Euroloop

That’s another 5-day block of cycling done and dusted. Where is all this time disappearing to? I’m now in the city of Burgos, about a days ride from the northern coast of Spain, where I’ve had my day off.

This chunk of riding is the first time since Bosnia where I’ve camped wild every night between rest days, it’s been a while. I’m pretty sure I looked and smelt quite interesting when I got to my hotel, but the good thing is that when it’s you that smells, your nose becomes fairly immune to it all. The week has also been quite a relaxed one in terms of the distances I’ve had to do. Since realising I’m quite a bit ahead of target to complete 5000 miles by Glasgow, I put the week just gone and the week coming up onto a distance diet - the comfortable, take-your-time sort of diet. It turned out that that was a very good idea as the whole way through Spain was hilly, some might even say mountainous, with plenty of ups and downs. I don’t know where the little poem/saying applies to, but there ain’t no rain or plains where I’ve just been riding. In combination with that, I had a nasty critter of a headwind for 36-hours which majorly slowed me down.

The week started off badly when I left my hotel in Tarragona late at around 11:30am after trying to finish off all my communications whilst I had internet access. Following picking up some food supplies at Lidl across the road, I came out of the store to find some cheeky bandit had pinched my helmet and sunglasses, which I’d left clipped to the bike. Now, who wants to steal a sun-bleached, sweat-soaked helmet along with some knackered and scratched sunglasses I’ve no idea, but good luck to ‘em. Anyway, that put a bit of a dampener of things. All I can say is that I’m very fortunate they didn’t steal anything more disastrous - I guess they were the quickest, easiest things to take. I then rode down to the train station to get a train backwards 40km to where I called it quits 2 days before. That again was a bit demoralising, not to mention the hassle I had getting a ticket, but that’s another story. Anyway, I eventually hit the road at 1pm after all that. However, I still managed to fit in my 110km despite having to stop to buy a new helmet and sunglasses during the afternoon.

The only way was up from the coast after riding through Tarragona for the second time that day, and I plodded my way through some fairly stunning and lush mountains during the evening, finishing the day off riding into a brilliant sunset. The next day started off well enough but suddenly at around 11am I came out of a town and the big, brute wind hit. For the next day and a half I had to struggle against it, having to pedal to just get down hills. This was at the same time as riding through totally barren landscapes where there was just rubble and scrub, punctuated occasionally by pylons and a road that headed on into more nothingness. The outlook was bleak. I was fortunate to find the only bushes I’d seen for ages outside a town so that I cold put up the tent. I treated myself to some calamares there in the town, my first proper Spanish food to speak of.

Eventually, the next day the wind all but disappeared and the landscape got a bit more interesting thankfully. I went over a mountain ridge, hounded constantly by stupid flies all the way up and coming out onto the other side, I was confronted with quite a crazy landscape of lush valleys and hills with vines and crops growing everywhere. The hills had ledges cut into them all the way down for these crops, which made them look all geometric - reminded me of something out of a Lego set. From then on the riding was a pleasure and the miles disappeared almost effortlessly. I had a few issues with getting enough food as I was mostly passing through small villages and between 1pm and 5pm, although that seems to be up for grabs, everything is shut. Mention this in my video diary taken in Soria, where I fluked finding one of the only food stores open, even though it’s a fairly large town. Probably because it was run by a Chinese chap.

If anyone is interested, I  made a note of what I ate the day before this video. Again, I had issues finding food so it’s probably not enough, but it is fairly typical of a normal day. In no particular order:

• 2 nectarines
• banana
• tomato
• large portion of porridge with sugar and sultanas
• muesli bar
• 5 savoury pastries
• 4-5 sugary doughnut things
• 2 chocolate croissants
• ice cream
• 2 yoghurts
• bottle of drinking yoghurt
• litre of coke
• can of ice tea
• litre of fruit juice
• 3 litres of water

I did have a little blip this week where my bottle of shower gel decided to explode inside my pannier bag. It was almost full and so Lidl’s finest yellow, gooey liquid managed to cover all my toiletries, get all over my sleeping bag stuff-sack (thankfully it’s water proof) and a good part of the pannier bag. It took ages to clean up and most of my water supplies for the night as I had stopped to camp at this point. But it could have been a lot worse and nothing more vital like my sleeping bag or stove got soaked in the horrible stuff. I took this video in the morning, don’t know why I didn’t mention the shower gel incident. Obviously forgotten about it by then, or I was too tired to remember.

On the final day of this riding chunk I only had to do 100km to get to Burgos. It was mostly easy riding and got there at an unprecedented 2.15pm. This gave me almost a day and a half off and so I had time to have a kebab and a beer, find out if there was launderette in town and saunter off to the hotel. Very relaxed especially compared to the previous week where I walked through the hotel doors at 10.30pm. Anyway, I’ve had a good day off here in Burgos today. Pretty much every town I’ve stayed in I’ve managed to fluke it coming in high on the cool-0-meter. Burgos has a really nice old part of the city to wander round and a very impressive cathedral.

So I set off on the road again tomorrow for another 5-day stretch of riding. Final destination is Bordeaux for my day off, which is made 10 times more exciting because my Kate is flying in after having just returned to the UK from India, and we’ll be spending a short bit of time together there. Can’t wait. I’m also faced with the prospect of hitting the 4000 mile mark this week, meaning only 1000 miles until I get back to Glasgow. I’m starting to feel very close now and the light at the end of the tunnel is highly visible. Bring it on.

The only thing is I’ve been trying to keep up with a few other British cyclists who are on adventures whilst I’ve been on the road, although their journeys make mine feel very much like a walk in the park and quite unimpressive. If you’re interested, Mark Beaumont, a friend from university and current world  record holder for cycling round the world, is currently riding from North to South America and his expedition is fully covered by the BBC. James Bowthorpe is just days away from breaking Mark’s world record after riding for around 9 months. And finally, a chap called Julien Emre Sayarer is also midway through riding round the world in a quest to break the world record - he has ridden 9,000 miles without spending a night in a hotel or camp site, big respect. All inspiring stuff - hope you enjoy taking a look. Right, that’s me off to bed. Goodnight.

Blogged in Spain