Vaucluse Dreamer

All being well, four weeks from today, we’ll be finding our feet in Madrid, spending a day exploring the city, before  starting our cycle ride back, across Spain to Sète.Espagne à Velo

We will (if everything goes as planned) arrive by train from Aix, with our bikes dismantled and packed into bags for the trip. The plan is to rebuild them at the station, cycle to our accommodation and then post the bags home, as the final trip back from Sète to Avignon will be on local trains, where the bikes can be taken aboard (as they are)

The way the days are going, I have a feeling it will be on us, before we really know it, so we’ve been doing what we can to get ready for it, since we arrived home 2 weeks ago.

It really does seem very different to our first A to B cycle ride, from East Devon to Provence last summer. Then we were cycling through areas we know well, and we had a good sense of where we were going and the possible ways we could get there. Also we are at home in France, speak French and felt confident making the route up, as we went along.

This time, we are visiting a total unknown for us. We can’t easily visualise the country, have no idea of the geography and despite my daily Duolingo efforts with Spanish, I can only really manage to ask about the basic necessities of life, so this will be a big step out of our lavender-scented, ermine-lined comfort zone.

The good thing is that we learned a huge amount on our ride last year, including what kit we needed, and more importantly what we didn’t need. There was also the realisation  that I really have to have a good, old-fashioned paper map to plan routes, rather than simply rely on online systems. I reached screaming-point on just the first day, as Google tried to take us across yet another wheat field, on what it considered to be the best cycling route. After a few kilometres of cursing we never looked back, once we managed to find a map, first thing the following morning.

So this year, the maps have been out and using those, and a mix of Komoot & Google street view, we have managed to plot our ride across Spain, back to the border and on into France.

It’s not a marked trail, or any other highlighted route, simply what seems to be the easiest way for us to wind our way towards the border, stopping at large towns and cities that sound rather nice, on the way. Effectively we’ve made it up, as we’ve gone along!

What seems really odd for me though, is knowing just how far each day’s ride will be, and also how hilly it will be too. The joy of the maps we used last year was that they had no contour lines, so we just followed the roads we had chosen and went up the hills, as we came across them. To be honest, this little bit of ignorance was bliss, as if you had told me that our first day of cycling in France would see us climb nearly 2000m, I would have been worried stupid. As it was, we just got on with it, and arrived at our first stop tired, but happy with what we had achieved.

The fact that I already know that on our second day, we will be doing that level of climbing again, with a 20% ramp thrown in for good measure, is a little demon that I will have to deal with.  That said, we’ve already had a good look at the roads we’ll be riding on and they look absolutely stunning, so planning has its benefits too.

Last year , we booked our accommodation each day, stopping at lunchtime to gauge where we would get to, and finding places in the area. This year though, we have already booked our accommodation on the way, as we really aren’t confident doing it as we go. I’m sure that anyone who visits Spain regularly will think we’re a bit over-anxious about this, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, we often fret about ridiculous things, so we’d rather deal with this one before we go. It will hopefully give us one less thing to worry about!

So far though, it looks as if we may have made the right decision, as some of the areas we are riding through (especially in the more mountainous area), options of places to stay appear to be few and far between. Checking again, a few nights ago, we found that most places are fully booked, so we may well have struggled to find somewhere to stay, if we had decided to book as we ride.

I know many will say that the simplest thing would be for us to take a tent, but that still doesn’t feel right for us. We really love travelling very light indeed, unencumbered by anything but the basic necessities of life. Riding with just the smallest of packs is such a delight, and it makes us realise just how simple life can be, when we actually strip it right back.

We did have a panic a couple of nights ago, when we were looking at hotel options for the last night, before catching the train back from Sète. We noticed that the hotel we were looking at had a review from cyclists, reporting that they weren’t allowed to store their bikes securely, and had to leave them in the street, which gave them a very sleepless night.

We didn’t experience this anywhere we stayed, during both our trips last year.  We found another (cycle-friendly) place for the last night, but took it as a wake-up call to contact the accommodation we have booked, just to check they have secure storage, and that bikes are not a problem.

They all replied quickly, with just one saying they would have to be left outside in the car-park. So we found another hotel, which had just had a cancellation nearby and booked there instead. It may seem hard, but if the bikes are stolen or even damaged, then our adventure ends in an instant, and we just aren’t willing to take that risk. So that one negative review did us a big favour in the long run.

Planning the routes for some days has been easier than others, with the first day’s escape from Madrid to Mondéjar causing me a little bit of a headache. We are country-dwellers, used to riding along open roads, with the biggest town we have cycled through being Montpellier, last October, when we were on our little jaunt across to Pezenas for the autumn brocante. Madrid is a whole different level, seeming vast, circled by layers of ring-roads, all of which have to be crossed, to escape.

We thought we’d found a route out to the south, which would allow us to join one of the Spanish cycleways, along an old railway line. But our happiness was short-lived, as we realised some of the routes we would be on were effectively small rutted dirt-tracks, running through what appeared to be a huge fly-tipping area. This would be fine (albeit unattractive) with touring bikes, but not our road bikes, so it was back to the drawing board.

In the end, I worked backwards, the map spread out across the floor, finding possible routes that would involve as few major ring-road junctions as possible. After a couple of hours, we found one that seemed to work best, and saved it to the planner. Let’s hope it works as well in practice as it seems it should.

Most other routes have been a little simpler, as they have been pretty clear on the map. It’s certainly worth spending time checking each option on Street View, as although the roads appear to be the same standard on the map, one is often much quieter than another (and of course we always choose those).

The places we have found the accommodation have dictated the route, more than the other way round. But somehow it seems to have worked well, with most days being between 90 and 100km of cycling.

We have also built in a few more rest days on this trip,  having a day off, after 4 days of pedalling. So we will be able to spend days exploring Zaragoza and Girona, with a final day off in Collioure, before the last 2 days to Sète. It would be easy just to keep cycling, but we remember the delight of the rest days we had last year in La Rochelle and Pezenas & it will be lovely to be able to get under the skin of these beautiful places.

So the planning is done. We just need to make sure that we have done some cycling beforehand. Of course, that is really not a hardship at all, and we’ve been up with the lark and out of the door with the sunrise, nearly every day, since arriving home.

At first, Andy was convinced I was about to keel over on the hills, as I panted and gasped my way up (after a summer of far too many teacakes and far too little exercise). But very quickly, the hills became easier and already, it feels as if I haven’t had a break from the bike at all.

There has been an absolute joy in being out so early, with the soft light of the early mornings, the scent of lavender & herbs trapped close to the ground and the peace that comes, before the area really starts to wake up. A morning cycle to Gordes We even made it to Gordes, before the visitors arrived, spending time sitting in the square in absolute peace, which is so unusual at this time of year

We still have 4 weeks of pedalling to do before we go, so all-being well, by the time we board the early-morning train to Madrid, I will feel as ready as I possibly can be for the little adventure ahead.

From what I have seen of it so far, it should be fun!