Days 1-5 – The beginning

Hello!!!! Sorry for the delay and the suspense. I thought it would be better to wait some days to have more solid first impressions. It is amazing how the fear and anxiety that had been accumulating for weeks can disappear in a single moment… this moment ->

We are in Béziers on our first rest day, as planned. The extensive preparation is paying off, we haven’t found nothing missing… yet. Actually, we may have even exaggerated a bit. We left at 5am on day #1 to avoid the summer sun. Well we avoided it alright, it was extremely cold and pitch black until 6am. It didn’t warm up until 7am. Besides, there is noone on the streets to ask for directions at 5am. So we got lost. Day 1 and we were lost 15min after departure, je je. We ended up taking the semi-highway (N-II) to Llançá. We arrived at 8.30am, a bit too early. Our Catalan friends arrived around noon and at night we had a big goodbye feast. Daniel’s body was there but his mind was kind of absent because of the lack of sleep from the last days

Day #2 was more interesting. Now I had maps for navigation, we were going to enter France, and it the way was rather steep. Not that steep though, it was just the border of the Pirynees, so we didn’t have to cross any huge mountains. I know the ride is about the journey, but it is hard to turn Daniel’s competitive spirit off. Some road bikers overtook us just entering France… ja! With bags and a mountain bike… guess who won?

Once in St. Cyprien began the first search for food… damn hard! All shops were closed and the town looked deserted, panic started creeping in, we were starving. Germany was always cruel on Sundays, not a single place to buy food… could France be the same on Saturday?! We heard there was a big supermarket “nearby” but we couldn’t find it. Now how the hell are we going to know, that in France a ” Casino” is a huge supermarket chain?! So we were lost trying to find the supermarket, then we were lost inside, trying to make sense of the names and figuring what to buy to cover the Sunday meals. When we went out the town was suddenly alive again! Go figure, the french have siesta time and open again at 4pm!!!

On day #3 we were forced to take a semi-highway to Sigean, an awful experience. Little pavement left for bikes (if any), strong wind pushing us off the road, and boring landscape. We got off as soon as possible and things became nicier. We even saw some strange french fauna.

Although the muscles were complaining a bit, day #4 was very relaxed. We took the scenic route riding from town to town, passing between some beautiful calmed lakes. Big cities are not biker friendly though. No signs and people are not as friendly (don’t say hello and can’t give directions).

Errors

We changed the normal towel for a 50×50cm kitchen towel, less weight and less volume. All good except for changing in public. There is no way to cover yourself and change at the same time (even using a wall)… therefore Daniel gives a small (funny) show every time he needs to change from biking clothes into normal clothes when not in the camping (as in Llançá).

The camping in Béziers is not really in Béziers, it is in Clairac, 10km away. Oh no big deal right? Well genius Daniel forgot the USB key and cables today at the camping. Which means that to give a proper blog update, he biked a total of 40km today… so much for a rest day…

Camping robustness

If you’re wondering how the camping is going, I’d say flawless. It has only been 4 nights of camping but we’ve dealt with plenty of challenges. On day #1 we camped on top of an ant hill… literally on top! Ok, it was stupid but the tent was already pitched. We layed some food around to distract them and the tent proved to be ant proof. On day #2 we had stormy winds that brought the neighboring tents to the ground, breaking their poles. Our tent survived with a minor tearing on a corner. It even rained on that night!

But that is not the end of the camping adventures. Still to come: knock, knock, can we camp in your garden?

More pics…

Day 0 – Prelude

Training can only get you so far, friends can only motivate you so much, planning can not account for the unpredictable, risks can be minimized but not eliminated… Tomorrow we’ll find out how far is that far and how much is that much. This may have been a simple vacation trip, but I take it very seriously. It is a personal challenge to keep to the schedule and broaden my horizon.

Looking forward I think it is a good thing that we are doing this alone. It was not the original plan. Companions came and went, but, as always, no one is there for the real thing. This will be a good opportunity to learn to be happy by ourselves.

Day zero has been a long day and the night will probably be even longer, just like last night. Anxiety is the main feeling now. It took hours to pack the two small bags. Butterflies can also creep into a copper stomach. Preludes are evil, but they must be enjoyed as well. I try.

I can’t get to sleep, I think about the implications… of diving in too deep, and possibly the complications. Especially at night, I worry over situations. I know will be alright. It’s just overkill.

Off to Ithaka…

Thanks for the support

Wow… only a couple of days and over 20 comments, not to mention the personal emails received! Thanks! Special thanks to those who have offered a place to stay on the way and promised food… hot meals will be a very special thing the coming two months. It is a nice thing from all of you. I know we’ll be reading them again on the road when the spirit gets tired.

On the funny side: Daniel’s dad calls Daniel’s mom to tell her about the email and the trip. Mom says: “it is a nice trip, but I think it is dangerous to bike so much alone”, Dad replies: “No, don’t worry, I read he is cycling with a friend {Plumonito}”

Also funny how other “feelings” come to the surface in these emotive situations… father-son resentments , Sean takes the opportunity to promote his own ride , and Harley declares his love

Thank you all for your interest and support!

Route planning

Do you know how to plan a 2200km bike route? Maybe you could have helped us… because we have no clue! I think the hardest thing is to make a balance between planning too many details and planning too few. It may not be necessary to plan every road we will take beforehand, but if we just pick places to sleep, maybe there is no direct road and 20 air-km become 45 road-km. So here is how I did it…

Step 1: Establish “important” points.

Those that we must go through. Most of them are places were Daniel has a friend, I believe it is going to be crucial to meet some friendly faces on the way, or else Daniel might get loneliness-depression. The points picked were: Llançà, our initial home in Spain; Lyon, cosmopolitan city home to Daniel’s former breakfast companion Faustine; Lindau, our first second home; Füssen, the real version of Disneyland’s castle; Passau, where we can hear Latinamerican spanish and feel at home; and finally Teplá, Ján’s home and final destination.

Step 2: How much will we cover per day?

You would think this comes down to how much Daniel can pedal in one day. After Tamariu’s ride, we said 40km was the minimum, but forget it! With 40km it would take us 55 biking-days to get there. But we need to rest too! So the minimum is now 50km, which gives only 44 biking-days.

Step 3: Select places to sleep.

Thank god for GoogleMaps! Put two important points and it will give you the shortest route between them. This might not be the best for biking but it gives an idea of where we should go through. I still had to break down the route into different paths because GoogleMaps was overloaded with all the waypoints. The 50km-per-day rule was bent and stretched to always reach a town. This actually required two iterations, one selecting the places where we want to sleep and another to find out where we can sleep. Not every town has Couchsurfers or camping areas. I looked up camping information for every place and counted the number of Couchsurfers to estimate our chances.

Step 4: Copy information to maps.

I sent Daniel to buy road atlas from the different countries (you wouldn’t believe how a copper dog is ignored when attempting to buy something). We’ll take the relevant pages with us, marked with the places where we plan to sleep. Map scale is 1:200.000, not very detailed but it is the only thing we found that covers an entire country.

And that’s it! It took me three full days of work just to get to step 4, then someone mentioned Füssen and I had to redo a part of it, but now it is done! Well, sort of… I’m sure it will change dramatically on the way. But for now you can check the details of the route in the Route page.

Dry run: Tamariu

The ride to Banyoles and the camping in the living room were nice, but they failed to test several things. We didn’t know how heavy was the final baggage going to be. How many kilometers can Daniel bike without getting burned for next day? Do we have everything we need? To answer all these questions we did a true test: Girona-Tamariu in 2 days with full load.

We would leave early Saturday, camp in Tamariu, and bike back early Sunday. The bike was packed with all we plan to take for the real ride (see specs). The route goes intentionally through two mountains (460m & 260m high) to test how hard the ascent with the full load is. We took no food (only fruit and snacks) to simulate real ride conditions. We even had rain to test the waterproof components.

It seemed like too much baggage…
too many things laid on the floor! But they fitted in the bags with no problem, even with room for leftover food. However, it was indeed heavy, we had no scale but just the bags weight approximately the same as the bike.

Stats

Day 1: 55km in 4:30h
- Tent set up: 17min.
Day 2: 52km in 3:40h
- Getting ready in the morning: 55min.

During the ride

The biking itself was not that hard, except for the mountains. On day 2 from Madremanya to Els Àngels was a 350m steep climb. 36min pedalling in gear 1:1! You could see some doubt in Daniel’s face, of whether he could do that every day, but it all went away as soon as we got to the top. The first choice during the ride was to take road or off-road tracks. Of course, off-road HAD to be tested, so we took a couple of single track detours. Not everything was possible due to the weight, but off-road is an option, good! …well… an option if you are willing to take the risk

A funny thing to notice was the effect of the flag: everyone stares! Every biker says hello when they pass, if we’re stopped they even ask if we need help. Car drivers will often look back after overtaking. Farmers will stop working when we pass. I guess everyone wants to ask where the flag is from and two ladies had the first chance. We did our first stop in Els Àngels and as Daniel was locking the bike, two ladies kept staring, looking at the bike, the flag, and Daniel. When Daniel turned around the ladies came and, in a shy manner, said: Hola. Proud Daniel smiles and answers: Hola. And the lady, now more relaxed, says: Ah, ok, we didn’t know if you were a boy or a girl. JA JA JA JA! Eventually they did ask about the flag. In total 4 people asked, including one driver that pulled over just to ask.

Other funny things: We stopped for a snack in a park in Cruïlles. A lady was taking care of two kids there. The little girl suddenly dropped her pants and started pooping in the sand. The lady (mother?) was so embarrassed, je je! She couldn’t just pick her up (she was already in the middle of the process). She kept saying Please stop, you are not a dog, no more caca, you could tell from her voice she was about to cry from embarrassment.

Things learned

• Baggage changes: a smaller book, a smaller towel, bike shoes that can dry easily, small front bag.
• Directions: asking for directions is not an option, it is a must. When the streets have no names, you ALWAYS get lost.
• Up up up: if there is no one to ask for directions, go up. It is morally devastating to have to turn around and bike up all that you just biked down.
• Cooking: we must expand our repertoire of things to eat. Bread with ham and cheese will NOT do for 2 months.
• Distance: 50km with steep climbs were ok. 40km will be the minimum planned per day.

Camping in the living room

Daniel finally bought the tent yesterday. This is a big step forward: spending a lot of money in something that will only be useful for this ride. He bought a one-man tent but we can both fit in ok. Of course we had to try the new tent, so we set it up in the living room! It turns out that the tent doesn’t stand up if it is not anchored to the ground so we had to anchor it to the table.

We spent the night in the living room. Daniel opened the balcony doors to simulate the airflow and temperature of a real camping. For me camping was a success, I slept like a copper rock. Ah but humans are so delicate…

Daniel kept waking me up during the night. At first it was too hot so he fell asleep without closing the sleeping bag, then it was too cold and he woke up freezing. He kept complaining on how hard the floor was and he changed sides all the time. The size of the tent was kind of ok but it is hard to tell because we couldn’t get the tarp to be really tight and upright. I think a real camping test is in order…

Test run: Banyoles

Our first official test run was to Banyoles, Spain. Normally it is 20km from our flat but I convinced Daniel to take the scenic route. He loaded the bike bags with a bunch of unnecessary stuff to simulate the weight. We rode 100km (Girona-Olot-Santa Pau-Banyoles) and CouchSurfed in Banyoles.

It was tough for Daniel. We had to stop several times to have a snack (Kiwi fruit). We got lost in La Fageda, a dense green forest near Santa Pau. We found our way and finished in 6h. Not a bad time considering there was a big climb, 1 flat tire, and La Fageda. The bags were solid. Weight was only an issue when going uphill.

It was scary to see Daniel’s condition after the biking. He couldn’t sit properly and complained from simple walking. He still managed to take a 2h tour with our host (I stayed home sleeping) and bike back home (1h). He never stopped complaining but in the end we made it there and back.

A good start…