Doubter

[insert your own topic]

I had doubts.

I read pages on the internet.

I am again a believer.

exit, stage left

My mind is a horrible place to have to exist in (often, but especially after a night shift).

How do I get out of here?

Driving

Since it was legally allowed I’ve been driving, as almost all do in Australia. Of course through my twenties I was a great driver, and I can back that up by the lack of crashes and the fun times I’ve had in and around cars. Yes, you can get an early model Pajero airborne, and a Sigma going the wrong way around a roundabout, in reverse, will indeed make you feel sick from the car fumes. But only after about 10 laps of the roundabout.

But since I left Aus I have decided to try and do without a car. And that’s easy when you live in the middle of a city like Barcelona. In fact to have a car is slightly insane. To park is a nightmare, and getting anywhere in the city is much easier accomplished by foot/bike or public transport (I choose foot). Which means I don’t drive all that often. In fact in can be 6 weeks between driving. Which means…

I don’t quite know how to say this. I’m trained not to acknowledge this kind of thing publicly.

Imnotaverygooddriver

Ok, there, said it. Maybe it will come back with practice. Maybe I don’t want it to. I can ride the bike reasonably well. Perhaps I’ll just leave it at that. Watch out if you’re on the roads…

Switzerland

So last weekend I managed to visit Jürg and Rahel at their ‘home’ in Switzerland. I say ‘home’ because they are effectively homeless still, and preparing for another winter in Norway. Crazy. Weather that is negative [some big number] with [another big number] meters of snow. Apparently hibernation is the favourite activity. Well, I hope they enjoy it.

It was super good to see them again, talk about the trip and a bit about what they’ve done since / have planned. Meet some of the people they talked about. Experience some of Switzerland, A walk in the mountains, Cheese Fondue in the forest, big meals with friends and Röste (described to me as Swiss Hash browns, but much better). Unfortunately I was still ‘jet lagged’ from working night shift in Belgium, so I managed to fall asleep at almost every dinner table. A little embarrassing (but it was hard to stay awake after a big meal, of excellent but heavy food, and everyone around me talking Swiss German). But Denise and PB (Rahel’s sister and partner) spoke excellent English so they kept me entertained when I wasn’t dozing off. Actually Denise loves Australia, she has several Aussie flags around the apartment. Good one!

Jürg has some photos of the cheese fondue gathering (after riding there in a horse and cart), but I was too busy eating to take any. Yes, I ate cheese fondue (I normally avoid cheese like the plague).

Mallorca

I’ve been asked how the yacht race went. This proves that at least one person actually reads this. Wow.

It went fine. We won our class, despite terribly calm conditions. The following facts are completely made up, but are basically true. The race was 90miles, from (almost) Barcelona to Mallorca, and had a cut-off time of 36 hours (or something). Which should be plenty of time. It took us 30, and we were some of the first (who didn’t give up and turn their motor on because they were bored of just sitting in the middle of no-where, doing nothing).

The wind at the start was so feeble that a pile of yachts almost crashed because they didn’t have enough force in their sails to change direction. For about an hour I used my (phemominal) bodyweight to hold the jib out and stop it flapping. I honestly didn’t noltice we had started, since I was up the front and couldn’t hear the conversation in the pit. After an hour I guessed we must be racing now. So I assumed the correct racing position:

The trick is to know what side to be on (I generally avoid the sun – that often tends to be the wrong move, so I’m told…)

Overnight in Mallorca, then back with decent winds. Took 15hours to get back, we weren’t racing. I even got to steer for a while (that didn’t make us any faster). It’s harder than it looks to do well.

At least it was a very fine day (or two or three). Lots of stars. Not a lot of sleep.

Visiting

Since we parted ways in early Feb 2008, (20 months ago!) after doing battle with the first part of the Patagonian winds, I haven’t seen my long time (6 months!) cycling friends Jurg and Rahel. But it looks like this will change this weekend. They have gone home to Switzerland, for one month visit before heading back to Norway to hibernate. And work. They tell me spring will bring another journey, but they’ve already done over 40,000km (one lap of the planet) so I’ll be interested to hear where they go from here.

I’ve been working nights and weekends, so a long weekend is due. Switzerland is not far from Barcelona. I’ll see them Thursday. The only problem is they are super busy, working, visiting family, organising to move back to Norway. I hope to tag along, and not get in the way too much.

I hope also to visit Maurice and Miranda (also from the bike trip) the week after next. I tried last weekend, but working nightshift doesn’t really allow all that much socialising time…

Pity these trips are on planes. My poor bike isn’t getting out all that much.

Just after counting the months since I left Jurg and Rahel, I wondered how long it’d been since I left Oz. June ‘07. I’m back for Christmas this year. 2.5 years. [nerd alert] That’s almost 8% of my life so far! No wonder the family are keen to see me again

Random Running Ramble

I went for a run this evening, before work. This in itself is not particularly worthy of note.

Running is often a good time to think. Normally the depth is limited to breathing and going faster, but tonight my thoughts drifted to my heart. No, there were  no romantic revelations. I was kind of surprised that I could keep my heart rate at only a little below 3 beats per second for almost 3/4 of an hour. I shouldn’t be – I do this three times a week at the moment, but normally focus on my pace rather than heart rate (the GPS watch helps a lot with that). I remembered reading that mammals hearts all seem to have a life span of about 1million beats, but my mental arithmetic isn’t so great when dashing along the road (note I don’t often use the word dashing, especially to describe myself, although feel free to do so at any time ). A swift burst on the calculator tells me that this would be unfortunate – most humans would therefore have a lifespan of less than 10 days. The internet is wonderful – it reminds me that the number I should remember is 1 billion beats, which modern medicine has recently more than doubled to 2.5 billion  (’s true, I read it on the internets).

But: At 3 times the normal rate, could it be that running hard for an hour actually cuts your life expectancy by 2 hours? Running like this three times a week for 28years would sum to a year off! …Although you’d be pretty fit 50 year old, and probably more likely to be hit by a car or get in trouble with frostbite in this part of the world.

My conclusion was that I should take up meditation and  beer. Sleep a lot. Stop running like this. Hang around forever. Actually anything that means I can stop running . I can get there with almost any starting point, given enough time.

That was it. In 46 mins, you’d think more thoughts would pass through ones head. Only when I’d finished and I noticed my achillies tendon give off the familiar warning feel did I think something new, and that was “oh, no. not again”. Followed by “petunias”. And remembered that not two weeks ago my left calf was damaged so that it hurt to walk, and today it is fine. Sometimes I find the recovery powers of these bodies is truely amazing.

Right. Dinners done. Time to go to work. Still in Antwerp. Still cold, but less wet today. It’s been a while since I’ve dealt with horizontal rain (maybe Patagonia?). Would be happy to wait a long time for it again.

Trains

Planes or Trains.

Europe has a high population density. There are trains everywhere. You might think I could make a train journey work.

No. In almost every case (of longer trips) I have tried so far taking a plane is about half the cost and 4-5 times faster. For example, I’m looking at a way to get to Zurich from Antwerp. It turns out it will be cheaper to go to Amsterdam and fly than it would be to go via train. Make it harder to use the trains and guess what? We wont use them. And on the hard point – the internet sites are terrible! Want to cross an international border? Forget it. I must be missing something here, I hope. It’s easier to take the bike, just takes a bit too long when you’ve only got a weekend to play with.

Awesome

From http://www.kevincyr.net/

A Coruña

Nothing much happens, life continues, I don’t write anything on the blog and people still read it. Very good. Maybe I should write something then.

Ok here goes.

The weather has definitely changed. My Northern American friends write nasty things aboot the coming winter. So leave Canada, at least for the winter. Barcelona today: 26°C and sunny. It did rain for a week about a month ago. You should have seen the coats and scarves come out. I think it was about 20°C. Then the weather cleared up beautifully for Mercé. Barcelona’s week of festivities and street parties. For all I know it could have rained for the last two weeks – I was in the far NW corner of Spain, right up in Coruña. Lets see if I can get a map to work:

View Larger Map

A Coruña. Pleasant, small. Actually fairly polluted for such a small place. The old city is quite lovely, but the new… It looks like about the 60’s or 70’s someone went mad in the town hall, and built a whole pile of lego block apartment buildings with no respect for the street layout or aesthetics. Maybe next time I’ll try to demonstrate with fotos. Unfortunately several stunning examples of hideousness were between our hotel and the old city, and one or two (or three or four) amazing seafood restaurants. Oh, and it rains in A Coruña. Aparently the climate is similar to the UK. They tell me now. I got caught in a rather nasty downpour exiting another nice restaurant.

Also, so they tell me, there is a tower over the body of the giant that Hercules killed. I claim ignorance of the legends of Hercules, but I didn’t know that people were claiming they might be fact, and actually know where the bodies are. Convieniently, it looks like a very good place for a light house. The city shield has a skull and cross bones on it; they’re serious. This is slightly surprising, since A Coruña is about as far away from Rome as you could get in the Roman empire, when it was around (ok, no it’s not, but it’s a damn long way without a car). Maybe he came wandering. Maybe he was on a bike trip.

So work was pleasant. The Spanish are working winter hours now. So 0830 to 2000. Long day. Also long lunch. No siesta, but the lunch is of average restaurant quality. Amazingly good for a canteen. Everyone shuffles past the counter, selects their two plates of food, anything from salad to whole fish, + bread, drink, desert. We all sit down and talk / eat for a while. Coffee is brought round. Very civilised. Then roll back to work. At about 2pm. So we’re not hungry again until about 11pm. Which is fine, because any earlier and the restaurants are shut. Eat something, return to the hotel, check some emails, get to sleep around 2am. Back up at 7 to start the day. After two weeks I’m completely buggered! the work wasn’t so hard, but the sleep deprivation is killing me. I just fell asleep in front of the computer for 2 hours (and missed my opportunity to go for a run today).

The future. I’m “home” (in Barcelona) tonight, there’s another yacht race this weekend. Back on Monday. Another night at “home”, then off to Belgium for two weeks. Awesome, another month where I’m at home for two whole nights. I’m still trying to work out why I might be single…

Nothing continues to happen

My ignorance of Wasp stings has been cured. For about 12 hours my head hurt like it’d been hit by a baseball (or bat), then a headache until about 24 hours, then it faded into nothing really. So that was good. I was expecting a reaction similar to the reaction to a bee sting. But it never came. Thank goodness. Maybe the European wasps in Aus are different to the wasps in Europe. Or the stories are to scare us. Maybe none of the fauna in Aus is actually that deadly, and it’s all a story. A theory to be tested at a later date. On someone else.

The guy who I saw in the first aid tent (at the Half marathon) when I was being treated apparently did not live (I don’t think I mentioned it). I count that as seriously unfair. Go for a run (ok, a long one), have a heart attack (assuming that it was a heart attack). Bit of bad luck.

Back in Barcelona. Disappointed that my work trip to Coruña got postponed (what, you didn’t know about that either?). Only because Jürg and Rahel have cycled past Coruña while I am sitting here (writing documents). Would have been great to see them in a semi-random place. Now I’ll have to hunt them down somewhere, possibly Switzerland. On other cyclists: Stefan and Sabine are cycling around somewhere in Africa. Didn’t invite me on that trip

Got a ticket to go ‘home’ (where-ever that is) to see friends and family in Oz for Christmas. No ticket back yet… Will have to fix that. The ticket that is, not having a home is the way it is

House-mate Kris is leaving, and replacing him is house-mate Carmen. Living in a student house is… different. An experience.

The weather is changing. It is no longer obviously summer. It is more comfortable to write program documentation in this weather. Which I should be doing now.

Halbmarathon

Word learnt today: German for Wasp (Easy enough – Waspe)

On Wednesday I saw a brochure at work for a Half Marathon nearby on Sunday. At that stage I was planning on flying to the next job on Sunday, so I went for a run that night to beat myself about missing the race. By Friday, the plans had changed, I would be in the area, but would have to work the Sunday. So I went for a faster run after work to further mourn the missed opportunity.
Saturday night (at 11pm), after working 14 hours and completely failing to carbo-load (salad for dinner doesn’t cut it) I get a call – my colleague thought that the work was going well enough that I could run if I wanted.

So I got up early, jumped on the bike and rode to Altötting – 15km up the road. Luckily the race was scheduled to start at 10:15 (why so late?) so I managed a late entry. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so hot, or a course that was 17km of forest trails – it was pleasant and picturesque though.

I managed to stick to my plan pretty well, for the first half (go out easy, pick it up later). I think I ran low on energy at about km 17 – I just couldn’t go faster! Maybe I should have eaten better, or run less on Friday. It couldn’t have been too bad though, the outcome was roughly the same as my Houston Half time. And I can’t say I’ve been training.

So what’s with the wasps? Just after we left the start and town, we ran on the road for 3km, to get position and pace sorted out. I didn’t realise the rest would be trails, so I was just cruising along, enjoy the run. As soon as the trail started, passing became difficult. But I was just running slightly off the track (when there weren’t trees or mud) to pass people. At one of these (before km 4) a swarm of wasps were upset by something, perhaps it was having a few thousand people rumble past their home. They took a significant dislike to the Australian (I can confidently predict there were no other Aussies there) and tried to turn my head into Swiss cheese. One tried to hide up my shirt and another just wanted to make friends with my shoulder. Shoulder wasp was the dummy – he didn’t do any damage, but he was the only one I actually saw. I can only deduce the others existence by the lumps on my head and back and the pain. Man, it hurts. And I was slightly worried when my vision blurred and I started seeing big white blotches, but I kept running and my vision cleared (well, as clear as normal for running). The pain stayed until I found drugs much later (the first aid people tried to help, but their magic cream didn’t do much).

A pity really, having a massively sore head didn’t do much for the post race enjoyment. I don’t think I’ll be running too many Bavarian half marathons, so I wanted to enjoy it. Luckily I had a quick look around the (pilgrimage) town of Altötting before the start. I did hang around for a massage (never managed that before!), and a second stint in the medical tent, mainly to make sure I wasn’t going to develope a reaction to the wasp stings – before riding back to Burghausen, getting a subway and riding into to work.

Now I’m buggered. I suspect I’ll sleep tonight. I even took the elevator to the second floor. And had desert (mmm, Apfel Strudel… with Vanilla sauce… Specki!). AND took drugs for my sore head.

Aus in the news

You can go for months in Europe and forget that Australia still exists. Apart from mentions about the Ashes (and anything else to do with sport, except soccer).

But we hit the big time with two stories today: one, how inhumane we are being in slaughtering some camels, and two how the senate rejected an emissions bill. That article goes on to say “Australia has the highest per capita emissions in the developed world and coal is its biggest export”.

re the camels, how about instead of shooting them, we find a bug somewhere that makes them infertile – much more humane. This bug, of course will have no side effects, a la cane toads, cats, rabbits… But about the emissions, I was about to make some smart arsed remark, but a while with my friend the internet, and err, that is correct. Coal being our biggest export is not surprising, but we have the highest per capita emissions in the world (developed, or developing from what I can see). Mainly from cars (in the cities), electricity generation/usage, and the aluminium smelting industry. A few years old, but interesting reading.

I’m going to have to put my high horse and halo away for a few days.

But there was nothing at all about the birth of Kev and Catherine’s newest, Sam. So I’ll help out the rest of the world by reporting it here. Congrats guys, hope you’re home soon!

3 countries, 2 days.

On Friday afternoon I decided to go for a weekend ride. So I spent a little while looking at google map, and thought riding to Andorra would be possible. Then I went out to watch the magic / dancing fountain in the city and failed to pack to leave. So instead I worked all day Saturday.

It is not all bad news, because I took Monday off instead. I still had two days, and I thought I would need them – the route I had drawn went up into Andorra, and was more than 200km long. Ambitious, maybe, but I figured if it all fell apart I could take another day without any drama. I also noticed that my route would go past a tiny village called Urtx, and this rang a bell, because I remembered I had met someone who lived there many years ago. I actually noticed this about 10pm Saturday, and fired of an email in the hopes that they might get it before I got to Urtx.

We are men, men in tights

So I caught the train to Ripoll, to skip some of the bits between the coast and the mountains. Normally not so exciting, except due to railway construction, the departure station had changed, but once I worked out that it wasn’t a big deal. I had my bike after all. I met three local cyclists on the train, Nico, Josep-Maria and … (my memory sucks). They were off for a vuelta in the mountains as well, maybe a bit shorter though. They told me there could be rain. I hadn’t bothered to check, because: 1. It is the mountains, you can get anything, anytime; 2. it has been beautiful and warm in Barcelona for months; 3. I was going anyway. Rain, pah! You don’t scare me

After coffee (obligatory), and a photo, we headed north, together for a few km. Then I was alone, and charged up the first pass. I love the feeling of flying up a hill. Sure it takes effort, but it feels great (I also like it on the motorbike, much much less effort, but it still feels great). On the bike 25-30km/h is flying. This pass was only at 1800m (I started at 800m), so (Adelaide alert) kind of like climbing lofty. In the Pyrenees, with mountains all around. Ok, nothing like anything in Australia, but it was 1000m up. It had already started raining, but it stopped and started and wasn’t too bad.

I then raced down in to the valley, and stopped into Urtx. The village is lovely! (as are many of them in northern Catalonia). My friend hadn’t rung or texted. No matter, filled my water bottles at the village water tap (there’s an essay on that alone), and headed off to Puigcerda. Right on the border with France. Crossed into France. Now that the borders are effectively uncontrolled, the excitement of changing countries has diminished. The most obvious difference is the number plates on the cars, and the language if you try to talk (difficult while riding uphill ). So I had some lunch, found a sign pointing at Andorra, and started off. I knew there was a bit of hill coming, so was a bit nervous when the massive clouds and thunderstorm around, and occasionally overhead.

Trundelling up the hill. Crunch, crunch, bang. Something behind me. I turn around to see a car rather gently settle onto it’s roof. Somehow this guy had (going uphill) run off the road and hit a massive rock. Kind of like driving into a brick wall, only there is no give in the rock. Only 30m behind me. (that’s the second time this has happened to me; please, please don’t fall off the road any closer!) So, I and others had to get the bodies out. Luckily the bodies could get themselves out after we got the door open. Amazingly there was only a sore head and a cut foot. Considering the amount of stuff spread around the inside of the car, including heavy stuff like tools, I think they were extremely lucky. Although this probably wont be one of their favourite holiday memories.

So, while I was waiting an eternity (43m according to my bike computer…)  for the circus that is the police, fire and ambulance to arrive at any crash scene, my friend from Urtx rang and texted. Only I was 30m from my bike and didn’t hear a thing. Bugger (found out at 10:30 at night). Also frustrating was the light was fading (due to the clouds from the storm), the approaching sunset and the mountains around. I thought there was no chance of making Andorra, and neither did the very friendly English speaking French policeman (one never thinks those four words would go together, but they do – in this case). But I can try, right?

So off to the next pass, after passing the campground that the aforementioned policeman suggested I stay at. Afterward I realised that this was the last campground for quite some time. In the rain. Occasional hail. A few flakes of snow (no idea what they were doing, it was far too warm for that – maybe they were hail that wanted to be snow). This pass was only 1900m, but steeper than the first, and from the crash site only took 50min. I felt like now would be a great time to find a campsite. And just on the other side of the pass I felt this even stronger, as I rode into the cloud. Somehow it was still raining. So I started looking around for a campsite (this was 7pm, in the mountains in the dying light). Well, there were none. So on I go. I didn’t realise there was another pass of over 2400m coming up. So with no-where to camp I rode past the line of traffic entering France from Andorra, no doubt full of duty free stuff. I got some startled looks and a few words of encouragement. I must have looked a little odd.

The only way is down!

They let me into Andorra. No controls at all (there are controls going out). I guess they figure to get here you have to come from France or Spain, and you will return to France or Spain, so why should they care? Still nowhere to camp. From my dim memory of my last trip, I remembered the town at the border wasn’t far from the pass before going down, down, down. And it isn’t – by motorcycle. The only good news is I was heading East, and so after getting over the top managed to gain a few more minutes of light. It was cold, cloudy, raining (I was pretty well soaked by now). I wanted to stop, but experience tells me that to get over the top and as far down as possible is a good idea (camping on top of anything in a thunderstorm is a good recipe for a bad night). Oh, have I mentioned often enough the massive thunderstorm I had raging around me? I was still having fun.

And then the down… I couldn’t fully enjoy it because of the water on the road, but going down 900m on pretty good road, fast, was fun. It also meant I was getting close to a place to sleep. And my brakes were wearing out. When I saw a sign for campsite I pulled them both on, brake levers hit the handlebars and I slowly sailed past the turn off. I stopped eventually, but it was, err, exciting from then on (I continued to the next campsite, the first was up a side road and I was still looking for a quiet place by the road to camp, which is foolish in Andorra, it is completely impossible). It is impossible to camp outside a campground, because, for the most part Andorra is about 50m wide. A cliff, a river, a road, a house and another cliff. Plenty of the landscape is flat – but also inconveniently vertical.

This is getting slightly longer than I planned.

I found a campsite. Dripped my way into the shower. Finally stopped shivering. Slept like a log. I’d only managed 120km, but had to do 2500m climbing.

The return trip was more enjoyable. Downhill nearly all day, with an unreliable tailwind. The morning was clear, beautiful blue sky, so I got to see some of Andorra. The afternoon in the mountains (from what I could see) looked like a repeat performance of yesterday. I was a bit surprised to get so much bad weather in August. But it is the mountains.

I had promised myself a downhill day, and for the most part the road delivered. Until I turned left toward Solsona. The map showed this was the shortest way, but the signs to Barcelona all pointed down the road toward Lleida. A short-cut! I should have been immediately suspitious. It has been some time since I’ve got off to push a bike up a hill. Even in the Andes on terrible roads I managed to ride nearly everywhere, but I had to here. Luckily the range wasn’t so high. Also, in my defense I was babying my bike, I managed to snap a spoke coming down from Andorra. On the rear wheel of course, on the driving side. I didn’t have the tools to change it so just rode on. I wonder what it is with me and spokes. Other people ride thousands of km and never have any trouble – in my years of racing MTB, I snapped one. But get me on a touring bike, and PING, there goes another one. I’d better just always carry the right tools.

That’s it really. Pleasant ride in the searing heat (Spain in August = Hot) back toward Barcelona. I was going to ride all the way, but couldn’t find a way out of Manresa that didn’t involve a motorway. Found the train station before a road going the right way. After discussing the traffic intensity between Manresa and Barcelona with the (train) Station Master, decided the train was a good option. And I was buggered (shhh, don’t tell anyone).

2 days: 275km. Moving time 12:25. Elevation gain: 3390m.

Next weekend: Sleep. Lay on the beach. Do something about my cyclist tan lines.

Spanish wiring

I had an electifying experience yesterday while shaving. I don’t even use an electric razor.

Running some water, had one hand on the tap. Thought the light near the mirror was pointing the wrong way, reached out to move it and the house went dark. I ended up on my kness – it turns out the house has a safety switch, or Earth leakage circuit breaker, whatever you call it, but you still get a fairly substantial boot! (maybe it’s not working 100%…) My shock was straight across my chest, which was a worry for a few seconds, until I worked out that my heart was still beating.

And beating had been earlier. Since buying the bike, I’m riding a lot more, but have hardly run anywhere. I decided to go yesterday. I think my computer was being kind to me, it told me I did 10km at 5min/km, and I felt like I was just cruising. Maybe it doesn’t work so well in the city with all the buildings around.

Barcelona have a Marathon. In March. So far each time I’ve started training for a marathon I end up smashed up an Achilles tendon. Maybe it’s time to make myself unable to walk again. 6 months 30 days of training. Yay or nay…

Maidens

I wonder why everyone thinks your mother’s maiden name is as secure as a password.

Hypocondriact

The last few weeks I’ve been exposed to more brain cancer than I really want to know about (parents of people I know in Europe). I’ve also noticed that I’ve had pins-and-needles in my left hand for two days, and my leg just went all tingly. Now, I know it is due to either riding too much on the weekend (it was great to get back into the sun!), sleeping wrong, or this desk which is far too high for the chair. It must be. Mustn’t it?

Visitors!

Lucky me! I’ve had two Aussie friends visit in two weeks. Ok, so it was kinda blind luck that they were coming to Barcelona and I found out, but still it was good see some Aussies in Europe.

Last week, Nick and Rachel came with stories about soon attempting a climb of Mont Blanc. Normally, having my friends talk of climbing something isn’t that unusual, but these guys are engineers, and friends from Uni and work (where people think I am slightly nutty). I didn’t know they climbed! They should be down by know, maybe they’ll let me know how they did.

And last weekend, I did manage to hunt down Toc and Tammy. It wasn’t really that random, I did know which road they were on (mobile phones are wonderful, for some things). They’d just spend several weeks cruising (or rather racing from what I can tell of their schedule) from Spain to Switzerland (yes – France is in the middle of that), and then back. On bikes – of course!

So I grabbed my new bike, dumped my camping gear into some panniers and headed out to meet them Friday arvo. I cheated and caught a train the first hundred k’s or so (to the end of the line), but still managed to meet them in France. I’ve ridden to France! Huh, didn’t think I’d be saying that 2 years ago So, the Pyrenees are relatively small at the eastern end, but are still a mountain range. I was surprised that I could cycle reasonable easily still (I’d gone 100km the day before looking at a nearby town). Maybe I’m not as unfit as I think I am. Toc and Tammy were using bob trailers and mountain bikes – they were towing more gear than I think I have in Europe But they were still charging up those hills. I managed to convince them to detour to Girona, and then the Costa Brava, mainly because I had been told good things about them. Well, Girona was very nice (I’ve seen the city already), the road to Girona, via some volcanoes was lovely, but the coast was crawling with people.

Toc, who's that in the lead there?

Ok, the coast itself is lovely, warm, pretty, good beach, sea  cliffs, old castles. But then there is Surfers Paradise style apartment buildings (or rather Mediterranean coast style apartment buildings, after which surfers is styled), lots of northern Europeans, and generally lots of people. The white beaches are jam packed. The crystal blue waters full of boats and flailing white bodies. And everyone still thinks it is great – I’m not all that much of a beach goer, but we have the odd beach in Oz (which are as good and relatively deserted). I think I’ll leave a repeat visit until the tourists have left (which implies it will be winter). Or maybe somewhere in Aus.

Oh, and Toc managed to get himself some stitches after cutting his hand open removing a pedal from a bike (stuck pedal, not having the right tool, using a makeshift cheater bar, pedal coming loose in with a bang, chain ring being in the way = 2 hours in hospital). I did the root-cause analysis – wrong tool for the job and insufficient training (same reasons I cut open my finger in the US last visit). Eventually I’ll learn. That was a bit more excitement that we were looking for on a Wednesday night. But was quicker than trying to get them to pack up camp

I might go back this, or next weekend. The mountains are lovely, especially after sweating in the city for a week.

I’ve heard that Rahel and Jürg are in Belgium heading for Paris. If they intend on going to Africa still, they’ll have to come close to here. Hopefully I’m in the country when they swing past.

August in Europe is where it’s at. Note to my Adelaide friends: pregnancy is not a valid excuse

On the Hunt

Toc, from Perth, is cycling south, somewhere north of me. I think I know what road he is on – I’m going to try and find him this weekend. On the bike.

Bike

Ha ha! I bought a bike. My suit case is no longer my largest possession.

I’ve been putting it off, I don’t know exactly why. Maybe this confirms that I’m going to try to stay here for some time, rather than just being in transit (like I still feel by the way). But it is time for some wheels. I’ve walked all over the area around where I live, and it’s time to start to explore a little further.

But I bought a road bike. So, although I can get there fast, I’ll not be able to go everywhere like I could on the mountain bike. That means I’ll have to get another!

I bought it from an Aussie cycle traveler who had finished in Barcelona (come from London). I probably could have got a great deal, but having been in that position myself, I paid more than I might have got away with. Hopefully the bike turns out alright – I’ve already found 6 loose spokes on the rear wheel – lucky I know how to fix spokes now!

But the most important question I know you are going to ask: Will it bring me back to Aus? No, I don’t think this one will. It has thin wheels, and is by no means a racing bike, but is still too flimsy for such a long trip. I’ll have to flog it off before I leave. No, I’ll have to get a mountain bike for that trip. Stefan has got me seriously considering a Rohloff hub.

(and so I distracted myself and just wasted 1/2 an hour on the Rohloff website and some other website about another cyclist riding to Australia…)

Maybe I could go for a ride…