The temperature in the seasons and in the places we choose to ride are super critical.  When it gets really hot, such as above 35 degrees, then there is a need to find and to carry extra water, and anyway we will tend to wilt and have to quit early in the day. And when it is cold, say under 10 degrees, then there is a need for extra clothes and anyway Steve's hands get painful and there is a lot of whining.

Clearly, then, we want to run between 10 and 35 degrees. In fact, I noticed on the climate control of our VW that it defaults to 22 degrees. I think VW has researched this and has decided that humans prefer to be at 22 degrees. Checking the internet, I find no scientific studies and little agreement on the ideal temperature. So I'll stick with VW.

With that in mind, what temperatures did we find on our Spring tour of (mostly) Portugal? Bear in mind that we were running around north to south and back, and that the season progressed as we did this, but still, our average morning start temperature was 15.6 and our average daily high temperature was 29.8. The overall average temperature was 22.7. Close to VW standard!

Looking at it slightly differently, on all but 5 of our 61 days on the road, there was a point in the day when it was 22 degrees. So Portugal/Spain delivered a moment of supreme comfort on 92% of the days. Pretty good!

Averages, and crazy statistics like the one given above, can be helpful, but it is also the extreme cases that can get you on any specific day. So the fact is that in pleasant Portugal/Spain we did get morning temperatures as low as 10 once, and 11 quite frequently. And in afternoons, we hit 30 or more on half the days!

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This kind of range meant that we had to carry warm clothes and cool clothes, and lots of water but also hot chocolate and coffee. This can all be done, but it makes for more weight. The chart also shows that until the last third of the tour, it would not have made sense to mail back warm clothes.

Rain is of course another comfort factor. It was raining a lot when we first got to Porto, but within about four days it switched to mainly sunny and basically stayed that way!

We are thinking about the possibility of coming to Spain and Portugal closer to Winter than Spring - like February-April.  We expect then to see more starting temperatures of 8. But there could be a strategy - linger over breakfast and wait for it to warm up! We'll see.