Cycling in Spain

Prologue

My wife Kathy and I spent a couple of weeks in Spain last January, a trip specifically planned with biking in mind. We'd never really thought we could handle a trip to a foreign country since neither of us speaks another language, but our friend Cheryl Olson had been invited to Spain by a woman she knew through the Michigan bike-racing scene, and who had biked across Spain the previous winter knowing virtually no Spanish.

Cheryl's friend Susan had rented a three-bedroom apartment on the Mediterranean coast for three months and had room for others to come and stay.Cheryl, Kathy ' I took her up on the offer, which is how we learned that yes, it is possible to get along in Spain despite not knowing Spanish-even though we found only one or two local people who spoke English the entire time we were there.

Restaurant menus indeed can be problematic, but if you use your head and a phrase book, it's hard to go too far wrong. Groceries aren't hard to deal with at all.Drivers are much more polite to cyclists than in the States. All you really need is an English-speaker to work with for accommodations, and the Internet makes this relatively easy to arrange.

In the small towns where we were staying, this generally means finding a real estate office (the British are buying retirement homes here at an amazing rate), or searching out one of several companies that exist solely to manage peoples' villas and rent them out to folks like us in the off season.

The apartment we stayed in last January was a bit spartan, but it definitely did the job, and because everything else about the experience was terrific-particularly the roads and the scenery and the fact that we'd see other "real" bicyclists out there every day-including teams-we vowed to return. This year we had it all arranged via some web-surfing and emailing before we left, and the rental people even worked out a driver to pick us up at the airport.

Besides very good roads, truly challenging terrain and dependable warm sunshine, just about every town has a bakery with truly tasty sweets and fresh-baked bread.And the bars and restaurants all have cheap food and absolutely wonderful coffee. But by far the best part of the experience was the riding and the scenery.

Last year the entire trip came together in a rush, but this time we had more time to get things organized, along with the obvious benefit of last year's experience.This year I vowed to write a few paragraphs about each day's experience, so please read on.

Getting There

Although we got misdirected at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, thereby walking about two miles and taking a couple of totally unnecessary train rides between terminals, the trip to Valencia was as painless as an overnight trans-Atlantic flight with a commuter flight at each end could be.Still, it's worth bearing in mind that the credo of commercial airline travel is to herd people paying hundreds of dollars as though they enjoy being treated like cattle being driven to market, and thus must hurry up and wait at one holding pen or another, whether at check-in, security, the gate, or on the plane.

Still, the long flight to the old country was unexpectedly agreeable after the good folks at Iberia Airlines mistook me for Hollywood's Kirk Douglas and gave us a free upgrade to 1st Class, which meant a five course dinner, free booze, more legroom than even I could use, linen "table" cloths, free sets of toiletries including socks, ear plugs and eye masks, and plenty of elbow room with only six seats across the plane, not packed in like sardines nine across like the plebeians in coach. Seemed like a steward was around every 5 minutes…few cows have it half as good.

We survived our first foray through the Madrid Airport with very little drama and made our connection to Valencia with no drama at all.On the ground, we were treated to blue skies, palm trees, and beautiful warm sunshine-and were so distracted we both forgot that as international passengers, our baggage arrived in the Customs area.We feared the worst when our bags failed to appear with everyone else's, but we got redirected and were pleased to find that even our bikes were with us. Credit two- to three-hour layovers or total avoidance of Air France and Northwest Airlines-both pre-planned due to lessons learned last year in order to improve our odds.

Our prearranged driver was patiently waiting for us and while zooming down the A-7 motorway at 120 k/hour in a little Suzuki wagon overflowing with bodies, bikes and luggage, kindly agreed to take us to a grocery store on the way to our villa in Beniarbeig, a village located at the edge of the mountains and just a few miles inland from the Mediterranean.

The villa is just dandy, done in tan tile floors, white plaster walls, and brown tile roof, all very much in the Spanish style. The entire neighborhood is obviously brand new, and our villa is set in a square-like a small city block with a communal pool in the middle for nine villas to share. Our villa contains two smallish bedrooms and two baths on one side, and a nice, large open living and dining area divided from the kitchen by a breakfast island on the other. A porch with plenty of outdoor furniture at each end of the house means one or the other has sun all the time. There's air conditioning and heat-both operated by remote control, microwave, coffee maker, CD player, DVD and video player, satellite TV, but no phone or Internet.

Mostly British and German nationals own these villas, hordes of whom are retiring and buying vacation homes in southern Spain. But winter is not the busy season, and although a few families are here for Christmas, most villas are empty.

We arrived on Monday, December 20 about 2:30 in the afternoon, and Kathy moved us in while I assembled our bicycles on the back porch in beautiful, sunny 70-degree weather.We managed to get out for about an hour on the bikes before dark, toured the town, and found it's just a three-block walk to either a bakery or a small grocery store, We cooked up some genuine Spanish rice and beans and dumped them into tortilla shells before falling asleep on the sofa watching a "From Russia With Love" video we found on the shelf.

Tomorrow the real fun begins!

Tuesday, December 21

Got up at 8:00 after eleven hours of jet lag-induced sleep, and discovered the coffee we bought yesterday was whole beans, so lacking a grinder I conjured up a truly awful cup of instant coffee. But it was strong, and together with a large bowl of granola and yogurt, I found myself well fortified. We walked down to the bakery and found whole wheat bread, turnovers stuffed with vegetables, and chocolate stuffed pastries, along with-what luck for tomorrow-ground coffee. A trip to a little grocery (mercado) on the way back (necessitated by our discovery of all the stuff we forgot in our haste the day before), and we ambled back up the hill to our little estate and began leisurely preparations for a nice get-acquainted bike ride.

We decided to avoid the big climbs the first day, but still managed two or three thousand vertical feet under light clouds and 60 degrees with very little wind.Perfect riding weather as long as we kept moving, which we did except for about two dozen map checks and a quick stop in Xala to eat the sandwiches Kathy had packed.I never cease to be amazed at how good peanut butter and jelly on fresh-baked bread tastes out on the road.

Along the way, we visited several villages and small towns:Rafel de Almunia, Sagra, Orba, Xalo, Lliber, Benissa, Teulada, Rafalet, Gata de Gorges, Jesus de Pobre, Xala, Denia, els Poblets, Pego, then Sagra again riding a 65 mile counterclockwise loop that rimmed a valley, climbed a ridge, dropped down to the Mediterranean, followed the coast a bit, returned inland across a swamp, then rose over our biggest climb of the day back over the ridge between Pego and Sagra. Not too steep, up at maybe 4 or 5% for two or three kilometers.

Just before the climb, we managed to get thoroughly lost navigating our way through Pego, the largest town on our ride today, and barely found our way out in time to get home before dark.Streets intersect at all angles, become one way, or wind back around. Signs are often missing, and in general the whole thing manages to remind one of a maze.Eventually we got lucky and found a sign pointing us to Sagra, and were on our way.

We warmed up our bakery-fresh turnovers as soon as we got home, turned up the heat, drank a beer, showered, stretched, ate pesto-pasta and homemade garlic toast with tea and terrific red wine for dinner, then fell asleep.

Wednesday, December 22

I thought I heard rain during the night, and indeed after another ten hours of sleep we awoke to find clouds and drizzle. Oh no! I guess not all the rain in Spain falls on the plain.And to add further insult, that which I thought was coffee when shopping yesterday turns out to be powdered chocolate. The picture on the box looked like coffee; but I didn't bother to read the "Cacao" on the label. Doh!

Our day's entertainment began late in the morning when the bell rang and we found two electricians at the door. The language carrier was formidable, however, until he whipped out his cell phone-even more ubiquitous here than at home-and got someone at his office who English. They were to fix the main heating unit, which indeed we had noticed was on the fritz.Sure enough, they had everything hunky-dory in 20 minutes or so.

Unfortunately, ten minutes after they left, we lost all electricity, and everything-and I mean everything-in our all-electric villa went dead.So we wandered down to the center of town, ciphered out how to use the pay phone, and called our driver and contact Tony, who promised to get someone on it pronto. I was certain the power failure had to do with the work the men had completed, but Kathy spoke to a neighbor and learned that the power was out all over town, n fact a frequent occurrence, we were told, especially when it rains…so much for my powers of statistical analysis, logic, and deduction!Sure enough the power was back in three hours or so.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon reading, napping, and working on establishing friendships with the neighborhood cats, four of which have come by so far though none have seen fit to come within eight feet of my outstretched hand.On the other hand, twice now I've walked right up to a little gray tiger kitty sitting on the seat of a motor-scooter parked in the old part of town who happily offered his ears for some scratching.It occurs to me that there's no way to know if any of these kitties have had their shots, and I really ought to keep my distance-tough duty for an avowed cat-lover.

I baked potatoes in the microwave for dinner, mashed ‘em, and spooned on onions, mushrooms, sweet red pepper and zucchini sautéed in olive oil and red wine. Then I melted cheddar cheese over the whole thing under the broiler.Kind of looked like a casserole, and was pretty tasty for a one-course meal. The rain let up about dark, and after dinner we walked to the center of town, where we found the library open complete with computers connected to the Internet. We'll see if anyone replies to what we sent-the computers over here have some very interesting keys.

The evening sky is beautifully clear with a ¾ moon, and we plan a big ride for tomorrow.

Thursday, December 23

Nothing but blue sky today-not a cloud to be seen, but chilly in the morning, 5 degrees Celsius, or 40 degrees Fahrenheit.Got the coffee machine working then had a big bowl of granola for breakfast. We walked down to the bakery and once again stocked up with fresh bread for sandwiches, a huge croissant stuffed with dark chocolate custard, and turnovers with veggies inside for post-ride noshing.

We hit the road about 10:00 , aiming to do some serious climbing.We were not disappointed. After about 15 miles we took on the Col de Rates, a relatively steady 1700 vertical feet of burning thighs and pounding heart at about 8 or 9% showcasing awe-inspiring views of the villages below, the Mediterranean Sea in the distance, and the mountain itself everywhere else.

Over the top of the climb, we officially drop into "The Playground," a network of sinuous, nearly deserted roads winding over, around and through one beautiful mountain, gorgeous valley, and ancient village after another.These roads challenge every road cycling skill imaginable-climbing, descending, braking, and cornering-often two or three at a time. With the temperature in the mid-50's, we'd soak our clothes climbing at 7 or 8 mph, then don our jackets at the top for rip-roaring descents that invariably include dozens of blind hairpin turns. Flying downhill at 30 or 40 mph, the trick is to judge the corners properly-many of which are totally blind as you zoom around the side of a cliff.If you've ever watched the peloton descending in the Tour de France, you get the idea-except in the Tour the roads are closed so Lance and his friends needn't be concerned with opposing traffic. Imagine roads so steep and corners so frequent and sharp that you actually catch cars in front of you!

Once in the playground, the climbs aren't so long, anything from 50 to 500 or 600 vertical feet, but the steepness ranges up to 16% in some spots, with the pitch changing constantly, so establishing a rhythm just can't be done.And while climbing these brutes has the thighs screaming, descents as steep as any you've ever seen produce similar results for wrists totally unused to bearing so much weight for so long, while squeezing the brakes hard for minutes at a time. Actually, one of the keys to riding here is figuring out which descents are too steep to be much fun, and planning the day's ride so you go up the truly steep and sinuous ones instead.

Even though the wind was dead calm today, it took five hours to ride 70 miles at a pace that would have netted 85 or 90 miles on our usual roads in a moderate wind.What's more, pack riding in these roads would be all but impossible-the ups ‘way too steep for any drafting, and the downs ‘way too scary.

Thankfully, our villa's situated a few miles from the mountains, so we had a chance to do some easy spinning on the way in. A shower, supper, and some stretching is about all this body was good for afterwards.

Friday, December 24

The plan today was to do an easier ride after beating ourselves up yesterday.We only rode 50 miles, but easy is not the right word for today's effort.

It's Christmas Eve and with the holiday itself on a Saturday, we figured we'd better lay in enough grub to hold us ‘til Monday, especially since Spain is 90% Catholic.First we hit the bakery and little grocery down the street since these are within walking distance and hauling too many groceries on the bikes presents certain as yet unresolved logistical problems.Of course, both stores were packed.Then we biked two miles into Ondara to the "Supermercado", which was even busier, and bought two backpacks worth of fuel for the legs.

While Kathy put away groceries, I hunted up a noise in her bike, which turned out to be a spoke nipple squeaking against the metal reinforcement in the rim.A drop of oil solved the problem, once again proving that often as not, the hard part is figuring out what to fix, not how to fix it.By the time we hit the road, it was 1:30 and 65 degrees, once again without a cloud in the sky.

A flatish warmup took us to Sagra, more-or-less a kick-off for three different routes into the Playground. Our plan today was to take the least steep climb into the mountains, and indeed we never needed our lowest gears. On the other hand, we pedaled not so steeply up, and up, and up, non-stop for an hour and twenty minutes with no breaks-doing 12 – 13 mph.

Our reward-a veritable roller coaster of a road to Val de Ebo, an absolutely beautiful valley village. This part of the ride was simply a blast, with twisty ups and downs requiring only an occasional feathering of the brakes, along with both climbs and descents marked by official highway signs as 16% grades, then a final white-knuckle corkscrew descent into the valley village.

You know you're in serious cycling territory when the roads are painted with racers' names and with signs alerting racers to Primes-always at the tops of climbs.Better still, much of the pavement was so new the asphalt still smelled of oil. Apparently they haven't heard of tar-and-gravel here.Or maybe the tar just melts in the 115 degree summer temperatures people keep warning us about.

To get home, we had to climb out of the valley-about 15 minutes of steady relatively steep climbing (real steep by Michigan standards), then drop down an amazingly serpentine 1700 vertical foot descent which required real concentration using the brakes-often really hard-in order to get around the corners, complicated by invisible little stutter bumps (no new pavement here).And although the road, the corners and the brakes (wonder how hot those rims are getting, anyway?) demand your attention, huge and potentially deadly distractions are right there-stunning, truly breathtaking scenery (and you're already out of breath from all that climbing) the sea and the villages way, way down below, and a totally sheer cliff should you overshoot a single one of the literally dozens of bends.Just to keep a giddy, shivering rider honest, lurking at the bottom, just around a relatively moderate left-hander, hides a "T" intersection and a stop sign.

After that just a ten or fifteen minute climb over the ridge and a quick drop into Sagra, then another fifteen minutes of easy spinning to make it back to the villa, ravenously hungry. We whipped up some pasta prima vera with veggies sautéed in garlic, olive oil, and red wine, and washed it down with terrific Spanish red wine and what we've come to call Cocaine Cookies-truly addictive little sugar-bombs similar to-but much tastier than-graham crackers.

50 miles in three and a half hours, with less than ten minutes off the bike.14 mph, and we were working. Riding the brakes downhill does not improve one's average speed.

Saturday, December 25, 2004 - Christmas Day

We really did make it an easy day today, though we rode 50 miles.We stuck to the flat area near the Sea.The first several miles inland from the Mediterranean are pan-flat most places. Our villa is near the edge of the transition to the mountains, so we have the choice of flats roads or big-time climbing every day-though tough luck if some gentle rollers are your the schedule.

After yet another big breakfast, we rode to Denia, the largest city for a hundred kilometers, and took a good look around. We figured the place would be pretty dead on Christmas Day, but quite a few folks were about, and lots of restaurants and bars were open.Denia has a huge breakwater protecting large marina directly across from the main, tree-lined promenade, and hundreds of yachts and several big commercial vessels were tied up.

The Mediterranean is lined with beautiful sandy beaches for hundreds of miles, and as we pedaled north out of Denia along the coast it became apparent that developers are intent on building high-rise apartments on even the tiniest parcel as far as the eye can see, then selling the result to either British or German heat-seekers and retirees. Truly a remarkable comparison to the tiny, centuries-old villages we rode through in the mountains the previous two days. It's easy to understand why some of the local folks are none too pleased with the influx of tourists, as evidenced by graffiti suggesting "Tourists Go Home" and other more colorful catchphrases.

But today flat is good, even if flat means having to deal with the trappings of modern civilization. After a while, we found that by angling inland a bit, we were generally able to find "Camis," which are small farm-roads-too small and numerous for any map- through innumerable, enormous orange groves.In fact, oranges seem to take up most all the flat ground away from the beach. That there could possibly be a market for this many oranges in all of Europe -or even the entire world-provides a sobering lesson in population growth and human consumption.

After Denia, we rode through the groves to Oliva and Miramar , then back towards Pego through more oranges, then back to the coast-through yet more oranges-to avoid the climb between Pego and Sagra. The wind had come up during the day, and thankfully we had a nice, strong tailwind blowing us most of the way home-a little Christmas present of our own.

Sunday ,December 26

A thunderstorm blew through last night, and although the blue skies had returned by this morning, the wind remained all day gusting from the north, northwest up to about 35 mph. The sort of wind that really gets one's attention on a bike, especially when the temperature is in the low 50's.

Psychologically, I find it's really tough riding uphill for miles and miles into wind like that.And maybe I wasn't feeling my best physically either, though it was hard to tell whether my problems were more in the head or in the legs.

Half way of the big climb of the day, to Castel de Casells, I was fried-cold, weak, and feeling like crap.Noticing that the mountaintops in the distance had acquired a dusting of snow didn't exactly help matters.

I tried eating a sandwich, even though we'd only come 20 miles since I'd eaten a huge bowl of granola. Then we noodled nice and slowly up an old side road with terrible pavement which led up a canyon for a couple of kilometers.Sadly, we had to flip it and go back when it turned to loose gravel. The scenery, which included wind-carved hollows in the sides of solid rock mountainsides, was unbelievable, and so was the extremely fit and fast runner who appeared out of nowhere, glided right past us and kept on going. Ah, to have good knees again…

The food, the scenery, and the shock from the runner improved my outlook and, as a result, our pace, considerably. And a really good café con leche (espresso with milk) in the nice, warm restaurant at the top of the climb finished the cure.

We flew back down the way we came with the wind at our back, and at the bottom of the main climb we took a different turn and found a new, longer way home that included a couple of moderate climbs which, thankfully were not into that still enormous wind. Only 45 miles today, but twice as hard as the 50 we did yesterday and, as a nice reward, many more times as beautiful. It can't blow that hard two days in a row, can it?

Monday, December 27

Awoke to gray skies but no rain. Still some wind, though nothing like yesterday. Stuck our heads outside and it just felt strange-and cold, forty degrees.A few minutes later we could hardly believe our eyes-it was snowing! It snowed for nearly an hour, big, fat, wet flakes.Not exactly what we had in mind for vacation.

But before long the sun was out again, but a wet forty degrees with a bit of wind is definitely chilly, and not the sort of weather to inspire thoughts of long bike rides.We visited the bakery and the grocery store, hung out and read, and after lunch decided to give it a try.

We were happy to find the sun had dried the roads nicely.We rode 35 moderately hilly miles.The sun was warm, the shade was cold.The climbs had us peeling layers; the descents had us wishing for more than we had. But we found a beautiful new climb, tough but not brutal.And though we had to turn around at the top rather than keep exploring because it was getting late, overall it was a big success, and far better than we'd have though possible looking out the window a few hours earlier.

Tuesday, December 28

Our friends from Alabama , Morgan Andriulli and Jamie Miernik, arrived last night.They're staying with us for the remainder of our time here. Much of today was spent getting them acquainted with our village, Beneiarbeig, and the bakery and grocery. It turned out that Tuesday is Market Day here.Market Day means that several local vendors have displayed their wares in the streets in the middle of town.There were two butchers, one vegetable vendor, and a couple of clothing vendors along with a couple of people selling trinkets.Morgan bought some slippers and we bought some veggies there, along with our usual stops at the grocery and the bakery.

The weather was pretty nice-clear and over 50 degrees-so it was clearly rideable, though it was breezy. We rode to Sagra, then over the ridge to Pego, where we realized that the clouds to he north-where the wind was from-looked threatening.So we rode the flat, fast, wind-aided route from Pego to Ondara, then back to Beneiarbeig.

By then the clouds were looking less threatening, but Morgan ' Jamie wanted to get settled some more so Kathy ' I left them at the villa and headed out for another couple of hours of riding, staying relatively close to home in case the rain materialized.

We more-or-less rode around the edge of the valley we're staying in, though that's not really a true description because there is no road around the far side without climbing over a ridge or two, which is just what we did.We rode through Pedreguer, Alcalali, and Orba, then took a turn we hadn't tried which the maps say is a dead end. We didn't go far enough to find out, as the sky became threatening again, and the temperature was dropping. We took advantage of the only turn-off on the dead-end road and descended a series of steep switchbacks in order to head home through Sagra and the usual route through Rafol de Almunia.

No really tough climbs today, but four reasonably challenging ones.We used the best part of the weather today and got a good, moderately hard workout for our efforts. Three hours and 45 miles.

Wednesday, December 29

A beautiful, cloudless day today, but windy.Maybe not as windy as the other windy day we had last week, but close to it. Morgan's fighting a cold, so he and Jamie did an easy ride and look-see over to Denia, the big city on the coast about 10 flat miles east of here. There's an old castle on a big hill overlooking the town, and they rode/walked up to it and got some fine pictures.

Kathy and I used the day for a ride of nearly epic proportions.We actually did nearly the same route as our first day in the playground, 65 miles, but with the big wind today and the fact that we've been doing big, mountainous rides nearly every day for the last eight days, it seemed much harder today.

Of course, there are physical and psychological aspects to the difficulty of any ride.It might seem like the physical side should have been the tougher part today with all the tough riding we've been doing, especially considering the wind and the fact that today's ride included around 5500 – 6000 vertical feet of climbing. And while our legs were truly toasted well before we finished, the psychological beating administered by the wind, added to the known difficulty of the terrain left me really having trouble not giving up and turning around 15 miles earlier than we did.

My salvation was a truly awesome café conu leche (espresso coffee with steamed milk) at a tiny little bar in the mountain village of Castell de Castells . At least we were smart enough to arrange things so that the last 25 miles were mostly wind-aided, and 14 of these were gently downhill.

The heart-rate monitor on my handlebar thinks it knows how many calories I burn based on my heart rate, sex, weight, and one or two other constants.It claims that today's four and a half hour ride at an average speed just under 15 mph burned up 4400 calories, a number that seems pretty unbelievable until I take stock of all I ate today!

I suppose a logical question is why we choose to beat ourselves up this way?After all, this is a vacation we on here, right?No one's forcing us out the door.I suppose there are a few reasons.I've always gotten a kick out of the theory that it feels so good when you stop. Besides, there's a tremendous feeling of accomplishment from riding such challenging roads. And of course when we get home to Michigan in mid-January, it's going to be unrideable for weeks on end, so why not use the opportunity for all it's worth?

Then again there's the notion that by proving to myself that I can still do something this hard-something that very few people even half my age could do-I'm sending the Grim Reaper a message that he'd be well-advised to look elsewhere for folks looking for an early exit. Rides like this are my way of taking this life for all it's worth.

Thursday, December 30

Clouds again this morning, and some drizzle shortly after we got up.A good thing too, because I was still absolutely fried from yesterday's ride. Sat around and read all morning, and by 12:30 the sun was out and the temperature was in the upper 50's.

We ate some lunch and did a three hour recovery ride heading north up the coast through El Verger, Oliva, Gandia and Grau before flipping around and returning the way we'd come, getting home just before dark. One noteworthy thing today was that the wind shifted to the east, rather than the north wind we'd had every day lately. Maybe the shift in direction will mean warmer temperatures.It was definitely warmer here last year.

We rode north in order to scout possible routes up the coast about a hundred kilometers to Valencia, which is the third largest city in Spain and is known for outstanding architecture and an enormous open-air market. We learned that the coast is apparently developed with high-ride apartments and hotels non-stop. We covered over twenty miles of coastline and could easily see another ten, but there was no break to be seen as far as the eye could see in either direction. Traffic was moderate-there's so much housing that some people must be around no matter that it's the off-season, or maybe some folks travel down from northern Europe for the Christmas holiday-but it's hard to imagine the scene in the summer.Maybe the strip in Las Vegas would be close.

I was reminded of my comment about the orange groves a few days ago-that it's hard to believe the entire world could use so many oranges.It's even harder to believe there could be enough tourists to use all these rooms, yet the construction goes on and on, with huge cranes sticking up along the coast, and new construction never out of sight as long as one is within a half a mile of the Mediterranean .

Rode 45 totally flat miles today in three hours.A little long for a recovery ride, but definitely the right pace.

Friday, December 31

Woke up to an absolutely perfect day for riding today.Not a very likely occurrence on New Year's Eve in Michigan . Honestly, I cannot imagine how a day could be any finer for cycling, and apparently the couple of dozen other riders we saw felt the same way.Not a cloud in the sky all day, high of 65 degrees, not a breath of wind. And here we are in the land of perfect roads, polite drivers and one beautiful mountain pass after another.

Morgan's still not feeling great, so he hooked up with some other riders we ran across for a shorter loop while Jamie, Kathy ' I did 70 miles starting out via Sagra, Pego, and Adsubia. Then we got serious with a fifteen-mile climb to Margarida and headed inland another five roller-coaster miles to Planes. We cut south across a valley on a one-lane road with some truly steep but short sections to Gorgos, and then began the ride back through Famorca and Facheca to Castell de Castells.We still had about 25 miles to go, and I'd say 23 of them were downhill, and very well earned at that.

Mountaintop finishes are all fine and good in the Tour de France, but not so pleasant if the end of the ride is your home. Heading downhill for the last hour of a five-hour ride in the mountains is definitely the way to go, especially when daylight is running low.Jamie was suffering on the climbs, especially later in the ride, and I'm sure she appreciated all that easy spinning on the way in.

This time the heart-rate monitor claims I smoked up 5100 miles, and I don't believe it for a minute, even though we ate everything we had with us and headed straight for the refrigerator when we got home. It's New Year's Eve, but I'll be surprised if we're awake at midnight .

Saturday, January 1, 2005 – New Year's Day

From what we could see, the Spanish celebrate New Year's Eve much as we do in the States, although a walk to the center of town around 9:30 pm revealed all the bars in our small village were all closed.Still signs of revelry were about, with firecrackers popping, groups of people wandering about, and several audibly loud parties going on. Tired as we were from our big ride earlier in the day (and the fact that we've been doing tough mountain rides nearly every day for the past two weeks), we were in bed well before the church bells momentarily roused us as they rang in the new year.

The morning promised another great day for riding, though a small north wind brought along temperatures a couple of degrees cooler than yesterday.Morgan was feeling much better, though Jamie was feeling the effects of her first real day of mountain roads.The four of us rode more-or-less together for the first fifteen miles and over the day's first climb, then after some discussion Morgan and Jamie stopped to plan a more leisurely ride over a cup of coffee while Kathy ' I headed up a climb we'd started a few days earlier.Our route pointed generally west toward Bernia-but we'd turned around before after a few kilometers of steep climbing due to concerns about getting home before dark.

Turned out this climb was the hardest of any climb we've done over here, which I guess means it ranks right up there with the hardest climbs I've ever done.Some of the climbs in the Rockies I've done are lots longer, as are some of the climbs here, but this one was twelve kilometers in the lowest gears we have (39 x 27 and 39 x 24) with practically no let up at all.

By the last third, I was suffering, and Kathy beat me to the top by a couple of hundred meters-and I think she dialed it back a bit out of sympathy.Although none of our maps list the elevation, this was with a doubt the highest point of the trip. Our reward was two separate stunningly beautiful panoramic views-one to the east with the Mediterranean being framed by the mountains on either side, and the other overlooking a huge valley rimmed by majestic, craggy peaks; the valley floor dotted with several small villages, each sprouting a church spire.Between the scenery, a relatively rough road, blind corners, and some wet and muddy spots, we had to ride our brakes nearly the entire ride back down.

We had the option to continue down the other side of the climb, towards the sea, and Kathy was willing. But I chickened out after a few hundred meters on the basis that it appeared even steeped than the way we'd come up, and it was impossible to tell if we'd have to do another big climb to get home (which didn't concern Kathy but I simply wasn't feeling up to another big climb today.) On the way down, we were surprised to run into Morgan ' Jamie coming up. They'd decided to do the same loop, but at a slower pace.

Still, we returned the way we came, stopped in Xalo for a bite to eat, then took a relatively flat but circuitous route back home-doing 54 miles in 4 hours of pedaling, once again proving that first ascending long climbs at eight or nine miles per hour, then riding the brakes all the way down produces absurdly low average speeds.

Sunday, January 2

Yee-ha, worked ourselves over big time today.Morgan had run into some local English riders and learned of a group ride Sunday mornings at 10:00 . We showed up early, drank a café con leche, and before long there were ten or twelve of us. Although they were planning a flat ride, we told them that Morgan (now firing on the majority of his cylinders) had yet to ride up the Col de Rates-probably the best known climb in the area-so we all headed out into the mountains.

Of course, one great truism of bicycling is that the bigger the group, the faster the pace.Add into the mix a group of guys that don't know each other too well, the resulting dose of testosterone, and several cups of good, strong, Spanish espresso and the recipe for seared lungs and screaming thighs is complete.

Thankfully, this was only true for the first two climbs of the day-a ten-minute almost-at-the-redline climb between Pedeguer and Parcent, then a twenty-two minute full-on effort up the Col de Rates, probably five minutes faster than we'd ever done it before.Maximum scenery, maximum effort.The Col de Rates seemed to burn off the lion's share of the caffeine, and things were a good deal more reasonable afterwards.

But a minute of thinking about all the snow back home restored a chunk of our mojo, so we kept on riding inland, winding our way up, over and down all sorts of climbs, some of which Kathy and I had done already, but Morgan had not. Believe me, cranking up 17 percent grades with legs already toasted really builds character.

The group split up over the next ten miles, but we regrouped for an outdoor lunch on the patio of a drop-dead beautiful hotel and restaurant in Castell de Castells, taking some tables being vacated by a group of off-road motorcyclists-who obviously also found the surrounding terrain to good to be true.

Terrific café con leches with our lunch partially restored us, but the group split into thirds with Kathy, Morgan and I taking on another fifteen miles of awesome terrain before dropping back toward Pego via a 24 kilometer downhill run featuring dozens of sinuous curves.

All this left us one more climb back to Sagra then 5 flat miles back to our villa in Beniarbeig, where we arrived totally wasted after 70 miles, once again under glorious blue skies and practically no wind.

And for a perfect denoument to the day, we arrived to find dinner waiting for us courtesy of Jamie, who'd turned around at the top of the Col de Rates.Still, the three of us are so hosed that we're threatening one another with a day off tomorrow. We'll see…

Monday, January 3

Indeed we were wasted today. One hundred percent fried. Ten hours of sleep did not affect a cure.Neither did a big breakfast first thing, a sumptuous chocolate éclair about ten o'clock , or a second breakfast about 11:30 .

I sold Kathy on the idea that going for an easy spin would actually be good for us, so we did two hours of easy pedaling among the orange groves by the sea, covering all of 22 miles-11 mph average-on dead flat roads with no wind. We picked up a few souvenirs along the way and returned hungry-again.By 4:00 we'd eaten three big meals and a snack, and no doubt we'll eat again later.

The trip is winding down-we fly home this Friday, so we're thinking about what do to with our remaining days, and assuming we'll be full of energy again tomorrow.There is a beautiful old castle named Guadalest we rode to last year on the outbound leg of an overnight trip to Alcoy, a large city about forty miles inland as a crow flies, but 70 very curvy and steep miles by road.Whether we go to the castle as an out-and-back or on the way to Alcoy , it's a big day with a lot of climbing.

Since there's no real ride to talk about today, I'll use this space to describe a few of the differences one notices between Spain and the good ol' U.S. of A. One thing that is hard to miss is that there are virtually no fat people here.The older folks tend to be a little overweight sometimes, but I haven't seen a single obese person here in two and a half weeks. And we see people out walking everywhere we go.Bicycling is far more common-both as a sport with spandex-clad riders zooming around, and regular folks riding old upright bikes in jeans and jackets.

On the other hand, cigarette smoking is far more common here.A lot of this may just be due to the fact that smoking is apparently legal in almost all public places, and from what I hear this is true throughout most of Europe .

People are far, far better about conserving energy here, most likely because public policy forces conservation upon them.Gas costs over $4.00 per gallon.Cars are tiny-most of them are smaller than anything in the States.A Mini-Cooper is a regular sized car here. Even the trucks are no more than half the size of the behemoths on our roads.At least half the cars and all the trucks are diesels.I don't know the rates for electricity, but I do know that we will be billed separately for it apart from the rental for our villa, and I expect to pay over $150.00 for three weeks' worth, even though we're trying to be frugal about it.

Virtually all construction is of ceramic tile or concrete; very little wood.Homes-and the lots they are built upon-are much smaller here also, in part, I suspect, to keep heating and cooling costs down; and in part because the population density in Europe is much higher than in Michigan. Other than farmers, virtually no one seems to have as much as an acre.Land use policies make much more sense than at home-any undeveloped piece of land is farmed unless it's just too steep or rocky to be feasible.

And you'd be amazed at the work they'll do to make land arable-such as cutting steps into the sides of mountains in order to create level ground on which to plant fruit trees. The vertical portions of these steps are invariably chunks of rocks about as large as a man can handle-carefully picked and placed so that they fit closely together with only minimal gaps. We regularly see mountainsides with twenty or more steps built up the sides, and it's clear many of these are hundreds of years old.

Most all the towns are hundreds of years old, and the streets-along with the sidewalks- are really narrow. Many main roads through towns are so narrow that cars must drive their right wheels up on the sidewalks so they practically graze the buildings in order for another car to pass, so one-way streets are the rule rather than the exception. Buildings often extend right to the very edge of the intersection-so closely that a driver in a normally sized car cannot see cross-traffic at all without inching partway into the intersection. All this makes biking in the cities entertaining to say the least, but it still seems much safer than in the States because people are used to looking out for bicycles-and mopeds, scooters and the like, which people ride with so much bravado-or lack of good sense-than you wonder how they survive day-to-day.

Stores are much the same as at home, though one glaring difference is far less junk food-especially pop and candy-on the shelves. Prices in Euros aren't hard to get used to, and neither are distances measured in kilometers. In fact, when the terrain makes the riding so tough, it's nice to see that we've still done a century. We just overlook that it's the shorter kind.Centigrade temperatures do take a bit of adjusting-20 degrees is a lovely 70 degree Fahrenheit day at home, and 40 degrees is sweltering hot.And they use military time all over Europe , so 6:00 pm is just 1800 hours.

A great deal of graffiti here, much more than I remember from last year.I was told much of this has to do with the elections this last year, which were quite contentious after a major train-bombing three days before the national election. Various parts of Spain harbor separatist groups that want to withdraw and form independent countries.I heard as many as thirteen of these groups exist around the country, the most well known being the Basques.

In addition, both the communists and the fascists (self-proclaimed skin-heads) maintain healthy memberships, and I saw several swastikas and hammer-and-sickles (sp?) spray-painted on walls and under bridges. At first, it was a bit unnerving to see open displays of political parties so far removed from mainstream politics, ideologies I was raised to despise.But it occurs to me that the wide range of political thought evident here should be open and welcomed in a true democracy-in fact the wide-ranging political thought is a sign of a healthier, more open democracy that in the States, where any ideas that differ from the Republican and Democratic party platforms get virtually no exposure.

Enough pontificating (after all, 90% of this country is Catholic, as was every church I saw). One last point:These people are genuinely nice.They take their time and seem to understand that there's no rush, everything will be just fine. They don't seem to mind that you're a foreigner (one of thousands around here) who hasn't bothered to learn their language.They want to help, figure out what you're talking about, give you room when you ride, don't honk or try to scare you half to death.And the weather in January is mighty similar to Michigan in October-cool, brisk mornings, sunny, shirt-sleeve afternoons, and very little rain.

Tuesday, January 4

Another cool morning-about 45 degrees-and cloudy.My muscles were still complaining about the last couple of weeks, too. Hard to get motivated to ride, but after I'd been up and about for a good couple of hours I began to feel better. Heavy legs combined with heavy clouds that looked like they might possibly do some damage to rule out the planned trip to Guadalest and Alcoy , but we still planned a pretty big ride, about 70 mountainous miles, on an out-and-back route.

Morgan and Jamie rented a car late yesterday for the rest of their stay, mostly because Jamie just hasn't done enough miles lately to be doing big mountain loops every day, and because she wants to visit a couple of the big cities, especially Valencia.So Morgan rode out with us for the first ten miles, then headed up the hardest climb in the area, to Val d'Ebo, to get his hard ride in early.Jamie planned to meet him in the car down the road a piece, and they'll do some motorized touring-along with a shorter, easier loop on the bike-for the rest of the day. No doubt they'll see some sights we won't.

But our plans were altered by the weather. No rain, but it was cold up there in the mountains with no sunshine. Under fifty degrees for sure, still threatening rain, and we're thirty miles from home. Easy to stay warm going uphill, but shivers all the way down. A café con leche helped some, but not enough.We turned back ten miles before we'd planned to, and began shivering our way back down into the valley.

After a couple of miles, though, the sun broke through, and the clouds vanished faster than I'd thought possible. So we poked around in several little towns we'd always just coasted through before at 25 mph or more, and made a few interesting discoveries-including the steepest road we've ever seen-along the way.

By the time we got home around 4:00 , the sun was warm enough that we put our legs up on chaise lounges on the porch to eat our bakery-fresh turnovers then wash them down with a nice cold beer.What a difference the sun makes. Maybe we'll try for Guadalest tomorrow…

Wednesday, January 5

Morgan and Jamie put their rental car to good use last night, taking us all out to a nice restaurant two towns away. There seem to be two sorts of eateries to choose from-old, authentic Spanish bar/restaurant combinations, and restaurants catering specifically to the English and German speaking tourists. The former certainly give more of the local flavor, but this generally means dinner isn't served until after 8:30 in the evening and usually no one speaks anything but Spanish. Worse, every one we've entered is thick with cigarette smoke.The newer, tourist-oriented ones generally have the menus in two or three languages, and the servers know a bit of English, though the price is a bit steeper. We ate an excellent meal including coffee, four beers and desert at a German-themed place for 52 Euros, roughly $70.00 U.S.

Another beautiful day today; not a cloud in the sky, hardly a breath of wind, 45 degrees in the morning, 60 or 65 in the afternoon.Actually, the temperature doesn't tell the whole story because the sunshine simply controls things.Zipping down the shady side of a mountain even on a perfect day like today is cold even with tights, long sleeves and a jacket, while the same descent in the sun is fine. Similarly, climbing in the sun soon soaks everything with sweat, but shady ascents are ideal, allowing one to control the body temperature by the degree of one's effort.

Our plan was to do an out-and-back, heading out for three hours before flipping, and hopefully getting as far as Guadalest. We left at 10:00 and although we could see Guadalest's mountaintop castle by 12:30 , we didn't actually get there ‘till a few minutes after 1:00 . The castle is a huge tourist trap, with dozens of restaurants, bars, souvenir shops and museums competing for customers-along with dozens of very friendly cats competing for handouts, no doubt kept around to keep the mouse population at bay.

We sat at a table on a brilliantly sunlit sidewalk outside a bar to sip the now-mandatory café con leche and eat a tasty grilled sandwich and talk with a friendly foursome of English folks at the next table.The ride back took half an hour less, primarily because there were two major climbs to get there, and only one major climb-though it was a dozy, probably the longest and steepest of the trip-on the way home. The primary part of the climb was about five kilometers or three miles long, and that short distance took nearly half an hour. Of course there were three or four other climbs that we now view as perfectly ordinary, though in fact each one is higher than absolutely any climb in lower Michigan.

67 miles round-trip today, exactly 5 hours on the bike; and I'm telling you right now that if we were totally fresh, at best it would still have taken four-and-a-half.We still had enough sunshine left to hang our legs over the tops of the chaise lounges for half an hour and talk about how in the world we'll maintain the strength we've built here till the weather breaks at home. Tomorrow's to be some easy spinning and then we pack-no doubt quite a job after three weeks.

Thursday, January 6

Our last day in winter cycling paradise. The driver picks us up for the ride to the airport at 4:30 a.m. tomorrow! Hardly a civilized hour, but as things worked out, our plane leaves at 7:00 a.m. and it's an hour's drive.

Another lovely day today, just like most every other. Wonder how long it takes to get to the point where weather like this in January seems less than miraculous? We did our usual walk into town to the bakery this morning, but nothing at all was open. Our English-speaking neighbors informed us that today is Navidad, the day on which the Spanish originally celebrated Christmas-and still do.But December 25 as Christmas has crept into Spain too, so in effect the Spanish have two Christmases. I'm sure the kids just love it!

Though the stores were closed, lots of people were about, families going for walks, driving to special events, and going for bike rides.For sure we saw more people out riding today than any other.Morgan and Jamie met up with the local English-speaking riders for what turned out to be a 3-1/2 hour flat, relaxed ride.Kathy ' I decided in advance we were fried, and did 30 miles really slowly by ourselves.

Our destination was Xabia, a good-sized town of maybe 50 - 75,000 people. In the middle of town, we were surprised to find a bike race winding down.It appeared to be mostly teenagers and women, nearly all wearing jerseys representing their town's cycling team.Straw bales spread around the corners gave the feeling that some sort of criterium had been going on.

Although most everything else was closed, lots of restaurants were open-apparently lots of folks go out to eat on one Christmas or the other.We stopped in Pedreguer, a town of maybe 10,000, for a pizza on the way home, then the dreaded repacking began. Morgan ' I both boxed two bikes apiece, which took an hour and a half.Kathy ' Jamie cleaned up the villa, then we all packed our suitcases and drove Jamie's rented Volkswagen Golf turbodiesel into Denia, where we found the tourist area by the marina to be very lively, with hundreds of people walking the streets even though restaurants and bars were the only businesses open. A tasty farewell dinner on the waterfront followed a walk around the downtown, then back to the villa for an early bed.

If Jamie hadn't rented the car, our only transportation the last three weeks would have been our bikes and our feet, but tomorrow it's back to the real world, consuming fossil fuel, the insufferable herding around airports, and being crammed like sardines into aluminum-skinned cigar-shaped jets to fly us home to our friends, our neighbors, and home, sweet home…and no doubt to lousy, gray, freezing weather and-good heavens-snow! Probably won't see a day as nice as our worst day here for two or three months. Yikes!!

Yes, there's a bit of ambivalence in the air.