Pedalitis

My last two really big rides were to celebrate my 60th and 65th birthdays, so they were five years apart (O-Level maths, 62%, Fairfield Grammar School, Bristol, 1967). I did a few century rides in between, but nothing on the same scale as these continental adventures. As I approach my 66th birthday, it occurs to me that one big ride every five years means that there probably aren’t going to be very many to look forward to. My New Year’s resolution for 2018 is, therefore, to fit in two big rides every year. It’s time for the first one.

The inspiration for this next ride, which will start from Faro in Portugal on Monday morning, 12th March, was Andrew P. Sykes’ most recent book. Entitled “Spain to Norway on a Bike Called Reggie“, it chronicles his journey from Gibraltar to a point so far north that it’s doesn’t get dark at night, at least in the summer. For convenience, I want to fly from Bristol Airport – it’s local – so I’m planning a slightly different route. I’ll fly to Faro in Portugal, stay at an airport hotel tomorrow evening, then turn right and head for the Spanish border. From Huelva, the first big town in Spain, I plan to ride into Seville for the night, then turn left the next day and cycle pretty much due north until I reach Gijón on the north coast of Spain, in the Asturias region. This route will differ from Andrew’s in that he cut north-east across from Huelva to Merida before picking up the Ruta Via de La Plata whereas I fancy a night in Seville to have a look around. Also, Andrew turned right just north of Zamora to head to Pamplona but his book mentions heavy traffic after doing so, and I don’t fancy that when there are said to be so many quieter roads for cycling in Spain. My current plan, therefore, is to keep going due north to Gijon and then figure out a way to get back home.

I’ve been a bit extravagant with respect to return flights. The original plan was to fly Easyjet from Bilbao to Bristol on Thursday, March 22nd. There’s just one flight per week on that route. However, Easyjet was also offering a flight from Asturias, near Gijón, to Stanstead in Essex on Wednesday, March 21st. It was £20, so I booked that too. Since then I’ve considered the option of flying back to Heathrow from Oviedo, which is about 30km south of Gijón, so I’ll already have been through it once. This has the advantage of being a daily flight, so timing is flexible.

This is going to be a different kind of experience from the earlier big rides. I’m going to be riding a modern bike, rather than one of the vintage machines I used for the last couple of trips. The greatest difference will be having brakes that don’t make my knuckles go white on every steep descent. More about the bike later. Time to start packing.