The last words from Irvington

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More about the name

So, it’s Vuelta a Iberia: return to Iberia.  Before taking a first look at our planned itinerary, how do we pronounce this anyway?  You’ll be seeing this title in your CycleBlaze journal list for the next few months, and if you’re like me you’ll mentally say it out loud to yourself in your inner voice, but aren’t sure how to pronounce it.  Looking at it, it’s a bit awkward - particularly that middle word, which looks like it would sound choppy.

So, three things: the V is pronounced like a B; the B is pronounced like a V; and the second word is slurred over quickly and almost dropped completely - similar to the French elision.  That is, it’s pronounced something like bwelta eevehria.

The Big Reveal

So enough with the linguistics lesson.  Where the hell are you to going this time anyway, I imagine many of you are saying by now.  We’re going here:

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Assuming that we generally follow this route, here are a few facts about it:

1. The tour will be 90 days in duration (the maximum tourism stay in the Schengen Zone).  We’ll arrive in Santiago on September 18th, and depart from Valencia on December 15th.
2. Including day rides, the tour will cover roughly 3,000 miles in distance, with about 150,000’ (30 vertical miles!) of elevation gain.  Our average day will be about 33 miles, with 1,700’ of climbing.
3. We’ll spend about 9 weeks in Spain, and 4 in Portugal.
4. We anticipate about 20 layover days for day rides, hikes, or a rest -on average, once every four or five days.
5. Lodging we’ve booked in advance: 2 stays, the first and the last.  For a change, we’re going to leave as much flexibility in our schedule as possible, and see how we like it.
6. Anticipated adversity: no rain, no mechanical breakdowns, no accidents, no illnesses, no disagreements, no lost passports, and NO FLAT TIRES!