So for 2016 we’re doing something a little bit different. Normally we set off during April or the beginning of May for a tour of around three months. This year we intend to split our touring time into two trips – a short trip of two to three weeks now and a longer tour of six to eight weeks in the autumn. Another difference is that on previous tours we have always been fully loaded, camping our way across Europe. For the first time we’re going to try a light-weight tour. The main reason being that we’re going to be touring locally on this short run and previous experience has shown us that it is as cheap to stay in hostals (Spanish B & B) here as it is to camp.

We’re really going to be using this trip as a means of getting ourselves ‘bike fit’. We have had a long break off the bikes for various reasons which I won’t go into here. We have been running regularly and took part in the Málaga Half-Marathon last month, so we do have a reasonable level of fitness, just not specifically cycling fitness.

The bikes have had a full service; we’ve got new panniers (Santa brought them) and various other new items. We’re all ready to go, except for one thing – it is bucketing it down with rain and will be for the rest of this week. The minute the sun comes out, we’re off……….