Chuck and I worked diligently over the years on our careers so that when it came time to retire, we would have fun.  We had always planned on riding across the northern tier of the US upon retired, but when that special time in life finally came we changed our minds.  We chose to move overseas in search of the idyllic cycling roads.  We found them in the quiet backcountry of the Ariege in Southern France - in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

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Bill BogueYou are very resourceful; it’ll all work out. Plus, once underway you’ll have others to assist with any logistical issues. Look forward to your journal entries!
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After our move and settling in, our focus became riding, learning French, acclimating to a new culture, creating relationships, hiking in the Pyrenees, skiing, and the list goes on.  Now that we've been entrenched in our French life, we have revisited our goal.  The new goal is to ride across as many European countries as we can.  

Last year we traversed France:  Saint Malo to Nice.  The expedition was self-supported on our Co-Motion Java tandem that took us 25 days.  This year we are tackling Spain on our Co-Motion Carrera (our travel tandem) and it will take us 5 weeks.  Spain will be a different experience as we are joining a tour offered by Bicycle Adventure Club that is supported by Ibero Cycles.  As such, this trip will be more luxurious: routes given to us instead of creating them, companions, prearranged paradors and 3-4 star hotels, and someone hauling our gear.  

We signed up for this tour last June.  Then the question was how will we keep our cycling fitness through the winter since this tour begins in April.  We are very lucky here in our area of France that we can ride year round; but can we ride enough to be ready for day-after-day riding in April?  Chuck set up our trainer for the winter and we had a great coach control our lives with 4 days a week of training.  This plan worked great for me, but poor Chuck had challenges.  Our February ski trip to Andorra kept him off the bike for 8 weeks while his knee healed.  He's dug back in to his training plan over the past 4 weeks and all is going well.  Phew!  That worry gave us some new gray hairs.

Travel can be complicated sometimes.  Our first dilemma is getting to Spain.  We could have driven to the end city and parked the car for 5 weeks, but that didn't seem very practical or wise.  So a few months back we bought airline tickets taking us to Malaga and bringing us home from Bilbao.  Now we are wondering if that was a smart idea after all.  As you may be aware, there has been some unrest lately in France as the government is trying to establish a new retirement regime for the country.  This has resulted in massive demonstrations (called manifestations) which has created havoc with public transportation.  Normally we take the train from Foix to Toulouse and catch a bus to the airport.  Will the trains be cancelled again?  If so, the alternative is to have a friend drive us up - not bad as its only an hour each way.  The next hurdle is knowing whether or not the air traffic controllers will be striking?  If so, flights are cancelled.  Hmmm . . . then what?!!  Maybe back to the idea of driving?  

Well, there are two days left before we leave, so we shall see how the beginning of the trip materializes.  So, today is all about packing up the tandem and finishing up many household chores to get the house and garden ready for a 5 weeks absence.  The lists are sitting on my desk . . .