Grumpy Old Men On Bikes

I know you don't really care about my breakfasts so I won't bore you with the travesty that was this morning's 'meal'.  Suffice to say that, on the list of foodstuffs  not provided, eggs were part of a very very long list. Our day involved 42 miles of lumpy terrain followed by a 10 mile descent and then a final 20 flat miles back to Malaga.  We were magnif icent.  The headwind put in an appearance here and there and some of the road surfaces were terrible but we plugged away and made it to our hotel by 15:30. We have now walked a mile and a half to the bike shop to get cardboard boxes then carried said boxes a mile and a half back to the hotel.  We are now VERY thirsty! Fortunately I accidentally bought a 6 pack from the gas station round the corner so we have lubrication for the messy job of packing away the bikes and generally reorganising our kit.  This involves delving down into the deepest recesses of panniers where dark and sinister ...

Last night we strolled out in search of food with the confident swagger that only a properly clean pair of pants can impart.  Despite our spotless undies we struggled to find anywhere that satisfied the THREE GOLDEN RULES: 1/ Open 2/ in budget and 3/ Sells stuff we recognise as food.  We ended up back at the little place next to our hotel which served us an acceptable salmon salad and a chicken paella for a modest sum (by Seville standards).  We sat outside and were surprisingly warm, even at 9pm, thanks to an outstanding day of sunshine. This morning we were saved the whole 'will there be eggs?' trauma because breakfast was not included.  Instead we feasted on stuff we had purchased the previous evening: jumbo pain au chocolate, orange juice, bread rolls and jam.  By the time we vacated the room it was knee deep in crumbs and little flakes of pastry and the bed sheets were quite jammy. It took almost 10 quite tricky miles to get out of Seville...

The equilibrium of  a touring cyclist is a finely balanced thing and it is surprising how small things can quickly shift a day from good to bad. Take yesterday for example: No eggs for breakfast.....bad day Tail wind.....good day Mediocre hotel and indifferent eveing meal....bad day Sort through panniers and find a clean pair of pants you had forgotten you had .....brilliant day After yesterday's roller coaster of emotions we headed down to breakfast with trepidation.  Would there be eggs?  It is a 4* hotel, surely there will be eggs?  But what if there aren't eggs?   THERE WERE EGGS!!!!! There was the thing that isn't bacon, there were two types of anemic sausage and even potato omelette.   This should have set up for a superb day but it was long (80 miles), a bit dull and with some very crappy road surfaces.  We coped manfully until mile 72 where we discovered that out intended route was closed an...

Instead of fretting about the curvature of cucumbers the EU would do well to sort out the whole business of hotel star ratings.  In my years of staying in hotels all over Europe I have been unable to work out what differentiates a 3* from a 4* place.......except for ONE THING: 3* hotels will usually serve a purely 'continental' breakfast whereas 4* hotels always have some hot food.....usually scrambled eggs plus a thing that they think is bacon and maybe some little anemic sausages.  Last night our hotel claimed to be 4* but served up a distinctly 3* breakfast.  This is a scandal.  I dont care if the room has a trouser press or if the receptionist wears a uniform but I WANT SCAMBLED EGGS FOR BREAKFAST! After 2 hilly days into and out of Ronda I was a bit broken and distinctly worried about today, which promised to be another lumpy ride.  BUT the sun came out, we picked up a decent tailwind for much of the day and we made relatively easy work of...

An extraordinary thing happened yesterday evening.  We had hunkered  down in a bar for the loooong wait until 8pm when we discovered that just around the  corner was a pizza restaurant that was both open and willing to sell us dinner at 6:30.  Spain would be a much better country if this practice became more common! This morning the receptionist politely released our bikes from the room in which they had been stored,  but with a face that said 'piss off and dont ever come back'. After yesterday's big climbs to get into Ronda we were treated to another 20 miles of very lumpy country to get out again.  Wiith 62 miles on the  clock we have ended the day more-or-less back at sea level but this suggests a much easier day than we had.  We are in Las Barrios, not far from Gibraltar, staying in a nice hotel opppsite the bull ring where, unfortunately, they are staging a rock concert.  It is a major thing and so far we have heard U2, R...

The receptionist in the Hotel Polo forgot the first rule of hotel keeping this afternoon: "Never start a fight with a bloke who has climbed 6000 feet to get to your hotel and hasn't had a beer yet". They teach this before the coffee break on day 1 of hotel school but maybe she was off sick or something. We had completed most of the check in formalities when she said "I see you have bicycles, we do not allow bicyles in the building.....it says it in the small print of your booking".  She helpfully suggested we could lock them up in the public car park.  Our bikes are now safely in the hotel and the receptionist has usefully filled a gap in her training. Last night we visited a Chinese Buffet, a popular choice of ours as regular readers will know.  This one was better than most with a wide choice of nicely cooked food including.....and this is the gold standard for such places.....crispy duck pancakes.   We staggered out an hour later t...

Sometimes the songs just pick themselves! For our evening meal we always carefully research all the options, looking for places with charm, character and outstanding cuisine. We then ignore this and eat in the hotel because it is easy.  Finally, last night this technique paid of and we had an excellent meal of local dishes including the magnificent paella you can see in the photo.  We washed it all down with a Rioja that was both good and cheap. This morning we were face d with an 'easy' 50 miles to Malaga and we set out early for reasons that will soon be explained.  The easiness was mitigated by 3 decent climbs in the first 10 miles, including one that was a right little sod.  We also had to contend with a busy route and LOTS of traffic lights, all of which were red.  Finally, as we approached Malagas we were treated to some crappy cobbled paths and, all-in-all, it felt like quite a tough ride. The reason for our haste was that we needed ...

Thank you for your forebearance yesterday!  El Ejido turned out to be a so-so sort of place....a big town but just somewhere to live rather than somewhere to spend 56 miles cyling into a headwind to reach.  This morning we were up and on the road before 9 and, as a consequence, reached our hotel by 2:30.  It was 67 miles and a  lumpy day but with an occasional treat: When you are slogging up a big hill and think you have another few hundred feet of climb left and you suddenly find .....drum roll...... a TUNNEL, there is joy almost beyond measure.  We had 3 of these little beauties today. 2:30 was a little early for check-in so we racked our brains for something to do.  To help lubricate the thought process we had a cold beer and suddenly the problem just went away.  We are in Almunecar and our hotel is just a few yards from the beach.  The sky is blue, the sun is orange, the temperature is in the low 20s and everything is r...

Today is Day 5 and we have now covered 350 miles.  I expect that many of you have your old school  geography atlas open with little map pins or blobs of blue tack to track our progress and today's blob should be placed on El Ejido.  Thus far we have been following a Bike Adventures route and we should really be staying on the coast in Almerimar but that is a town that holds some memories I prefer not to rekindle. Normal bollocks will resume tomorrow! In memory: Rob Ewin, 1949-2015

Love Hurts I left you all on a real cliffhanger yesterday didn't I?  I expect you are all desperate to know what Neil's Valentines surprise was...but probably, like me, nervous that it might be exactly what you suspect. Relax, Neil is from Chard and knows how to treat a girl right: he took me out for a lovely steak dinner. Thank-you to my readers from the antipodes who have helpfully suggested song titles but neither of you was thinking of a romantic meal when you made your suggestion were you? Blowin' In The Wind Our rote today followed the coast, was pretty darned lumpy and, at 70 miles, represented more than enough challenge.  But God decided to throw in a huge great headwind which made it all a bit pants.  We were magnificent.....well, Neil was.....I mostly just cried. Do You Know The Way to San Jose? We do because we we spent 7 hours punching through a bloody typhoon to get there.  Unlike the San Jose intended ...

Because mid-Feb is the perfect time to escape the British winter for some cyling in the sun it seems that I have spent almost every Valentines Day with Plum for the last few years.  We don't make a big fuss about it.....no cards or bunches of roses but we both know what we mean to each other! I was in Murcia in November, courtesy of the Murcia Tourist Board, and was taken to a very trendy dinner spot.  They have converted the old post office, with a central dining area and lots of different tapas vendors around the edge and an app to handle the whole ordering process.  I got away with it then because I was a VIP guest AND was with some young, attractive girls.  Turning up with Plum in our only non-cycling clothes was a slightly different experience.  They did admit us and they did serve us but we about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit. Today has been a mere 64 miles and mostly pretty easy but, as we returned to the coast, we had to cross a b...

Things got better in the railway station hotel. We secured some cold beers from the little supermarket and sat in the kiddies playground drinking them.  I am aware how this must sound but there is no way of making it any better than than it was.  A dad turned up with a small boy but for some reason they didn't stay long. Then we found that the hotel actually DID have a bar so we snuck in another beer to help fill the yawning chasm between our arrival and dinner.  By the time we were eventually served we would have eaten just about anything....which was lucky because that is what they served us. The legs turned out on parade this  morning but looked all sulky and belligerent so we had some fairly stern words and they have grudgingly delivered just enough thrust to get me to Murcia.....77 miles down the road.  The interior of Spain is pretty quiet at the best of times but today is Sunday and everywhere was deserted.  We sat on a park bench i...

So here is a question for you: When people from the bidet-using world (such as Spain) visit countries in the non-bidet-using world (such as the UK) are they completely disgusted by our filthy ways?  AND (supplementary question) how do they wash their cycling kit? Washing cycling kit will be high on many a Spaniard's list of jobs this evening because the whole of Spain was out on bikes today.  Plum and I were in our summer skimpies but every Spaniard was wearing full arctic-survival kit. Last night we celebrated all that Europe has to offer with German beer, Italian food and Spanish wine.  The pizza was especially good and fully overlapped the bus steering wheel that we always carry to check on portion sizes.  Today started with a lovely flat 40 miles down the coast, mostly on cycle paths.  We stopped for a pastry and Coke and my legs said 'that was a nice ride, I should be ready for another one tomorrow'.  I explained that we had to ...

There can be few lovelier things than getting off an aeroplane in mid-february to be greeted by warm air and clear blue skies.  It is a pity that this is immediately followed by trying to clear immigration and customs in a world where travel declaration forms, vaccine passports and temperature checks are part of the crappy 'new normal'. The plane was rammed with families getting a head start on half term and it is hard to imagine how this can possibly be 'covid safe' but time will tell.  Our cunning plan for avoiding getting stranded somewhere with Covid is to not test. No matter, we are in Spain!  We have reassembled our steeds (some of us did this quicker than others!), ridden them the 8 miles to our hotel and had a celebratory sherbet.  Accommodation is splendidly inexpensive at this time of year and our 4* gaff is costing just 50 quid including breakfast.  Since we are in Spain we might go to the Italian restaurant over the road for d...

Traditionally, at this time of year, Neil and I like to head 'down under' where it is summer and the sun shines long and hard.  Last year we were in lockdown and went nowhere, and this year the constantly changing situation and associated travel restrictions mean we are reluctant to risk ending up stranded 10,000 miles from home.   We briefly toyed with returning to Florida but that is also risky and the riding there is pretty crap.  I was running out of ideas but then, in November, I got invited on a jolly in southern Spain courtesy of the Murcia Tourist Board.  It was late November but the weather was decent with blue skies and highs of about 20 degrees and our guide said that very similar weather could be expected in February.  As soon as I got home I dug out the maps and got cracking.   I have cobbled together a 2 week, 875 mile route with very little purpose other than to get some miles in the legs and rays on the back.  We fly to Vale...