April 7, 2014

Having completed two similar cycle tours before and enough preparation to launch a mission to Mars, you would have thought our first day would be relatively stress-free – right?

This time, unlike the others, I had no expectations of an early start – there are just too many last-minute things to do. I was calm whilst putting pans of boiling water in the freezer in a quest to get the ice to melt quicker – I had forgotten that you can’t just switch it off and walk away. I was relatively calm when we set off pushing the bikes up our track to the village – we live on a track which is rocky and with a gradient like a ski-jump, so we have to push the heavy touring bikes along it to reach the road. The weather forecast had predicted a warm and sunny day, as it turned out the warmest so far this year. As soon as we reached the part of the track where we could ride the bikes I got on and realised that I wasn’t going to be able to ride in the trainers I had chosen, the heels hit the pedal cranks on every rotation. I was still quite calm walking back to our house to change into my old bike shoes. We’d just locked up with great care checking everything over at least three times and here I was 20 minutes later unlocking everything again. Still, I ran back up the track to where Ken was waiting with the bikes but before I reach him the sole at the front of one shoe comes away and starts flapping around. I’m not going back again, I’ll have to buy new shoes on route. When I reach Ken the first thing I see is that his back tyre is completely flat – this has to be a record even for him, we’re only 500 metres from home and he hasn’t even ridden the bike yet. We admit defeat and go back to change the inner tube on our terrace in the shade, which we end up doing twice because the replacement tube we use turns out to be faulty. Of course, we don’t find this out until it is fully installed. The bonus is that I do get to glue the sole of my shoe back together. At this point we’re still not too stressed and we lock up and leave – again.

At last we’re on our way – we hit the first big climb about five kilometres from home. There is a bit of history with this particular climb as on our first cycle tour I managed to fall off the bike at this point. This time all is well with me but Ken’s bike starts to make a horrible clanking noise. A bit of investigation reveals ‘chain suck’ which for non-biking followers is normally caused by fitting a new chain on worn chain rings. The chain sticks on the worn teeth and gets ‘sucked’ upwards until it either drops with a clang or jams the pedals up completely. We spend the next hour and a half or so adjusting everything that it is possible to adjust on a bike, even exchanging my chain for Ken’s just to check it isn’t the chain. It isn’t – he needs new chain rings. Now the dilemma, do we go home, drive down to Málaga tomorrow to buy the parts and set off again on Wednesday or do we carry on and hope we can get the parts in Loja, the town we are intending to stay in overnight? Neither of us can bear the thought of going back again so we carry on.

By now it is late afternoon and calm has long departed. We have 15 kilometres more of climbing and then, thankfully, a long run downhill to Loja. The benefit of being so late is that the heat has gone out of the sun. The downside is that we arrive in the town at dusk, around 9pm, just when every inhabitant in the place hits the streets either on foot or in their cars. It’s not easy to cycle along narrow streets looking for a hotel and avoiding a collision at the same time. Worryingly, many of the places that were open when we last here have since closed. Still we do find somewhere that turns out to be ideal – cheap, with good rooms and a restaurant. We love the Spanish habit of eating dinner at 10pm – you never go hungry cycle touring in Spain.