Cycling Spain ….
The Good
· For much of our first 60klm day cycling, the riding conditions and views were superb, and the weather perfect.
· The food – paella, fiduela, delicious tapas varieties (most of which we can recognise in Spanish/Catalan now, sort of), fresh grilled squid, octopus, sooooo many cheeses (queso), café con leche, croissants…Menu del dia – the 3 course menu of the day for around 7-15 Euros from most reputable (and non-reputable) restaurants… With special mention to:
· The cheeses – Spain does a mean goat cheese, and it’s often served gratinated with honey on fresh salad with dried fruit. I’ve eaten about 12+ types of cheeses every day for weeks now, and it’s all so very good.
· The wine. It’s too good, it’s also cheap and we’ve done our bit for tourism by consuming in abundance.
· JB – he has not been mad at me once yet even though I’ve obviously slowed us down. A lot. He doesn’t even get mad (yet) when I panic about cars, pedestrians, hills, where the next food is etc.
· The beaches: Costa Brava is superb – all craggy rock faces and cliffs and blue ocean and big skies and crazy ancient church looking buildings, all under the Mediterranean sun. No hot nude euros yet, but we’re hoping.
· We’re getting tanned!
· The people are all ultra friendly, ultra stylish…and extremely tolerant of our crappy Spanish, or my habit of just walking into a shop/café/restaurant and standing there in silence as I realise too late I don’t know the Spanish version of what I need to ask.
· Our Cyclone trailers. They rock. They’re packed with 25kgs of our crap and we’ve lugged them through airports, along roads, up and down stairs, up and down kerbs, through sand and mud and they are still going strong.
· Although JB fell off once, I’ve nearly stacked it countless times, both of us have rolled our trailers a few times, and we’ve spent many hours chasing the path or dragging the trailers through sand and up and down stairs we’ve luckily suffered no injuries or major losses yet.
The Bad
· The hills. Cycling upwards, ever upwards, over 10klms low gradient incline (today) while dragging 40+kg (50+kg for JB) of bike, trailer and packs inside a very narrow shoulder on the edge of a long drop on a busy 4 lane highway - while cars, motorcycles, buses and trucks whizz past – usually smirking. Today we ascended constantly for about 3-4 hours. Slowly. My knees were so angry.
· The hills – flying downwards at a staggeringly fast 27.7klms/hour (to some this isn’t fast at all, but it feels so fast to me I wanted to throw up for most of the descents) while same trucks etc screeched past and Jamie patiently coasts along ahead at about half the speed he would like to descend at.
· The hills are even worse for me as I have never ridden on hills before, ever, and I sort of thought the whole cycling gig would be us coasting along (perpetually downhill) on narrow cobbled roads between smiling and waving Spaniards (or Italians, or French people), fromageries, cafes and shoe shops having 99% off sales.
· I now look like someone who eats 12+ cheeses and two three course meals a day, after a criossant or two for brekkie – sadly three days of cycling have not yet given me the ass of a Brazilian supermodel. WTF? I’m not any taller yet either.
· JB – for laughing at me after I innocently cycled right into a vintage car rally where I then got my trailer stuck on the curb facing into the cars, to the horror/disgust of the policemen who were angrily blowing their whistles at me (I could tell they were cross, so I ignored them) and to the amusement of the old men strolling by who were laughing too much to help me.
· Proudly telling my sister we’d arrived at Tossa Del Mar, 120klms out of Barcelona – only to have her laugh at me for only being 120klms out of Barcelona. After a few more days of us cycling she ‘may do a day trip via train to visit’ from when she gets back to Barcelona…whatever Egg!
· Our campsite at Blanes – for 20 Euros we got a patch of hard dirt. No toilet paper in the toilets. No hot water (!). No internet. Our one camp power point didn’t even work. Bastards.
· Having no hot water. Freezing cold splash shower after cycling all day = insufficient and unsatisfying. BASTARDS.
The Ugly
· Cycling pants – they are horrendous and uncomfortable (like a nappy) and the padding makes my fromaged-up posterior even more prominent. Jb is very cute in his which makes it even worse.
· To vaseline or not? To knicker or not under the bike pants? How helmet-y will my hair be today? These are the dilemmas a lady on a bike faces daily.. JB goes for no knickers, with vas. I’m experimenting on the knickers front. No vaseline as yet. Ugly.
· We rode past a gorgeous little child in a car, who put his hand out the window towards us, all excited. JB was ahead and high-fived him. I approached and his little hand was out, all hopeful and excited. As he was on my right, I had to just give him apologetic face, remembering what happened last time I took ol’ righty off the job…
The Good
· For much of our first 60klm day cycling, the riding conditions and views were superb, and the weather perfect.
· The food – paella, fiduela, delicious tapas varieties (most of which we can recognise in Spanish/Catalan now, sort of), fresh grilled squid, octopus, sooooo many cheeses (queso), café con leche, croissants…Menu del dia – the 3 course menu of the day for around 7-15 Euros from most reputable (and non-reputable) restaurants… With special mention to:
· The cheeses – Spain does a mean goat cheese, and it’s often served gratinated with honey on fresh salad with dried fruit. I’ve eaten about 12+ types of cheeses every day for weeks now, and it’s all so very good.
· The wine. It’s too good, it’s also cheap and we’ve done our bit for tourism by consuming in abundance.
· JB – he has not been mad at me once yet even though I’ve obviously slowed us down. A lot. He doesn’t even get mad (yet) when I panic about cars, pedestrians, hills, where the next food is etc.
· The beaches: Costa Brava is superb – all craggy rock faces and cliffs and blue ocean and big skies and crazy ancient church looking buildings, all under the Mediterranean sun. No hot nude euros yet, but we’re hoping.
· We’re getting tanned!
· The people are all ultra friendly, ultra stylish…and extremely tolerant of our crappy Spanish, or my habit of just walking into a shop/café/restaurant and standing there in silence as I realise too late I don’t know the Spanish version of what I need to ask.
· Our Cyclone trailers. They rock. They’re packed with 25kgs of our crap and we’ve lugged them through airports, along roads, up and down stairs, up and down kerbs, through sand and mud and they are still going strong.
· Although JB fell off once, I’ve nearly stacked it countless times, both of us have rolled our trailers a few times, and we’ve spent many hours chasing the path or dragging the trailers through sand and up and down stairs we’ve luckily suffered no injuries or major losses yet.
The Bad
· The hills. Cycling upwards, ever upwards, over 10klms low gradient incline (today) while dragging 40+kg (50+kg for JB) of bike, trailer and packs inside a very narrow shoulder on the edge of a long drop on a busy 4 lane highway - while cars, motorcycles, buses and trucks whizz past – usually smirking. Today we ascended constantly for about 3-4 hours. Slowly. My knees were so angry.
· The hills – flying downwards at a staggeringly fast 27.7klms/hour (to some this isn’t fast at all, but it feels so fast to me I wanted to throw up for most of the descents) while same trucks etc screeched past and Jamie patiently coasts along ahead at about half the speed he would like to descend at.
· The hills are even worse for me as I have never ridden on hills before, ever, and I sort of thought the whole cycling gig would be us coasting along (perpetually downhill) on narrow cobbled roads between smiling and waving Spaniards (or Italians, or French people), fromageries, cafes and shoe shops having 99% off sales.
· I now look like someone who eats 12+ cheeses and two three course meals a day, after a criossant or two for brekkie – sadly three days of cycling have not yet given me the ass of a Brazilian supermodel. WTF? I’m not any taller yet either.
· JB – for laughing at me after I innocently cycled right into a vintage car rally where I then got my trailer stuck on the curb facing into the cars, to the horror/disgust of the policemen who were angrily blowing their whistles at me (I could tell they were cross, so I ignored them) and to the amusement of the old men strolling by who were laughing too much to help me.
· Proudly telling my sister we’d arrived at Tossa Del Mar, 120klms out of Barcelona – only to have her laugh at me for only being 120klms out of Barcelona. After a few more days of us cycling she ‘may do a day trip via train to visit’ from when she gets back to Barcelona…whatever Egg!
· Our campsite at Blanes – for 20 Euros we got a patch of hard dirt. No toilet paper in the toilets. No hot water (!). No internet. Our one camp power point didn’t even work. Bastards.
· Having no hot water. Freezing cold splash shower after cycling all day = insufficient and unsatisfying. BASTARDS.
The Ugly
· Cycling pants – they are horrendous and uncomfortable (like a nappy) and the padding makes my fromaged-up posterior even more prominent. Jb is very cute in his which makes it even worse.
· To vaseline or not? To knicker or not under the bike pants? How helmet-y will my hair be today? These are the dilemmas a lady on a bike faces daily.. JB goes for no knickers, with vas. I’m experimenting on the knickers front. No vaseline as yet. Ugly.
· We rode past a gorgeous little child in a car, who put his hand out the window towards us, all excited. JB was ahead and high-fived him. I approached and his little hand was out, all hopeful and excited. As he was on my right, I had to just give him apologetic face, remembering what happened last time I took ol’ righty off the job…
