March 2013

 The plan for this year’s tour has evolved over the past year or so.  Fitting around our other commitments has given us about six weeks to tour this time and given that we loved touring in Spain on our last trip, our plan is to cycle up to the north of Spain, travelling up through Portugal to Santiago de Compostela, to ride over to the west coast of Galicia and then back down using the Via de la Plata (an ancient Roman route). 

Ken has been busy stripping down the bikes completely, cleaning and greasing them, as well replacing all the worn parts – the chains, cassette (mine), brake pads, bottom bracket (Ken´s) and the hand grips which had worn through completely on both bikes.  We now have the original ergonomic hand grips back on to see if they really do help prevent numb hands.

We do, however, have a bit of a problem and that is that we have put in very few kilometres on the bikes this winter and so we are approaching this trip the most unfit we have been for a number of years now.  Not ideal at all.  However, we really want to do the trip and lots of things have been getting in the way, so it seems that we just have to get on the bikes and go.  We’ll see what happens. 

Our game plan is to start slowly (not that we’ll have any choice) and try to build up as we go along.  We may well shorten the route, depending on how we get on.  Everything is flexible; we don’t want to feel under pressure to reach a certain place or cover a certain number of kilometres.  Hopefully, by taking things as they come we’ll soon build up our fitness.

April 13, 2013 –  Two days to go……

A manned mission to Mars would be easier to organise than this trip! 

We have just suffered the wettest March in Andalucía for 60 years. So much for our plans to get out on the bikes and get ourselves fit – we are still hopelessly unfit, but we are going to press on and hope for the best.   I dread to think how hard the first few days are going to be.

The rain finally stopped last Sunday and the sun came out, so we went into action getting the house, garden, bikes and ourselves ready – it looked like Thursday was going to be the big day .  Ken woke up on Wednesday with a sore throat and runny nose which by Thursday had developed into a life-threatening cold.  We’ve delayed until next Tuesday to him time to recover (of course, by then I’ll have it).