It’s become
an annual occurrence of mine to cycle around Europe in my summer break from
Colombia with a few friends in tow. This
blog documented my coast to coast trip across the USA in 2010, and also
mentions trips from Barcelona to Milan
in 2011, and to Spain from England last year, but for one time constraint and
another, I’ve not always been able to go into as much as detail as I’d like to
have done. Anyway, this year saw the
2012 crew decide to embark on another tour across Europe on our bikes, so
myself, university mate, James Birchall and sort of university mate, Andy
Kenny, put our heads metaphorically together through Facebook messages over a
few months to come up with the plan of cycling from the Basque city of Bilbao,
on Spain’s northern coast, to Geneva, just inside the Swiss border and on the
edge of the mighty Alps. As our trips
tend to coincide with the Tour de France, we also thought we’d stick in an
ascent of the legendary Alpine climb, Alp D’Huez, where the tour was going up
in its 100th anniversary year, and why not also pass by the
engineering magnificence of the Millau bridge in the south of France? There we had it, route sorted!
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| In Spain, with views over to the Pyrenees and France |
Unfortunately,
the preparation didn’t go as planned for Andy, who injured his knee on a
training ride the week before we were due to fly out, so we were a man down
straight from the off, which complicated equipment issues for us, such as tents
and stoves, as well as him obviously missing out on a week of his holiday. Nevertheless, James and I proudly boasted
that we felt fitter than last year, and together with James’ new bike, and some
fine sunshine, we confidently cycled out of Bilbao on a Saturday afternoon,
with the remnants of a stinking hangover being masked by the usual excitement
and anticipation of what the next 2 weeks and 700 plus miles of cycling would
hold for us. This year’s route
distinguished itself from last year’s monotonous riding through northern
France by thrusting us straight into steep, but short, coastal climbs, before
gradually climbing the higher peaks of the Central Massif, and then onto the Alpine
ascents that are infamous with professional and amateur cyclists alike.
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| The world's tallest bridge, the Millau Viaduct, |
Spain’s
wealthy Basque country didn’t feel like part of a country with 25% unemployment,
I suppose that’s why so many people there want to be independent, but did
provide us with very pleasant coastal roads and a reintroduction to the cycle
tourer diet. Eating huge bowls of cereal
and bananas for breakfast, lunchtime ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches, and all
rounded off with chorizo and tomato pasta for our evening meal, interspersed
with cakes, ice creams, cookies and nuts throughout the day, is very
enjoyable. I hear that Andy Murray and
Novak Djokovic are on gluten free diets so I’m not sure what they’d make of
ours, but it works for us.
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| James trying to shelter from the hail |
San Sebastian was beautiful and had an incredible cycle infrastructure, including exclusive cycling tunnels, but Biarritz,
on the French Atlantic, wasn’t as glitzy as I’d imagined, maybe that’s why the
‘Beer and Tits’ nickname originated, but still it had a nice beach and was a
decent place to take it easy for a day.
We gradually made our way eastwards, increasing the mileage up to a
hefty 85 miles on one day, but also into hilly inland areas, more vulnerable to
heavy afternoon thunderstorms. We had a
bit of luck for a few days, avoiding them by diving into bus shelters on the
edge of town at the last minute or sitting in McDonalds making use of the free
wifi, before we were caught out.
Arriving at the top of a 1,000m peak, dark clouds hovered above us, and despite
descending at 30mph, we weren’t able to out run the impending storm. All of a sudden a barrage of ice cubed sized hail forced us to duck for cover under trees (not ideal in an electrical
storm), whilst hailstones continued to ping off our helmets and chink our bike
frames as thunder rumbled around us. A
few passing cars slowed down to see why the two resting bicycles didn’t have
any cyclists on them, but it didn’t get us down the mountain any quicker and a
cold and wet descent meant a break from camping in a ‘Chambe D’Hote’ was in
order to dry ourselves and our kit out.
Spirits
were raised the next day by a return to clear blue skies and scorching
temperatures, as well as some lovely cycling through the Ardeche region,
passing scented lavender fields, before we met up with our crooked companion,
Andy, that evening. His knee hadn’t
quite repaired itself on the beach in Barcelona (blame the beer), but he felt up for the
challenge to plough along with us for the second week towards Geneva, where he
was then set to start another week of intense cycling through the Alps on a
separate holiday. Cycling predominantly
with his right leg and a concoction of drugs that would make Lance Armstrong
jealous, he more than kept up with James and I, leaving the prospect open of
still being able to make it up Alp D’Huez.
Before that
however, we had to stop off in Grenoble.
I’d previously heard good things about this place, but I reserve the
right to call this city perhaps the most boring one I’ve ever had the misfortune
to stumble across. I’d say cycling 6 miles
in the evening, along main roads, without finding even one bar open, makes it
more akin to the nuclear decimated Chenobyl than a supposedly wealthy western
European city. At least we weren’t short
of conversations though with our campsite neighbours well involved in their own
domestic dispute and the campsite itself boasting toilets that smelt very much
of stale urine. A lovely place to stay,
it was not. Anyway, the Alps beckoned
and at least Grenoble has a good cycle network, enabling us to make a rapid
escape for the mountains.
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| Alp D'Huez - Andy 3rd, James 1st, Me 2nd |
The name of
Alp D’Huez rightly reverberates around cyclists conversations throughout the world. It features regularly in the Tour
de France and this year the cyclists were, for the first time, subjected to not
one, but two ascents of the mountain.
This involves around 8.5 miles of continuous climbing with 22 hairpin
corners ramping up the gradient to around 13% in places, taking you from the
valley basin at 700m to the ski resort, at about 1,850m. The tour and its 500,000 fans had filled the
mountain the week before, so the roads were freshly ‘decorated’ with support
for Froome, Quintana, Contador and co, all adding to the mythical nature of the
climb. James finished first in about 80
minutes, I was a few minutes behind and Andy’s ever expanding right leg managed
to power him up not too long afterwards, a top effort from all of us. We found a podium to get a photo in our new, and increasingly dirty, Union
Jack jerseys, where the inevitable comparisons to Froome and Wiggins were made
(!), they’d get up the climb in about 40 minutes or so, half our time and
that’s an incredible average speed of over 12mph, doing it twice! The information leaflet said around 400
cyclists go up every day in the summer, but I’d say this is a very conservative
estimate, and the continual stream of weary cyclists that came passed us as we
enjoyed a celebratory beer even included one guy with a baby on the back his
bike! These days are always the
highlight of the holiday for various reasons, none more so than being surrounded
by stunning scenery and feeling very proud of what you and your mates have just
achieved. Obviously knowing that the climbing is just about done,
leaving you to cycle down at 35mph, is pretty good fun too…
Unfortunately
a visit to the Grenoble campsite was once again called for, where our rubbish bag from
the previous stay still hadn’t been removed, but we treated ourselves to a
rotisserie chicken and manufactured a fridge out of Andy’s pannier for the
beer. All that was now left was the 100
miles or so of cycling to Geneva, via a stop off at beautiful Lake Annecy, to
complete another cycle tour across Europe and finish with a few well earned beers! Geneva is as expensive as you might have imagined, and also full of prostitutes we realised, which you might not have thought of. Consequently walking around slightly inebriated at 3am looking for a takeaway felt more like walking down the seedy Avenida Sexta in Cali or Amsterdam's Red Light District than a classy European city, but I suppose nowhere's ever perfect. It does have free public transport to the airport though, which is a very advantageous when taking your 25kg cardboard box and bike back home!
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| Last day's cycling at Lake Annecy |
When
telling people about these trips afterwards they are often astounded by what
they entail, and when planning them you do think if you really want to put
yourself through the long, hot days, sudden rainstorms and endless climbs all over again. But that
unpredictability for me is what cycle touring is all about. Cycling with your mates, experiencing all
these continual challenges can be occasionally frustrating, but when finishing
in a new city together and being able to look back at how far you have
travelled in such a short space of time, you can feel rightly pleased with
yourself. Obviously you also feel a hell
of a lot fitter, maybe with a few niggling pains, but having seen a huge part
of a country, eaten its food, spoken the language and shared the usual jokes
and bugbears for 2 weeks we start to think where the next tour could take
us. Maybe the World Cup or something
else will get in the way next year, who knows, but if not, I’m sure we’ll get
planning and think of where we could go. Europe's compactness, fine summer weather and beautiful towns and cities always make it an attractive choice, but across the pond The Pacific Coast Highway, from LA to San Francisco, is widely regarded as an excellent cycle tour. Wherever we choose I'm sure there'll be the usual trials and tribulations - wonderful weather, stunning views, evening beers, as well as a scruffy campsite or two and some horrendous hangovers hanging on the handlebars...but hopefully we'll once again be able to look back on what we've done, have a few more stories to tell and some well toned and tanned legs to match!
Here are some facts and stats about the trip:
Distance travelled - 722 miles (I think!)
Longest day - 85 miles, Lavaur to St. Affrique
Average mileage over 14 days - 52 miles a day
Highest point - 1,850m, Alp D'Huez
1,000m+ passes - 3
Accommodation - 11 camping nights, 4 hotel/Chambre D'Hote/hostel nights
Hottest day - 40oC, Viviers to St. Donat
Punctures - 0
Thunder storms that stopped us cycling - 4
Hail storms that stopped us cycling - 1
Evening meals - 9 'Pasta Delights' cooked on the stove, 5 burgers/pizzas eaten in restaurants
Countries visited - 3, Spain, France and Switzerland
Song of the tour -
Ian Brown - Stellify
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