely gear last week, including some great, windproof trousers, but since I don't really want to (uh....how should I put this.....) cause irritation to my girly bits with cotton underwear under the trousers, I bought two pairs of Pearl Izumi liner culottes, which are easily washable and very lightweight. I'm kind of spoilt for choice, really, since I have a wide range of clothing for all seasons now. (And after the cold snap we suffered yesterday - temperatures went down 13 degrees in one day - I'm a lot more aware of the need to pack carefully for any weather contingencies.)

Rather than make a run back into Madrid halfway through the trip, during our rest day in Aranjuez, I've asked a friend of a friend to hold onto some stuff that I can pick up when I get down there on April 6th. I figure that that's what people who go on longer adventure trips do - they keep stashes of food and equipment along the way so that they don't have to haul everything along at once. The package will include the notes and material for Castilla - La Mancha and Andalusia, the second half of the labels to mark the route (I'm still concerned about how much 5,000 labels weigh) and a stock of personal items, like samples of toothpaste, shampoo and liquid laundry detergent. I know it hardly counts as a stash on the side of Everest, but I'd rather do that, rather than haul it all along at once.

What's left to get? Video camera, extra rechargeable batteries, a couple of new bras and a download of the video editing software. I don't think I'll be able to put the mini-documentaries up on the internet until after I get back, but I'd rather get as much of it sorted as I can before I go.

If he's crackers, we're ALL crackers!

2008-02-27T23:36:00.000-08:00

A slight diversion today to fill you all in on a great new (and definitely difficult) initiative. British Olympian James Cracknell is attempting an (almost) 1500-mile trip across Britain, France and Spain, riding, swimming and rowing, to get to Morocco in less than two weeks. I found out about this one through The Independent, who had a feature on the feat in the Cyclotherapy blog:

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/independent/2008/02/is-cracknell-cr.html#comments

For more information about Sport Relief and James's route, click here.

http://www.challengecracknell.com/index.html

It'll be interesting to see how closely his route through Spain echoes the Trans-Iberian!

I'm sorry. I realize that Cabra, Pozoblanco, Jerez, Algeciras, Ronda and Ubrique are NOT in Navarra.

2008-02-24T10:41:00.000-08:00

Frkryssakes.

I've just spent six hours sending information on the Trans-Iberian Express to various cycling clubs throughout Andalusia, and I have just realized that, in the middle of the third paragraph, there's a sentence about when we're going through Navarra. As in, Pamplona; as in, like, THREE damn weeks before. I absolutely cannot believe this. If it weren't for the absolute exhaustion that I'm suffering from right now I would consider slitting my wrists for the shame of letting something that small and that stupid slip through in half of the damn e-mails.

I apologize, guys and girls. Not all foreigners are so clueless when it comes to Spanish geography. I've been working for twelve hours straight today. I've been working nonstop for the last seven weeks trying to put this thing together, planning, sending e-mails, preparing stuff and chasing people, and there are days when I have to go to bed because I don't honestly know which of the two computer screens in front of me I should be looking at. If I've sent you a message like this, I beg your pardon. And I promise not to send any more e-mails today.

Gawd, only three weeks until I start this thing...

Twenty-five to go, with giggle fits

2008-02-22T08:21:00.000-08:00

I haven't been able to get much nap time in today. I only slept about six hours last night (nerves? caffeine? who knows?) and tried to set my head down about two hours ago. And I couldn't do it. I kept staring at the cardboard Ikea boxes on top of the cupboard and I lasted about twenty minutes before I pulled them down and started to practice packing. Which is kind of dumb because a) the rest of the clothing and footwear from Salomon Sports won't arrive until next week; and b) because I live in a very small apartment. How small, you say? Twenty-one, count 'em, twenty one square metres. No McMansions for this cyclepath. Which is probably just as well, because if I had the money to get a McMansion, God only knows how much cycling stuff I would get on the way.

But now the nerves are starting to set in. The moon is starting to wane, and the next time we have a full moon, I'll be in the Basque Country, drinking txakoli and eating my face off. The thought of being able to finally go and do this is making me smile harder than anything. This is freakin' frightening, to be honest. Candy and I went out for coffee this morning and I was telling her that it's like not being able to decide whether I should scream joy from the roofstops, or hide in my closet from Easter until May Day. I know that I'm not going alone; I'll be accompanied by Andrew, a buddy of my best buddy's brother. So there's going to be some male companionship as well. But half of me just wants it to be Palm Sunday, and half of me would love to beg for another three weeks to get stuff done. I don't know where we stand with the route-marker stickers. I never got around to having the bookmarks made. Trans-Iberian jerseys? I could only wish. And this is basically just organizing a trip for ONE PERSON to do - not fifty or five hundred. How the hell do the organizers of multi-day, multitude events get things done?? (Dumb question, natch: They don't do every single, stupid, niggly detail themselves.)

Here's the funny thing, though. The more I start getting really scared, the more people start pitching in to help. At the beginning, people volunteered to help, but in the end, an awful lot of them flaked out or didn't even bother to return calls or e-mails. But now that it's getting closer, so many people are starting to pitch in and do small but effective things without being asked. María Luisa from Onda Cero is going to do a story on the trip for Onda Cero Córdoba. Fernando stepped in and contacted the printers' for an estimate on the labels. Julián and Gon went over the Spanish version of the handbook and provided opinions. Stuart and Jools have offered to put me up for a night or two in Ordizia, on the way up to providing they're not going out of town themselves during Easter. And Pilar's put an abbreviated version of the press release out to the other members of the ConBici biking organizations, which will hopefully motivate more people to join us.

So...slowly but surely it's getting there.

Slowly being a matter of opinion and perception, naturally.

Easter Candy Panic

2008-02-17T11:30:00.001-08:00

I just got back from the grocery store, where I had a slight panic attack. I was buying pens and turned a corner, and came face to face with an Easter Bunny. Easter. Four weeks away.

Four weeks away. I'm trying not to panic, I'm trying to simply focus on the fact that this is only 28 days away, but every so often I come face to face with something like this, and I don't know how to react. A very large part of me just wants to be GONE, already, and I know that a lot of this has to do with the fact that I'm going to be entering a new phase of my life. I know perfectly that this stage of my life is going to mean closure for a lot of things that, until now, haven't been working - relationships, choices, things that I should have done ages ago but which I've been putting off for a while.

But this is a good thing. I know it is: I know that change is always scary, but it's always necessary, too. "Will", after all, is not a verb tense in English: it's a modal verb that can show determination, future results of present decisions. It's also a noun which shows strength, decisiveness, being fixed on a goal.

Thanks for the pretty pamphlet, but...ANSWER YOUR PHONE!!!

2008-02-14T23:25:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, the FITUR trade fair was held in Madrid. If you're lucky enough to have spent the last ten years living in an abandoned village somewhere, and don't know what FITUR is, it's probably enough to say that FITUR is probably Spain's largest tourism trade fair, if not Europe's. Not being much for crowds, I'm not usually wild about the idea of getting into a situation that's packed with people, and at 1:20 in the morning of Friday, February 1st, I made the executive decision not to go. I couldn't find the file number for my ticket. I'd spent quite a while fighting with (and, to be honest, yelling at) my computer printer; and when I started to weep from sheer exhaustion from the effort of changing languages in Word for Windows' grammar checked, I looked at the computer and thought: Why the hell am I doing this to myself, when I know that I'm going to get claustrophobic and irritated, and, in the end, I'm not going to get what I want?

This blog entry is not meant to be a criticism of FITUR. Obviously, if you're the president of multi-million-dollar travel company, FITUR gives you a great opportunity to meet and work with a decent number of people in a protracted time frame. But one also has to accept the event for what it is: It moves money in the world of tourism. And a person who is in charge of a project which doesn't represent lots and lots of money, someone who represents a project which is much more modest, probably doesn't have the chance to connect with people and be able to work with the necessary tourism authorities. Why should they pay attention to you if if your project isn't going to bring in millions of Euros? Maybe you'll get lucky and come across someone who's got the conviction that it's worth developing green tourism initiatives. Or maybe you won't. And if you aren't lucky, what do you have, in the end?

A couple of years back, I had the opportunity to be a participant in a conference on tourism development in the town of Priego de Córdoba, in Andalusia. I'd already given a speech the previous summer at Estepona's City of Journalism summer programme; I'd been asked to do a presentation on marketing to an English-speaking clientele, and I called it like I saw it (after all, isn't that the reason they invite you to these things?)

I didn't offer criticism as much as I tried to offer a cross-cultural assessment of the difference between domestic tourism and tourism that comes from other countries - mostly small things like the paying for quality translations (don't get a translation from the cousin of the guy whose brother's step-sister owns the town bar)...don't assume that "quality tourism" has to always mean "rich tourists" (why is it that when towns announce "quality tourism" initiatives, it almost always involves a golf course? Hasn't anyone noticed that there's a drought in this country?)...take care of the small details (answer your e-mails in a 24-hour period)...invest the money to do a good job of the existing infrastructure...not necessarily expensive or time-consuming things; just things that show that you give enough of a damn to do things properly.

I spent a lot of time thinking about that presentation this morning, as I spent most of the morning trying to get ahold of the authorities in towns whose names, as "Don Quijote" says, I do not care to remember. Thank God I have a flat rate phone plans where all national calls are free, because I have the feeling I'm going to be spending a LOT more time working the phones in the next couple of weeks.

To cite but one example: I sent an e-mail to the tourist board of one province back at the beginning of January, and finally heard from them on Monday. "Call this number," was the answer in the e-mail. I call the number. "No, ma'am," they told me, "we handle all queries by e-mail. You need to send us an e-mail with your query."

See what I mean?

The Trans-Iberian handbook is ready!

2008-02-10T04:08:00.000-08:00

It's done!

I'm very pleased to announce that the Participant Handbook for the Trans-Iberian Express (the English version, anyway) is now complete and ready for downloading at:
http://www.scribd.com/full/2061102?access_key=key-29qqvkpc4kll5e41vl34

Like the old marketing tag says....if you like it, please tell all your friends.

And if you don't like it...please tell me!

When you gotta go, you GOTTA go...

2008-02-08T04:57:00.000-08:00

SIGNS THAT YOU NEED TO GO ON YOUR CYCLING VACATION NOW:

a) You live in a 20-square-metre studio apartment and you start thinking, Hm. Rather roomy, this.

b) You've sworn at the noisy neighbors once today. You've sworn at your laptop three dozen times. And it's only two in the afternoon.

c) The manager of your gym complains that you've worn out two static bicycles since Christmas.

d) You're cooking on your Campingaz stove for the sheer hell of it.

e) You're using your camping towel for the sheer hell of it.

f) You find yourself spending far more time than usual in the dried-pasta-and-soup section of the supermarket.

g) You can't find anything wrong with the idea of spreading cream cheese with your index finger.

h) The only clothes you find you wash on a regular basis are black, black, dark brown, washed-out-black-going-to-grey and the occasional red garment (for visibility, natch).

Any other signs that I've missed?

How do you know when it's time to leave your "normal" life and head out on your bike?

Never fear...we've got gear!

2008-01-31T01:28:00.000-08:00

Buying gear for cycling trips is one of those things which seem to divide cycle tourists.

On the one hand, there's a way of thinking which dictates that, to be a REAL cycle tourist, one should only travel with the bare minimum of equipment, camping in bushes on the side of the road, cooking all of one's own meals and trying to get in as many kilometres as possible every day.

On the other hand, there's the school of thinking that says, "Look, we're already working hard enough as it is: where's the virtue of making it even more difficult? What's wrong with having a portable espresso maker, a good-quality sleeping bag, a tent that lasts more than a year?"

It's not my job to declare which point of view is the right one -- each has its good points and its bad points -- and let's be honest: Unless you're the protagonist of Ron McClarty's "The Memory of Running", you're not likely to up and leave home with your bike and precious little else. If you're looking to invest in new gear, check out the Trans-Iberian Tuck Shop, on the side bar of both the Spanish Cyclepaths (http://spanish-cyclepaths.blogspot.com/) and Trans-Iberian Express blogs.

Through the Tuck Shop, I'm working to put together a good selection of lightweight, affordable, useful cycle touring gear that will last for ages. All of the proceeds from the Tuck Shop will go to defray costs associated with developing and promoting the Trans-Iberian Express Route, and thanks to the buying power of Amazon.com, the prices of the items are very competitive.

And I'd be delighted to receive requests and suggestions. If there's a product that you're interested in, let me know - and let me know if you've tried any of these products and they haven't worked for you.

Seven weeks to go!

2008-01-29T22:43:00.000-08:00

Someone once said that a plan, a dream, really isn't a plan until you start getting people on board to help you. I really don't remember where I heard that. But yesterday I got over one of the big obstacles that was mentally keeping me from saying, "Yes! I am DOING this!"

I finally told my course coordinator yesterday that I needed time off between Easter and May, and, God bless her, she was fine with that. I don't know why I was sweating it so much: but the second thing I thought of, when I got the prize, was, "Oh my God -- what am I going to tell Alexis?" I'd just started new classes; I didn't really have ANY idea that I had a shot at the SALOMON WOMEN WILL prize, so I thought I was going to have a relatively normal autumn and winter, just getting away for weekends here and there.

And the new bike comes this weekend, too - a flaming red Orbea Arama.

Now all I have to do is keep the publicity up -- and wait six and a half more weeks before I can go to the Basque Country!

Trying to find time

2008-01-28T23:45:00.000-08:00

Not everybody has the chance to take a month and do nothing but cycle. If The Trans-Iberian Express is your first cycling trip, and you’re not sure what part of the trip would be the best for you, consider your abilities and strengths on a bicycle:

Don’t have a lot of time? The two middle weekends – April 4th through 6th and April 11th through 13th – will be going through areas which are accessible by trains. The first weekend in April will follow the Tajuña River valley from Sigüenza to Morata de Tajuña; the second, we’ll be heading through the southern end of Quijote country into Andalusia.

Not a big fan of hills? The terrain in Spain is not mainly plains: this is one of Europe’s most mountainous countries. For those who prefer plains, the section between Toledo and Valdepeñas is relatively flat without being monotonous, passing through vineyards and wildlife sanctuaries under great blue-bowl skies. Another section to consider is the stretch going between Jaén and Osuna, in Andalusia. After a small climb on the Vía Verde del Aceite, it’s all downhill for two hundred kilometres on one of Spain’s longest rail trails.

Or, on the other hand, do you love hills? There’s a reason why some of Spain’s best cyclists come from the Basque Country – the weather is generally mild, the hills are challenging without being murderous and there’s a deep-rooted cycling culture that’s the envy of cyclists living in other parts of the peninsula. While our route going inland from San Sebastian follows the Plazaola Rail Trail, the Basque Country is criss-crossed with secondary highways that provide stimulating, challenging riding.

A change in the south

2008-01-27T09:08:00.000-08:00

After taking a look at some maps (and as usual, more maps and even more maps), I've decided to tweak the route a bit during the final days going through Andalusia. Originally, we were going to go through Arcos de la Frontera and head down through Medina Sidonia. But, after a bit of reflection, I realized that that presents a couple of problems:
a) It'd mean having to take the A393 regional highway, which is pretty enough, but which can't really be recommended, due to heavy traffic and non-existent shoulder to ride on.
b) We wouldn't get to see Ronda!
So the route's changed a bit. Instead of doing the entire Vía Verde de la Sierra on Sunday, April 20th, we'll backtrack a little bit so that we can head to Setenil de las Bodegas, so that we can visit Acinipo, the Roman settlement that essentially served as the first Ronda. From there, we'll take some back roads and country paths in to the north end of Ronda.

The next day, Monday 21 April, will be a rest day, which will allow participants to take part in some sightseeing, get caught up on e-mail and get some shopping done for the next couple of days.

If you've never had the opportunity to visit Ronda, you're in for a treat: it's one of the most atmospheric cities in Spain! And if you want to stretch your legs even more, go for it: you can take a bus up to Grazalema and bike around the north end of the park, and meet us in Alcalá de los Gazules on Wednesday, April 23rd.

This essentially gets us into Tarifa one day later, on Friday the 25th of April, but it's worth it in order to avoid traffic and to enjoy the fabulous views to be had from the south end of the Alcorconales Regional Park.

IMPORTANT NEWS: Accommodation

2008-01-13T01:21:00.000-08:00

Confirmation time!

As previously mentioned here on the blog, youth hostels are going to make up a big part of the places where we're going to stay on the Trans-Iberian. During the first week, the plan is to spend the two nights previous to starting the Trans-Iberian in the Juan Sebastian Elcano youth hostel in Irún. The next night, we'll be staying in one of the four youth hostels in the city of San Sebastian.

Demand for the hostels will be high, given that we'll be there during a holiday week, so I need to make the reservations for our places fairly shortly. If you're planning on taking part in the Trans-Iberian during the first week of the trip (Sunday, March 23rd to Saturday, March 29th), please let me know before Friday, January 18th, so that I can include you in the reservation. You'll still be able to take part in the Trans-Iberian, but I won't be able to guarantee that there will be space for you in the youth hostel!

The pleasure was mine!

2007-12-12T11:06:00.000-08:00

Today I finally had the chance to meet the charming Ben Curtis and his wife, Marina, the brains and brawn behind the Notes From Spain (http://www.notesfromspain.com) website. For the last couple of years, Ben and Marina have been channelling their love (and, sometimes frustations) for Spain into the website, which covers topics as diverse as fiestas, expat life and how thin the walls can be in apartment buildings.

One of the most fun things about their website is their weekly podcasts, where they take time to sit down and talk with diverse people about the diverse things they get up to. So, after much searching for a quiet enough place to do a recording, we settled down in a Starbucks with three cups of hot chocolate, and had a chat about the Trans-Iberian.

It's always encouraging to speak to people who are interested in travelling by bicycle, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Ben and Marina will be able to join us, even if it's just for one weekend!

Check out the podcast at:
http://www.notesfromspain.com/2007/12/10/cycle-ride-lifetime-notes-spain-podcast/ !

Where? Where? Where? Where? Where?

2007-12-07T14:43:00.000-08:00

No sooner are we out of the hotel than I become very, VERY thankful that we didn't go to Andalusia this weekend. A cold front has blown in from the Atlantic and has shrouded the northern half of the peninsula in cold air, which means that if you're anywhere near a river, you're in fog. Thick, dangerous fog that makes biking treacherous, especially since there was no notice in the weather forecasts that this was going to hit this far south.

We're somewhat lucky in that most of the fog we encounter hits us on the way to Toledo, and even though the ride into Toledo requires a bit of zigzagging along some very large roads, we don't have to deal with a lot of traffic and the signage is more or less clear about where we need to go.

This is NOT the case with the Ruta del Quijote signage that we can't see for the life of us. Even though Toledo is effectively the trailhead for the Ruta, there's very, very little signage that directs us to where we're supposed to go to pick up the trail and get out of Toledo - not helped with the nonexistent maps that are in the guide book. Eventually we do find the road out, and head up to Cobisa, then hit the Ruta full-on, but until we get out of the Tagus Valley, it's a bit complicated finding where we're supposed to go.

And even when we're on the route, it becomes clear, very quickly, that you've really got to keep your eyes open for the signs. I'm not sure how, exactly, the signs were planned, but you have to be very, very vigilant for the signs. Paranoid, almost. We end up messing around for a couple of hours before finally giving up after a serious dog-leg; we blow down a secondary highway to the town of Mascaraque, have lunch and promptly give up the idea of trying to make it down to Consuegra before nightfall.

I don't want to criticize the people who worked to create the Ruta del Quijote, because there are some things about the route which are very well done - the rest stops, the signpost markers which tell you how far you are from the next town - but it's not the first time that I've been on the Ruta and come away with the distinct feeling that someone in a government office somewhere sat down with an army map and tried to loop together as many back roads as possible, without actually getting on a bike or putting on a pair of hiking boots and doing the route itself.

We roll into the town of Mora at five PM, check into the hotel and collapse on the beds, partly from exhaustion and partly from the effects of so much frustration in so little time. Fifty-six kilometres in seven hours. Even discounting having stopped for coffee and lunch, we're frustrated that we're nowhere near where we thought we would be.

Fortune's Hotel Room

2007-12-06T13:18:00.000-08:00

When the bunch of us go out on scouting trips, we often don't make hotel reservations. I know that we should, especially on weekends like this when it's a holiday weekend for almost all of the weekend, but -- knock wood -- we've never had trouble. So even though we know that Toledo is going to be busy, I don't bother making a hotel reservation before we leave because there are only two of us, and there's always somewhere for us to stay.

We leave Aranjuez just after 11.15, and ride out towards the Tagus River, on a slightly ratty secondary highway which, blissfully, doesn't have much traffic. The ride between Aranjuez and Toledo is something thaty I've been wanting to solve for a while - it looks like it should be a fairly easy trip, but because of the way farm land has been settled in the Sagra Valley, it's not easy to follow the course of the Tagus and make a straight trip between both towns - let alone cross the Tagus and follow the river down to Toledo.

Generally speaking, it's not hard to follow the trails. The path rolls along the old rail line for most of the distance, which makes navigation easy. The only problem is how to get across the Tagus River, since there aren't a lot of and while we could take a hand-barge to cross the Tagus, the thing doesn't come with any kind of instructions. At times like these, it's best to go with your gut instinct and trust your tripas: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

But then sometimes you just have to let yourself be persuaded, which is what we do when we get to Mocejón. The owner of the Tic-Tac Café is intrigued at the sight of us travelling by bike, and asks where we're headed. Toledo, we say. Got a place for the night? No, not really. Mocejón isn't that far from Toledo; is there any place to stay there? He pulls out a cellphone, rings up one of the hostales in town and half an hour later, we're in a small (but VERY well cared-for) hotel. True, that leaves us with a twelve-kilometre ride before we get to Toledo tomorrow, but we'll manage.

Bedtime! (Part 2)

2007-11-18T11:26:00.000-08:00

Over the past couple of days, I've been getting in touch with the managers of the various hotels, hostels and campsites where we'll be staying along the Trans-Iberian Express. I won't provide a day-by-day breakdown here, since it's not like the options are totally that different, but to give you an idea of what's available where, here's how the nights break down according to category.

YOUTH HOSTELS: Irún (March 21st and 22nd, just before we leave;) San Sebastián (Day 1 - March 23rd); Pamplona (Day 4 - March 26th); Estella (Day 5 - March 27th); Burgo de Osma (Day 11 - April 2nd); Toledo (Day 18 - April 9th); and Jaén (Days 24 and 25 - April 15th and 16th).

CAMPSITES: Lekunberri, Navarra (Day 3 - March 25th); Estella (if we can't get into the youth hostel on Day 5 - March 27th); Fuenmayor, La Rioja (Day 6 - March 28th), Haro, La Rioja (Days 7 and 8), Retortillo de Soria, Soria (Day 12 - April 3rd), Aranjuez (Days 16 and 17 - April 7 and 8), Arcos de la Frontera (Day 30 - April 22nd), Medina Sidonia (Day 31 - April 22rd), Zahara de los Atunes (Day 32 - April 23th) and Tarifa (Day 33 - April 24th).

Keep in mind that most of the towns we'll be staying in also have some kind of hotel or hostal, so if you're not into the idea of camping, there's usually another kind of alternative.

HOTELS, HOSTALES AND OTHER PRIVATE ACCOMMODATION: We've got several options in the following places: Atapuerca, Burgos (Day 9 - March 31); Salas de los Infantes (Day 10 - April 1st); Brihuega (Day 14 - April 5th); Estremera (Day 15 - April 6th); Consuegra (Day 19 - April 10); Castellar de Santiago, Ciudad Real (Day 21 - April 12); Aldeaquemada, Jaén (Day 22 - April 13th); Úbeda, Jaén (Day 23 - April 14th), Luque (Day 26 - April 17); Puente-Genil (Day 27 - April 18); Osuna (Day 28 - April 19); and Coripe (Day 29 - April 20).

The great question is what we're going to do in Andoain, just south of San Sebastian. When I was planning the route, I wasn't aware that Andoain is famous for only having one hotel, and unless we can make some kind of arrangement to stay in the sports centre or some kind of rural tourism centre, we may have to give Andoain a pass. Hopefully the Consorcio of the Plazaola Vía Verde can help us find a solution!

Bedtime! (Part 1)

2007-11-14T11:43:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest concerns that potential participants have - rightly enough - is where we're going to sleep. So that's been this week's project: find the beds and the places where we're going to stay.

In planning where we would sleep, there were two problems: first of all, guaranteeing that there would be beds or places to sleep when we got there; and, secondly, making sure that there was as much of a variety of places to stay as possible.

Campsites and youth hostels give us the greatest amount of flexibility; if it should come to pass that the group gets really big, we know that, in most places, we won't have a problem getting everyone a place to sleep for the night. But there are limitations. Not everybody is crazy about camping, and there are going to be some days when people are going to want the comfort of a warm bed and a hot shower after a hard day's riding.

At the same time, none of us is made of money. Being on the road for an entire month is going to mean spending at least €350 on places to stay (and that's being conservative.) So there'll be a need to keep costs down, as well as being able to cook for ourselves. No one is going to want to survive on restaurant food every day. There's nothing like being able to cook for yourself while you're on the road, and staying in campsites and youth hostels will give us a better chance of cooking our own meals.

So what I've done is try to get a good mix of places and options. Where possible, we'll stay in campsites; and it's worth noting that any town that's big enough to have a campsite will have other accommodation options, so you're not obliged to sleep outside if you don't want to. In Sunday's post, I'll set out the options that we've got, and where we'll be staying when.

We're Out There!

2007-11-10T15:52:00.000-08:00

Great news: articles have started appearing in the press about the Trans-Iberian Advenutre, including a feature on the website of Canada's PEDAL Magazine (http://www.pedalmag.com/index.php?module=Section&action=viewdetail&item_id=12041).

We're also featured in the November edition of SPORT LIFE (www.sportlife.es), a Spanish magazine dedicated to health and wellness; this will be followed up by a four- to five-page report on the Trans-Iberian in SPORT LIFE WOMAN, in May of 2008.

And Bicycling Australia's planning to carry something in their mag about the trip, too, which will be VERY cool.

Slowly but surely, word's getting out there!

The judge speaks!

2007-10-30T03:04:00.001-07:00

One of the most exciting things about taking part in SALOMON WOMEN WILL is getting the experience to work with - and hear from - other women adventurers who dedicate their lives to exploring the world. For Spanish climbers, Araceli Segarra needs no introduction: She was the first Spanish woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, and is known as one of the world's foremost mountaineers. Back in May, she did an interview with SALOMON about the challenges and joys of women in the world of active tourism:

You've spent many years being one of the best Spanish alpinists. Do mountains now signify devotion or obligation for you?
AS: My aim's always been to work as little as possible, in order to climb as much as possible. It's an authentic calling for me: climbing and travelling.

When did you first know that you were made for mountaineering?
AS- Truth is, I don't know that I even know that now. I never had a revelation; day by day, I got here in a fairly organic way. Living, for me, is doing what you really love, even though that means that you've got to be brave.

Do your upcoming projects demand bravery?
AS- Within a month [June 2007] I'm going to return to Everest to do another film for IMAX. The first was in 1996, during that expedition which will always be a special for me, although the goal that time wasn't to reach the summit.

[Gratuitous comment from Patricia: Whatever you do, DON'T miss Jon Krakauer's classic retelling of that fateful May in 1996, "Into Thin Air". She was too modest to say it during this interview, but the members of the IMAX team - including Ed Viesturs, David Brashears and Araceli - put their own summit attempt in jeopardy to help bring the injured climbers down off the mountain. ]

What words do you have for young women who have fallen in love with mountains?
AS- Enjoy it, and to enjoy it, remember that you don't have to go to Lapland or Madagascar. There are an infinite number of adventures to be had in the Pyrenees and the Alps. You can be a good mountaineer right near your own home; it simply consists of enjoying outdoor sports. .

Has being a woman been a help or a handicap during your career?
AS- It's never posed a problem for me. I climb with a lot of guys, and they see me as a fellow climber and a friend who likes to go up rock. But I always try to be realistic and I don't make things difficult for myself by going beyond my limits. That's what keeps you out of trouble - for both men and women.

Finally, what did being the first woman to summit Everest give to you personally?
AS- Some good things and some bad things. Among the good things is that I've always been clear that, in terms of mountaineering, my feat didn't break any barriers, given that I did it with bottled oxygen. It's just that, at that moment, our objective was to bring an IMAX camera to the top of the world. We accomplished that, and the 1996 film is proof of that. That was good, as is being the first woman to do something to help more people get inspired - and when we're talking about women, that is something very positive. I also put a lot of value on how communication works, and that I put in my two cents when it comes to demystifying the danger that the media always sticks to mountaineering. It's not really as dangerous as they say - I'm just saying!

The downside is that I've been labelled "Everest Girl" and my life in sport is a lot more wide-ranging than that. I do a lot of different things with different levels of ability. I don't want anyone to put me on a pedestal, just so that I can fall down later. I'm not trying to sell anything and I believe that words are worth their weight in gold - that's why I always try to put the truth first.

(Big thanks to Toti Rosselló for letting us re-print his interview with Araceli.)

We have beds! (Part I)

2007-10-30T02:03:00.000-07:00

Good news on the accommodation front. I just heard from María at Camping Aralar, located in Lekunberri, Navarra (where we'll be staying the night of Wednesday, March 26th). The campsite is not typically open during the work week out of season, but María has confirmed that they'll be happy to open up the campsite for us so that we have a place to stay. They're going to put us up in the refuge (cost: €9.83) that night - it's just as expensive as the campsite itself, and will probably be a lot warmer.

The only catch is that we have to confirm ONE MONTH BEFORE (which means letting them know by February 26th, 2008.) I will make a reservation for six people (the minimum amount) but if you want to stay there, please let me know as soon as possible, so that we can have beds for everyone.

TRANS-IBERIAN, now on FACEBOOK.COM

2007-10-23T00:59:00.000-07:00

A piece of news for those of you who use the FACEBOOK (http://www.facebook.com) website: I've now created an English-language FACEBOOK group, so that people who are interested in the trip can keep up to date on the latest developments.

All you need to do is search for Trans-Iberian Express under "Groups" and send me a message, and I'll put you in the group. Be sure to let me know if you'll be able to take part, or if you're just curious to see how things are going along!

Straight Shot

2007-10-13T05:47:00.000-07:00

Eighty kilometres seems like a very long distance to do in one day, but when most of the trip is downhill, it's a lot better. We left Brihuega going down a sweet series of hairpin turns to join the valley of the Tajuña River, which is going to take us all the way back down to Madrid.

It's a gorgeous day - the sky an incredibly deep royal blue which looks even more blue when juxtaposed with the bright yellows of the poplar tres which line the Tajuña. The day starts off cool, but warms up enough that, by the end of the day, we all end up with sunburns on our noses. The route takes us past two dozen attractive, historical villages; it's a shame that we don't have time to visit them all, because it doesn't seem fair that we should have to choose one over the other.

The further south we go, the more the valley opens up, and by the time we reach the N320 highway, the Tajuna lies at the bottom of a low canyon, bounded by wheat fields on each side. We stop for lunch at a small town close to the Madrid-Guadalajara border; the afternoon's riding was totally seamless, one of those days when you could go on riding and pedalling forever if the sunlight let you. And then we hit the first big problem: finding a place to sleep.

The Spanish greenways guidebook says that there are four places to sleep: two in the town of Ambite, one in Orusco de Tajuña, as well as a youth hostel in Carabaña. Turns out that the Carabaña youth hostel is just that - no one over 30 - and the hostales in Orusco and Ambite closed years ago. Which leaves us with a hotel in Tielmes whose name I won't mention.

The hotel itself is not bad if you've got money, but it's very surprising to find out that there are so few options along the way. The hotel is NOT cheap; they do have cabins for rent, but they're not good value for the money, and the three of us are woken up several times during the night by drunken wedding guests trying to find their way into bed. I was hoping that the existence of the Vía Verde would motivate more tourism initiatives in the area, but this doesn't seem to be the case....

Lovely Alternatives

2007-10-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

Friday, 12 October 2007: Guadalajara to Brihuega, 45 km
Sometimes, when your nightmares come true, it seems to make them go away for the future. I know that missing a train hardly qualifies as a nightmare, but when I was standing on Platform 15 of Chamartín Station, watching the train to the town to Arcos de Jalón pull away, I couldn't think of anything else. Announcements had told us that the train was leaving from Platform 5. My Spanish is good enough that I would NOT confuse those two numbers. And even though we ran like a pair of maniacs, we missed the train.

The first exploration trip to check out the Trans-Iberian route was not getting off to a good start!

In the end, it worked out well. Not only because we missed having to do a lot of highway riding, but because we found a great way of getting around the Alcarria region. The idea behind the Trans-Iberian is to find quiet roads that allow cyclists to travel around Spain, and we found a number of good options that would make a fun cycling weekend around Madrid.

After filling ourselves with coffee, we rode off and followed the CM101 highway up to the turnoff to Tórtola de Henares, a small bedroom community northeast of Guadalajara city. It seems to have a charming centre, but it's hard to tell, what with all the new construction creeping up the sides of the hills around town. We then headed north on the CM1003 regional road - and did well for the first 500 metres - until the highway ran out! The regional government was a third of the way through rebuilding the road, which left us with five or six kilometres of rough gravel riding. Nothing unusual, for having grown up in Eastern Ontario, but it still wasn't pleasant. Gonzalo, our resident public works expert, didn't think much of the road.

The next, best option was to head through the towns of Ciruelas and Cañizar, where we stopped for lunch. It seems like most small towns in Guadalajara province that have more than a couple of hundred residents have, at least, two important monuments: a bar and a church. That's how we came up with our first rule: When in doubt, we'll meet at the first bar or the church, whichever one we come across first. After a quick lunch (including a delicious salad of tomatoes, garlic, cumin seeds and thyme), we set off, did a quick climb up out of the Henares Valley, and set off towards Brihuega.

Brihuega itself is a cute little town, very green and historic, but one thing became very clear very quickly: They're definitely not used to cycle tourists in this part of the country. The clerk at the hostal where we stayed gladly took our money and booked us in - and two minutes later, the owner of the place came out and started whining that no one had told him that we would be bringing bicycles.

I calmly pointed out that, when I'd booked the room the night before, I had told the clerk on duty that we would be arriving by bicycle, so it wasn't like they weren't informed. He grudgingly accepted the bicycles and told us to put them in the salon, but not before he complained that the other guests would have to look at the bicycles. (Later, I took a look at the cubby holes where the keys were kept - only four of the thirty rooms were occupied!)

We didn't last very long that night. We had a couple of glasses of wine, some platos combinados of fried eggs, chips and grilled red peppers, and were in bed before ten o'clock - a good thing, considering that Saturday promised to be a very long day, indeed.

Great stuff!! (Now get back to work.)

2007-10-08T01:40:00.000-07:00

Oh, NO. Like I needed another way of wasting time and not getting stuff done:

http://sigpac.mapa.es/fega/visor/

This is a great combination of three different kinds of maps - road map, Army map and Google Earth-style map all in one website. It's totally free to use; you can't save the maps, unfortunately, but there are no restrictions to printing individual pages.

Enjoy!

And be warned - you don't get kicked off the website after a set period of time.

Yes, it's nice. No, you can't have it.

2007-10-05T01:11:00.000-07:00

I'm a map freak. I have no problems admitting it. I can do a fair amount of damage in any bookshop, given enough free time and money; but put a selection of maps in there, and you can't get my butt out of there, even if there were a five-alarm fire burning the joint down.

I have most of the maps for the Trans-Iberian Express, but the one thing I don't have is the map for the Ruta Natural de los Dos Bahias, which links the Bay of Cádiz with the Bay of Algeciras, just to the west of Gibraltar. Or, better said, I did have it - but after two years and moving house once, I don't even remember if I still have it or if it was one of the many things that I chucked when I moved.

A quick Google search revealed that the Diputación de Cádiz (the regional authority) had published a book about the trail, but the first printing was sold out. I fired off an e-mail, asking if a second edition was coming out. And then I got the phone call.

For some reason, the automatic answering machine on my phone hasn't been activated, so I ended up playing phone tag with the representative of InfoCádiz. When I finally got ahold of him, the conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hi there. I'm calling about your guide to the Ruta de los Dos Bahías."

Mr. InfoCádiz: "Ah, yes. It's a shame about that book."

"A shame?"

"It's sold out."

"I understand that. Will there be a second edition of the book?"

"No, and it's a shame, because it's a really nice book. The guy who wrote the book got a grant from the Diputación de Cádiz to write it, but they wouldn't pay for a second edition, and he didn't want to pay for it, so... no more book."

"I see."

"And it's a real shame, because it was a great book. It had great information for people who wanted to do the route by car, on foot, riding a horse. And yes, I guess on bikes, as well."

"But I can't buy it."

"No one wants to pay for a second printing."

"Do you have any idea of where I could get another copy?"

"You may want to call the central switchboard of the Diputación de Cádiz and ask to speak to someone there. There's probably someone there who can tell you what you need to know."

And he rang off.

True, it was very generous of him to call to let me know. But I'm kind of confused as to why he went to so much trouble to try to sell a book that can't be purchased.....!

First of many sleepless nights

2007-10-01T05:16:00.000-07:00

I'm not particularly fond of doing work on Sundays, but this weekend, I couldn't help it. What with the excitement checking out routes, alternatives and everything that had to be done, my brain just kept going and going and going and going.... which made for a very sleepless night last night.

I don't know why I couldn't stop thinking about the route. Too much caffeine, maybe. But I literally sat awake last night and sweated about what I should do about the section that goes through the Sierra de la Demanda.

The problem is that I don't know when exactly I'm leaving. I don't know if I'm going to do the Trans-Iberian in two parts (one section right after Christmas, the other during and the week after Semana Santa) or all in one go (leave on Palm Sunday and then return to Madrid on May 5th.) In either case, it's going to mean doing the trip during the late winter - early spring, when the snow is still thick up in the Sierra de la Demanda. It is possible to get around the Sierra, but it'd mean a 200-kilometre detour to get around the Sierra, which adds another three or four days to the route, which is already a month long.

And I kept lying awake, thinking, heavens - at the end of the day, it's ONLY a bike ride........!

Picking a Route

2007-09-30T05:27:00.000-07:00

Logistically, picking a route that goes from the north of Spain to the extreme south should be a piece of cake; it should be a straight shot right down the middle of the peninsula, from one end to the other. When I originally envisioned the route, I thought about what the easiest way would be to get from north to south without having to deal with too much traffic.

In fact, it hasn't been that easy. I call it the Moncho Test; Moncho Dávila(pictured right), the designer responsible for the Spanish Cyclepaths (http://www.spanishcyclepaths.com/) website, just had a baby. His girlfriend, Marta, isn't as avid a cyclist as he is, so going on a biking trip for them posing several challenges. They need to find a route which isn't too hilly or too hard to ride; after all, only one of the three of them is an experienced cyclist who likes hills. Infrastructure is important: they can't be that far away from hotels and places to eat. And it's gotta be fun. Dedicated cycle tourists don't mind kilometres and kilometres of boring sights, since they know that, eventually, something cool will come up. Not everyone is that patient.

So when it came to deciding on the route, I decided that it would be much more appealing to set a route that followed simple guidelines:

a) Does it keep you away from major roads? After all, a ride isn't enjoyable if you're worried that you're going to get dinged from behind.

b) Is it going to take you to places that you wouldn't normally go to if you were travelling by car? Sure, the supposed advantage of having a car means that you should be able to go where you want. But many times, we focus so much on reaching our destinations that we don't think about the fun stuff to see along the way. The Trans-Iberian goes through and by some of the most important - and least visited - sights in Spain. That doesn't mean that the route goes through the middle of nowhere - but it's a great way to get away from the tourist trail and see some beautiful art, architecture and areas.

c) Can you use public transit to get there and back? There are two reasons for this: first of all, relatively few people are going to have five weeks to do the entire route - they're much more likely to do a weekend here, a week there. The second reason: taking a bike in a car is a lot more hassle than taking a bike on public transit. That's not to say that taking a bike on a bus or train in Spain is easy. It's a lot nicer than having to plan a circular route that takes you back to your car (which could get broken into while you're away) or having to worry about whether your bike(s) will fit into your vehicle.

d) Does it use already-existing green tourism infrastructure and facilities? I love rail trails, the Camino de Santiago and transhumance routes, but it's always surprised me that no one has thought to connect them on a national level and create a national system. Until I win the lottery and can afford to put up signage all over the nation (and that's going to be a long time coming, I suppose) there's no reason why the route can't incorporate infrastructure that's already there.

So those were the four criteria I used when thinking about the route. Stay tuned to find out how the route's evolving and where we'll eventually go in March of 2008.

NOW THE WORK BEGINS!

2007-09-27T01:36:00.000-07:00

I remember the first moment when the thought of doing a Trans-Iberian route came up.

Two years ago, my buddy Scott and I were biking along the Via Verde de la Sierra, east of Seville and north of Málaga, and we were marvelling at how great it was to use a bicycle route where there were no cars, no traffic, no noise – just the sound of the Guadalete River and the wind in the trees. And I said to Scott: Wouldn’t it be great to have a national system of routes like this one, routes where you could get across the country and be able to ride like this, not having to continually look over you shoulder to make sure you’re not going to get hit from behind or honked at, a system of routes that would allow you to spend days on end riding without a care, where you could just pedal and think about your next meal and where you were going to sleep, and not have to worry about anything else.

The idea never really went away, especially as I watched the system of different nature routes grow and develop, but never really connect. Sometimes they would incorporate different parts of other systems – the Ruta del Quijote has a chunk or two of rail trails, for example – but there didn’t seem to be any willingness or initiative to tie all of the systems together so that people could use them to take longer trips.

Well, it’s happening now. I got the call this morning from the wonderful people at Salomon Sports Spain, who told me that I’m the national winner of the Spring-Summer 2007 edition of Salomon Women Will – Live Your Dream competition. The dream is now a reality: To the best of my knowledge, this effort – called the Trans-Iberian Express – is the first effort to tie together several existing systems to create the first route that can take cycle tourists across the Iberian peninsula. At the end of the process, Spain will have its first north-south route, fully marked and documented route that will allow people who want to travel by bike to head directly from north to south. Better yet, this route doesn’t require you to use a car to get there or back: the route has been specifically designed so that you can make the most of the good public transit connections that exist throughout the country.

So stay tuned and join us on the Trans-Iberian express!