Irun to Gerona in six days.

[dellzeqq]

As some of you will know, Susie and I have just cycled across northern Spain. Here's my ride report. I'll do a day at a time, and flesh it out with pictures when I work out how my new camera works.

Day 0 – London to Irun.

An early start. As in the night before. We had tickets for the 7.22 from St. Pancras (now called London Saint Pancras International) and had, perforce, to drop our bikes off with the kind people at EuroDespatch the night before. Which we did. And so, we left home, bikeless, at five to six in the morning, stumbled in to the Eurostar ‘departure lounge’ (memo to self – kill person who dreamt that one up) and found, to our horror, that one of our fellow passengers, a man possessed of a face and waistline formed of suet and wearing (you guessed) faded red trousers, was reading (those of a delicate disposition look away now) the Spectator.

And relax………good coffee, those cool Eurostar colours (yellow, grey and navy, still fresh after twenty years), the smooth ride, the rush in to the tunnel, open fields in the Pas de Calais and friendly Eurostar people at the Gare de Nord all make for a civilized prelude to lunch. We loaded up the bikes (of which more later) and rolled down to the Seine, across the Isle de la Cite and in to the Rive Gauche. Like Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. But on bikes. In a different city.

Getting on the train south was a bit of a scrum, but, once on and away, France rolled by. Small villages. Chateaux on hills. Lakes with little wooden boats. The TGV thundered down to Bordeaux and then picked its way decorously by a sea more sapphire than azure, through Bayonne and St-Jean de Luz to the terminus at Hendaye. We walked out of the station, turned right, stopped at the border at the midway point of the footbridge over the Bidasoa, and made our way in to Irun and to the door of the Hotel Alcazar.

Once installed we walked in to town. The streets were cordoned off to allow children to play football, adults to jog and walkers to walk. We got cash, found a table in the Placa Mayor and ordered lamb’s tongues on toast, patatas bravas and bits of pork. A band played badly. It doesn’t get much better than this.

 

[srw]

Kind of him, to give all those seperate clues for the less perceptive.

He might have been undercover.

The only times I ever read the Spectator are in the dentist and on Eurostar. It's very readable in a frustratingly teeth-clenchingly wishing-to-beat-its-smug-lights-out kind of a way.

 

[dellzeqq]

Day 1 – Irun to Lumbier – 132 kilometres.

We were away by 7, turning on to a deserted highway under a silver slipper moon, the river Bidasoa to our left, high hills to our right. Rule 104 turfed us off the new N-121 and on to a variety of re-numbered two lane roads running parallel. We’d turn a corner and see the highway leave one tunnel, cross a bridge and go in to another tunnel above us, while our, smaller, older roads hugged the river bank. My google-mapping skills took us in to and out of an industrial park in Bera, but, after some faffing around, we found the NA-8304.

A small note. Touring cyclists become keen students of tarmac. They recognize those ‘old’ roads now bypassed by new highways. Many of you will know the ‘old A9’. Some of you will know the B4100. These are well-constructed, durable roads with fading white lines down the centre, reduced in status, forgotten by the motorist but made for cycle touring. Such is the NA-8304 and, further down, the NA-1210. Which leads me neatly to our encounter with the Guardia Civil…………

The NA-8304 ran in to the new highway. We turned left and were pulled by the Guardia Civil. Those of you old enough to remember the Franco era will imagine the worst. We received the best. Two young men in neatly pressed uniforms that were a credit to their mothers patiently explained the procedure for turning left. I’ll draw you a diagram later. They then explained Rule 104, which is, basically, the rule that kicks cyclists off the main highway. They assured us that at every point at which Rule 104 prevails there would be an alternative, signposted route. They waived the 40 euro fine and wished us well. I’d like to think that my polite, elderly gent act had paid dividends, but those of you who know how this team works will have worked out precisely whose smile and whose thankyou best furthered Anglo-Spanish relations.

And so we joined the NA-1210. Which is, frankly, a delight. A wonder. A great joy. True it rises to 847 metres above sea level (bear in mind that Irun is on the coast) but the switchbacks afforded us terrific views in all directions. We left the main highway far below and waved to the local cycling clubs as they whizzed by. They whizzed and we pootled up through the morning mist, the air had turning soft and slightly damp, with an earthy, woodland smell.

And now we get to the luggage bit…..

We overdid it, but I’m not sure how. I carried a mini-footpump, eight spare tubes, a spare tyre, three multi-tools, a chain tool, a spoke key, a rain top, a warm long-sleeved top, a spare top purchased in the Basque country in 1985 (this for sentimental reasons), arm warmers, a buff, a helmet (see note later), lots of spare spokes, maps, routesheets, reservations, a (too) heavy lock, a pair of linen shorts with kecks, lots of socks, two front lights and two back lights……all in all the clobber weighed in at about eleven pounds. Had I my time again I’d have taken a lighter lock, left my old cycling top at home and taken fewer tubes, but that would be about it. So, already, we have a bit of a problem. If this little trip were ever going to be a club ride, we’d need support because, put simply, there are those of us who are not going to do that kind of climb with luggage. If it were a club ride we could split the spare tyre, lock and inner tube responsibilities, but, though our first morning was warm in the sweetest possible way, all that clothing would play a part in days to come.

I’ll return to the club ride thing later, but, for now the story continues at the high point for the day, some 30 kilometres north of Pamplona. The pass was, sad to say, unmarked, so we sort of rolled over it and worked out afterwards that our work was done. The descent was steady and well paved, but the friendly NA-1210 gave way to a two lane stretch of the N-121, which was, happily, slightly downhill and with a broad hard shoulder. So…we reached the edge of the city about midday, and, diverted east by Rule 104 took to a surprisingly civilized ring road, there to find a café with tapas, pastries and coffee, and a huge television screen showing Osasuna beating Mallorca 6-3. You get a point if you remember Michael Robinson.

We’d thirtynine kilometres to go. I knew that the NA-150 east was a quiet, dull road, but that the NA-2400 would thrill Susie. And so it did – when we turned on to the NA-2400 we were in to Espana Profunda. Wheat fields, red clay villages perched on bluffs, sheep and, most thrilling of all, eagles. The land shimmered in the heat. Cars were few and far between, and then none. We waved at a tractor driver and he waved back. Four French cyclists, heading in the opposite direction, stopped for a chat, one elderly man being particularly keen to show Susie his holiday snaps and to demonstrate the workings of his large umbrella that, which he would open at picnic stops to keep the sun’s rays at bay.

We moved on, through the heat and down a long slope in to Lumbier. The hotel was occupied by some kind of celebration, so we drank beer and waited outside. In time our hosts showed us the room which was vast, and, having showered and changed, we went out in to the town’s close streets to find dinner which we did in a sort of fried up drenched in oil sort of way. All in all, Lumbier’s a pretty place, but there’s not a whole lot going on. Then again, that’s the beauty of touring – you don’t have to stay.

 

[Gordon P]

This is thrilling. People must have waited for the next instalment of a Dickens novel or Marvel comic with the same anticipation

 

[wanda2010]

You dark horse.

Pictures! We need pictures!

He's got to work out how to get them off his camera and into this thread .

 

[Dogtrousers]

I like reading touring travelogues, and imagining myself there. The plan is that when my brain rots completely that I will actually believe that I've done some of these things - a bit like Total Recall, but without going to Mars. The problem with many travelogues is that they involve camping, and as I don't do tents this is likely to be regarded as unbelievable even by my rotted brain. That's why I like this as DZ and AH seem to be staying in civilised places, and eating civilised meals not cooked on camping stoves. So, in a few years time I'll be saying to people "Did I ever tell you about the time I cycled from Irun to Gerona in six days ... I took too much luggage, you know".

 

[frank9755]

How do you kill a chicken with cava and ice cream? I don't care to imagine...

 

[StuartG]

He's got to work out how to get them off his camera and into this thread .

Roll back the film, put in a secure light free container. Find envelope, write cheque or insert postal order, post it off to Dixons somewhere in outer Bedfordshire. Wait three weeks. Ring, receive traditional Dixon's customer care. Book new trip. Buy new film, Do it. Repeat process until the digital age arrives.

Then get a smartphone ...

 

[srw]

How do you kill a chicken with cava and ice cream? I don't care to imagine...

Look up "gavage". I imagine the cava and ice cream would give a pleasingly vanilla top-note to the resulting pate.

 

[Bollo]

I heard mention of chicken with plumbs.

Isn't that a cockerel?

 

[dellzeqq]

This is thrilling. People must have waited for the next instalment of a Dickens novel or Marvel comic with the same anticipation

Very flattering. As it goes they did crowd the dockside in New York in anticipation of the latest instalment of the Old Curiosity Shop. As the boat steamed in the cry went up 'but what has happened to Little Nell?'

 

[dellzeqq]

Day 2 – Lumbier to Sabinanigo – 100 kilometres

…or, as it turned out, 103 kilometres.

This is what happened. We got up, had breakfast, set off southward and then turned east on to the road that would be our home for most of the day – the N-240. I confess we wimped out of the Foz de Lumbier, motivated by the prospect of an easier day and put off by the 300 foot sheer (and unfenced) drops, but the road in to Liedana was sweet and we put on a bit of speed through Yesa. And then…a man in uniform at a gate bearing a sign ‘carretera cortada’. We asked about the alternative. He assured us there was none. We took a side road. It had a gate with the same sign - ‘carretera cortada’. Well, that’s women for you.

The N240 is now a bit of a relic. It runs beside and a bit below the new A-21 autopista. When it runs, which, on this day, it didn't. So, our advances repulsed, we retired to Yesa and drank coffee in a bar, whose owner assured us that there was a back way. Although, as he said it, he looked at Susie, and intimated, by way of shrugs and upward motions of the eyebrows, that this was a back way entirely unsuited to ladies.

Thus encouraged we retreated westward, turned off the road at a multi-roundabout and struck northeast and very much upward for the Monasterio de Lleyre. Four kilometres of road and two hundred and fifty metres of height later we found the Monasterio sitting, fat and ugly beside a car park. And, behind the car park, a narrow tarmacked path down. We ignored the chain across the road and the sign saying (you guessed) ‘carretera cortada’. We clambered over two cattle grids. We circumvented two sets of gates bearing the sign ‘carretera cortada’, knowing all the while that this could be a vain enterprise and that we would have to repent our way back up the hillside to the fat and ugly monastery. And then……our little tarmac path crossed over the autopista and came to rest on the N-240. We ignored the signs, the barriers made of painted oil barriers and the lumps missing from the road and rode east again, following in the wheeltracks of a younger, blonder, skinnier DZ, admiring the vast Embalse de Yesa, and reveling in our isolation. Even when the A21 decided to take a national bankruptcy inspired break and we found ourselves mixing it with big, big, big trucks we knew as we rode on knowing that no-one, not one cyclist or motorist would have so outwitted the authorities that had so liberally spattered ‘carretera cortada’ signs in our way.

The N-240 is a bit like a Hollies song. Or a Beatles song. Or a Johnny Cash song. Or any song of that vintage that goes on about roads. All of which come in handy when you’re riding along thinking of a life gone by. Not just my life, but the life of a country which, in 1985, was emerging from the shadow of dictatorship. Back then old men wore black cotton trousers, black smocks and black berets, and old women wore long black dresses and black shawls. My brother and I stopped and asked a farmer for water and he had invited us in to his barn and cut us a slice of what we later found to be Manchego cheese. Those barns are now empty-eyed husks, and, these (better) days supersized tin sheds admit cattle at one end and extrude cheese at the other. The old men and women have died and their sons and daughters drive French cars and wonder about the national debt.

It started to rain. My six quid Decathlon rain top kept me snug. Susie’s one hundred and thirty quid Rapha rain top soaked up every drop that was then gratefully absorbed by her equally expensive Rapha cycling jersey. Feel free to moralise. And, while you’re moralising, make what you will of our stop at the most stylish MaccyDs on the planet just outside Jaca. All I can tell you is this – when you’re wet through there are worse places to use a hand dryer and there are few hand dryers that can reach as many places.

We had a mere seventeen kilometres to go, and that kind of flew past. Sabananigo is a fine town, but don’t even think about reserving a room at the Hotel Escartin. ‘Completo’. ‘Reservacion’. ‘Completo’. So we hunted rooms and found the most delightful berth at the Hotel Cuidad de Sabaninigo, took advantage of our host’s recommendation and walked down to the papelleria to buy newspaper for shoe-stuffing, ate some delightful tapas at the Bar La Fogaza (anchovy, pimiento, mayonnaise and fish sauce) and found ourselves in a pretty fancy bike shop buying brake blocks, lubricant, energy bars and a to-die-for Giordano top. Thus refreshed Susie and I made for our beds, she wondering about the next day and I knowing that, twenty four hours later life for both of us would never be quite the same again.

 

[mmmmartin]

This is quite gripping. I'm looking at maps...

 

[StuAff]

Day 2 – Lumbier to Sabananigo – 100 kilometres

…or, as it turned out, 103 kilometres.

This is what happened. We got up, had breakfast, set off southward and then turned east on to the road that would be our home for most of the day – the N-240. I confess we wimped out of the Foz de Lumbier, motivated by the prospect of an easier day and put off by the 300 foot sheer (and unfenced) drops, but the road in to Liedana was sweet and we put on a bit of speed through Yesa. And then…a man in uniform at a gate bearing a sign ‘carretera cortada’. We asked about the alternative. He assured us there was none. We took a side road. It had a gate with the same sign - ‘carretera cortada’. Well, that’s women for you.

The N240 is now a bit of a relic. It runs beside and a bit below the new A-21 autopista. When it runs, which, on this day, it didn't. So, our advances repulsed, we retired to Yesa and drank coffee in a bar, whose owner assured us that there was a back way. Although, as he said it, he looked at Susie, and intimated, by way of shrugs and upward motions of the eyebrows, that this was a back way entirely unsuited to ladies.

Thus encouraged we retreated westward, turned off the road at a multi-roundabout and struck northeast and very much upward for the Monasterio de Lleyre. Four kilometres of road and two hundred and fifty metres of height later we found the Monasterio sitting, fat and ugly beside a car park. And, behind the car park, a narrow tarmacked path down. We ignored the chain across the road and the sign saying (you guessed) ‘carretera cortada’. We clambered over two cattle grids. We circumvented two sets of gates bearing the sign ‘carretera cortada’, knowing all the while that this could be a vain enterprise and that we would have to repent our way back up the hillside to the fat and ugly monastery. And then……our little tarmac path crossed over the autopista and came to rest on the N-240. We ignored the signs, the barriers made of painted oil barriers and the lumps missing from the road and rode east again, following in the wheeltracks of a younger, blonder, skinnier DZ, admiring the vast Embalse de Yesa, and reveling in our isolation. Even when the A21 decided to take a national bankruptcy inspired break and we found ourselves mixing it with big, big, big trucks we knew as we rode on knowing that no-one, not one cyclist or motorist would have so outwitted the authorities that had so liberally spattered ‘carretera cortada’ signs in our way.

The N-240 is a bit like a Hollies song. Or a Beatles song. Or a Johnny Cash song. Or any song of that vintage that goes on about roads. All of which come in handy when you’re riding along thinking of a life gone by. Not just my life, but the life of a country which, in 1985, was emerging from the shadow of dictatorship. Back then old men wore black cotton trousers, black smocks and black berets, and old women wore long black dresses and black shawls. My brother and I stopped and asked a farmer for water and he had invited us in to his barn and cut us a slice of what we later found to be Manchego cheese. Those barns are now empty-eyed husks, and, these (better) days supersized tin sheds admit cattle at one end and extrude cheese at the other. The old men and women have died and their sons and daughters drive French cars and wonder about the national debt.

It started to rain. My six quid Decathlon rain top kept me snug. Susie’s one hundred and thirty quid Rapha rain top soaked up every drop that was then gratefully absorbed by her equally expensive Rapha cycling jersey. Feel free to moralise. And, while you’re moralising, make what you will of our stop at the most stylish MaccyDs on the planet just outside Jaca. All I can tell you is this – when you’re wet through there are worse places to use a hand dryer and there are few hand dryers that can reach as many places.

We had a mere seventeen kilometres to go, and that kind of flew past. Sabananigo is a fine town, but don’t even think about reserving a room at the Hotel Escartin. ‘Completo’. ‘Reservacion’. ‘Completo’. So we hunted rooms and found the most delightful berth at the Hotel Cuidad de Sabaninigo, took advantage of our host’s recommendation and walked down to the papelleria to buy newspaper for shoe-stuffing, ate some delightful tapas at the Bar La Fogaza (anchovy, pimiento, mayonnaise and fish sauce) and found ourselves in a pretty fancy bike shop buying brake blocks, lubricant, energy bars and a to-die-for Giordano top. Thus refreshed Susie and I made for our beds, she wondering about the next day and I knowing that, twenty four hours later life for both of us would never be quite the same again.

Should have got a Wiggle on...My DHB is excellent. I have got damp on the likes of Wetstable, but it takes sustained heavy rain to get through.

 

[User10571]

Susie may've been wet, but in that state she's still better looking than you.
:P