Tour de France

As long as I remember I have watched the Tour de France every July on tv. Later in my life I cycled many of the big cols in the Alps as an amateur road cyclists and sometimes with luggage. Never before I crossed the famous passes in the Pyrenees by bicycle, so on our trip through Spain and France we decide to explore this mountain range. Our first encounter is the unknown Col Pierre St. Martin, a 1766m high pass on the frontier between Spain and France. With our 50kg of luggage each it is hard work, and we experience what we heard before: the climbs in the Pyrenees are not as high as in the Alps, but because you start at lower elevation and the climbs are irregular, they are at least as hard.

Striking is the difference of climate between the dry plateau of Spain with scattered pine forest and the lush broadleaf forest of France with lots of rivers and water falls. In France a huge descent takes us from the snow in the skiing station on the top to 200m above sea level where it is 30°C and full-on summer. Often we have to stop to cool down our sizzling rims and smoking brake pads.

The next climb is the only 1035m high Marie-Blanque, but coming from 200m and with 11% gradient the last 4km it is still killing us (again). On the top we have a well-deserved rest under huge beech trees, who's leaves we eat for salad.

In the Tour de France the west side of Col d'Aubisque is classifies as HC, the highest catagory. What this means we learn in the 3.5 hours it takes to ride the 18 steep kilometers. The best part is the many words of encouragement we get for towing our cycling circus over this giant mountains. Even the passing Vacansoleil team with Johnny Hoogerland has time for a few words and a wave. On the top we see absolutely nothing in the thick fog and disappointed we descent the other side.

After this effort we are caught in some very nasty weather and we have to sit out 84 hours of continuous rain in our 3-person tent. We only come out to pee or cook a quick pasta meal, but eventually we are so miserable that I pee in a marmalade jar and we soak the pasta till it gets soft without cooking it (not in the same jar). The dogs suffer most and are shivering all over. Ben is the only one who doesn't care.

For the first time in years we visit a camping. We are so tired of the climbing and the cold that we can't rough it anymore. Just having a washing machine and a hot shower feels like an enormous luxury and we relax. After a day of rest we start exploring the area, yes by bicycle of course. We climb the mountain top finish of Hautacam and I do a big 100km+ lap over col the Spandelles, col de Soulor and col d'Aubisque again, now with good weather and fantastic views. This probably doesn't sound like much resting, but without luggage it is suddenly very easy. I didn't realize that I was in such a good shape. With my broken sandals, butten-up shirt and zip-off pants on a heavy mountain bike I pass many lycra-clad cyclists on carbon frames.

We decide to leave the rest of the Pyrenees for the next trip and take the easy way to Toulouse where we visit an old friend, make new ones and have another wonderful rest.

Quiz

In which Walt Disney movie is Ben participating in this picture?
The first one with the correct answer gets a homemade cake the next time we see each other. 

From Ben

Cycling in Spain

Peter made a video of cycling on a main road in Spain. The road and traffic have been like this almost all over Spain. Have a look!

Via Verde

The popularity of cycle touring is growing all over the world. The low costs and low impact on the environment is attractive to many people in times of global pollution, climate change, rising oil prices and economic crises. In many countries governments are spending money on new cycle routes. A common practice is to change old abondoned railways into car-free bike paths. Costs are relatively low, because bridges and tunnels are already built. Only the road surface has to be made suitable for cycling. Slopes are generally gentle because trains cannot climb or descend steep hills. In Spain those bike paths are called Vias Verdes (http://www.viasverdes.com/ViasVerdes), in France Voies Vertes (http://www.voiesvertes.com), both meaning Green Ways. Of course this kind of infrastructure is fantastic for a cycling family, so we try to incorporate as many as we can in our route. In Spain we traveled for 4 days on the 184km long Ojos Negros route, which follows the tracks of an old mining railway, from the cost near Valencia to the mines on 1300m on the plateau of central Spain. Here an impression.

Change

spring 2010

spring 2012

Two years ago we started travelling together. We cycled 80 km average a day and we had 14 kg of luggage each. Look what happened now to us. One baby and two dogs accompany us now in our life.

We are now in Denia, a city about 100 km south of Valencia. As some of you might know we went to Spain by car with some friends who wanted to go on holiday in Andalucia. We left Holland 24th of March and started cycling on 2nd of April. It feels good to be back on the road and in the tent again but travelling with our three little friends is very different than before. First of all we do have to carry much more stuff than before which means that cycing up the mountains, which we love to do, is very tough. Especially because we are not in shape yet. So we go slowly and take a lot of breaks. But guess what, travelling is still great!

Ouiza loves to be outside again. She is running quiet a lot next to the bike, mainly because we did find a puppie (yes, we do have another dog now) who is sitting in her trailer. We found our new dog, which we call Coco, at a fuelstation where we wanted to fill our bottles with water. He was just sitting there, belonging to no one. The guy who works at the fuelstation told us that he arrived there the day before and didn't leave again, but he was almost run over a car already. We immediately fell in love with him and decided to take him. He turned out to be a lovely dog who likes to cuddle and is very enthusiastic about everything we do. If you know somebody who wants to have a nice dog please tell us.

Ben is doing fine. He is the one who decides when we take a break. He is mostly sleeping and talking in the trailer. Whenever he wants to get out of the trailer to play and eat we take a break of about an hour. Ben loves camping as much as we do. Already after two days he felt comfortable with sleeping and playing in our tent. He also likes to eat grass, stones and cuddle with Coco.

The climate is perfect right now in Spain and cycling is enjoyable. We had no rain yet but it's also not too hot. There are a lot of mountains with nice and quiet roads but those mountains are, till now, all quiet barren. It's a dry land with not much trees and a lot of weathering.

It's obvious that Spain has already a big problem due to the crisis. There are houses for sale everywhere, shopping malls are almost empty and in the supermarkets you can buy products which have a 'special crisis price'. Some mountain villages we have passed are completely deserted. Only old people still live there. When you walk through those streets you only hear your own foot steps, quiet odd.

We will leave Denia tomorrow and continue our journey further north, towards the Pyrenees.

Preparations

As you can see we started the preparations to continue our trip with the four of us. Peter, Petra and Ouiza are already used to travel by bike. With this outfit also baby Ben seems to be ready to go.
We will leave at the beginning of March to Orgiva, where we left our bikes.

The last part of our trip

We are already since a few weeks in Utrecht but here the last part of our bike-trip.



After we took the boat from Ceuta to Algeciras we cycled a little bit in Andalusia. We chose a route through the mountains and cycled only about two days along the busy and touristy coast.

From 4th of June till 9th of July we stayed and worked voluntarily on an organic farm in Orgiva, near Granada (www.wwoof.org). The farm, La Nueva Tierra, is owned by a family: Jordi, Lore and the two kids Rama and Tara. They have about one hectare of land with olive, orange and lemon trees. There is also a huge vegetable garden which is for private use only. We worked 5 1/2 hours in a row every day, 6 days a week which was quiet tiring. We were physically fit from all the cycling but our bodies were clearly not used to weeding, cutting grass, planting onions, picking up oranges and so on. Nevertheless we had a great time. The first two weeks there was another volunteer, Emerson from the US. He is a great guy, we had a lot of fun with him, did a nice hike and he learned us some useful things about dogs. The last 3 weeks Emerson was gone and the family was on holiday. They asked us to take care of the farm which we did with pleasure. Who doesn't want to stay at a very calm and quiet place with everyday a lot of sun, extremely nice organic food and a big swimming pool? We enjoyed it a lot.

But finally we had to go home because we wanted to prepare the arrival of the baby (which we are still doing). Petra wasn't allowed to fly anymore and for Ouiza flying would have been also difficult and not very nice. We hitched 3 rides via the French website www.covoiturage.fr: Granada - Bordeaux, Bordeaux - Lille, Lille - Geldrop which worked perfectly.

Now we wait for the baby, host some couch surfers, do some bike trips and long walks with Ouiza and hope for sun everyday. Hope to see you all soon!

Enjoy life! Lots of love from the three (+ 1/2) of us!