Ride Report - A Typical Day - Spain April 2019
The full blog post is to follow but fitting over a months riding into a few pages has proved more difficult than one might imagine, so in the interim the following is a standard day, from start to finish, once I was well settled into my routine.
Waking up in a tent to the warm sunshine and sounds from outside is hard to beat. And crawling out of bed is so much easier when you know all you have to do is pack up and you get to ride your bike, in the sunshine, all day.
So about 7am I’d roll over, grab a towel, head to the showers, and on arrival back to the tent I’d whack a coffee on the single gas ring, and start taking down the tent. 10 mins later I’d have the sleeping bag away, roll mat deflated and packed, tent rolled up and all in a bag, ready to go on bike.
All non biking clothes / runners would go into panniers (still attached to bike) and I’d grab sat nav, map (yes a paper one) and my freshly brewed coffee.
Using a combo of Google maps to gauge distance, adventure mode Garmin to find twisties & the paper map for reference I’d make a rough route and plug a few points into the Garmin. At that stage Coffee is well gone and stove/ gas ring cool enough to pack, which would go in other pannier. With Camping bag strapped onto pillion seat, and damp towel set on top of a pannier to dry, I’d be away across the campsite, usually wondering if I was waking up half the campsite on the way out as almost nobody else would have stirred at that stage (seems like people with motorhomes prefer a lie in when on holidays)
From around the 8am mark I’d cruise along amazing twisty tarmac roads. Never motorways, and usually sticking more or less to the route in the Garmin, always looking 10/20 clicks ahead every 20 mins or so to see where I’m off to and if there’s an alternative route that looks more interesting.
Sometimes I’d see a big aerial in the distance, or a really steep windy road or track, in which case I’d ignore Mr Garmin for a while and just head that direction. Usually around 10am I’d be pretty hungry so I’d stop and tuck at a rural petrol station / cafe and eat some bread with a weird red tomato salsa on top, I wasn’t a huge fan but it was all that was on offer, as well as coffee of course. They also served beer which always cracked me up, especially as one of the drivers in there would usually be having one.
Post snacks I’d have another look at my route and ride off into the sunshine again. I still can’t get over the roads in the mountains up there , it feels like the road workers were paid by the corner, told straights weren't allowed, and the quality of tarmac needed to be better than most of the racetracks in the UK.
For whatever the real reasons are, these roads are biker heaven and even on a fully loaded 800GS not getting carried away was sometimes the biggest obstacle. On some of the tighter cambered bends hitting the centre stand off the ground, or knocking your foot off the ground and it flying backwards) happened more often than I’d like to admit, and would always give me a bit of a fright.
A fill of petrol would come next and of course as often as I’d do that, I’d knock back a fair amount of water. The flip up (but of courts ful face) Neotec II Lid that I bought just before leaving was definitely worth its weight in gold when you needed a drink, or just a chat in a petrol station when you wouldn’t need to take off gloves/helmet/ear plugs etc at all. Awfully convenient.
Late lunch after a few more hours of carving would come in the form of anywhere that looked busy in a mountain village, as the locals obviously know the best spots I’d follow then and without almost a single word of spanish I’d usually order anything that had cheese, bread, eggs, or fish in it, a large bottle of water, washed down with a coffee while I consult maps and consider where I’ll sleep. The bill would usually be so little it would surprise me and after googling a few campsites (If I had signal) I’d set a route to one, usually I’d choose a place with a few other campsite neighbours as I often found it being April that alot of places hadn't opened for the Summer yet and others were getting building works done in prep for the coming season.
A few hours later I’d arrive at a campsite, they’d look surprised as if they’d lost a booking, I’d explain I didn’t have one but I was alone and staying 1 x night.
They’d let me in,. I’d pitch a tent as far away from any kids / campervans as possible and after a shower I’d grab a cerveza grande (ok I do have some Spanish) at the bar, admire the days photos. scribble on the paper map my exact route (via the Garmin ‘Where Ive been’ function) and usually head to bed reasonable early as laying down rubber on crazy twisty roads is almost as tiring as it is fun, and having constant adrenaline for that many hours means when you finally stop, you crash. That + all the food / beers would usually have me falling asleep while Whatsapping home / sending pics