Thanks must be given.
If it weren't for moral support, this trip wouldn't have happened.
My title page photo is one Scott Anderson let me use until I get a cobblestone photo of my own!
A European vacation has long been on Jacinto's bucket list. COVID gave me an excuse to put Jacinto off a few more years. Now I am out of excuses. It's time to go! As a native Spanish speaker, Jacinto thought that Castilian Spanish would be easy for him to navigate, and that he could also fake it in Portuguese. I was on board with the location, especially after having Scott Anderson mention that Spain was one of the least expensive countries to visit.
If you've read many of my journals, you will know that I am a planner. I would love to be the type who wakes up in the morning, and then rides with the wind. No. That is not me. I like my ducks in a row! This trip was WAY out of my experience zone. I have toured only in North America. I leaned hard on my experienced European touring friends. Eight years ago, Alison Stone gifted me a complete motel route for the Sierra Cascades route. She showed me that an extended motel tour could be organized in advance. Alison has also bicycle toured extensively in Europe. It's a wonder she is still answering my emails - they are so full of questions!
Scott and Rachael Anderson are also on the podium as tour planning stars. I don't dare say how many route versions I went through. I couldn't even narrow down what part of the country we were starting in! Scott can plan a route in his sleep - he certainly had plenty of practice with my dithering.
Once we settled on Madrid, Alison found a cycle club route out of town for us. From reading journals, it seems most cyclists take the train to escape the busy city. Not Jacinto, he is here to ride every inch!
The first route we seriously considered was discarded as having too much climbing for me to enjoy. Scott came up with our second route. We tweaked it slightly, to accommodate lodging. Jacinto really wanted to take it day by day. That caused angst over the winter months, as we cussed and discussed the tour. If I want my route completely booked for an area that I am comfortable riding, how in the world would I be at ease taking things a few days at a time in a foreign country? We don't travel with camping gear just in case. Jacinto relented about the advance bookings. It's a good thing as we ran into a festival or two, and also some busy tourist areas.
Our final route also had a lot of climbing. Wayne Estes is the one who introduced the idea of looking at how many climbing feet per mile. This trip has 63 feet per mile. Our tour last summer, in Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, is one that most people wold consider mountainous. It had an average of 50 climbing feet per mile. It's ironic that we avoided the Pyrenees as too much climbing!
I had (have) many concerns about touring in a foreign country - food (the Grampies were touring in Portugal this spring and answered many food questions), appropriate clothing, money, passport, bicycle safety. The list goes on and on.
Now it is time to go and experience it for ourselves! I'm ready to leave, but we have two weeks until departure.
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