Personal Archives - Page 26 of 103

Day 20 Espelett to Pamplona Lifeday 25,269

Posted on October 2, 2016April 13, 2021

The evening meal at Chilhar was magnificent way more than my stomach, used to its simple life, could handle so I had a disturbed night’s sleep 🙁

Breakfast was equally outstanding, which was good as today was crossing The Pyrenees so I needed to be fit. Whilst loading up the bike the hotel’s cycling neighbour and the hotelier proceeded to muse about which way I should go 🙂

In the end I settled for the route generated by Strava. The first 500ft climb awaited me round the corner 🙂 Dropping down to the Spanish border at Dantxaria I noticed large groups of cyclists heading into the Venta Paco cafe, so I joined them. Crikey was it crowded with very fit men (no women) on their expensive bikes. I had my Coke and just as well as it was the last cafe for a while. Then it was up the 1800ft climb (I thought i was the main climb 🙁 ) which I did OK with a long drop down to Truita. In the square there was a old fashioned village shop where I could buy a coke and crisps. Thinking to myself that was easy…

Alas, the 3000 foot brute was still to come, a never ending zig zag climb up the Erreka valley finally ending at The Arteslaga Col at 984 metres a 2 hour climb without seeing a single cyclist.

The downhill is clearly magnificent and one of the reasons I love cycling so much over walking. Although the red/white markings where the GR12 crossed at the col made me feel nostalgic.

Even more nostalgia as I crossed into Pamplona on the same Camino bridge which I used exactly 12 years ago when I walked The Camino to celebrate my retirement and my first long walk.

Tonight I’m in the budget Alojamientos Olga to try and average out last nights splurge 🙂

Strava reveals the facts of my mega day 6,692 feet of ascent! in 57.8 miles and 6hr 15min 🙂 which compares very favourably to our Teide ascent of 8,806ft in 51.1mi in 5hr 45min.

My poor heart suffered and you can see it peaked at 135bpm. I managed to get the Blaze to stay on for the whole activity too:

My heart rate crossing Pyrenees

compare to elevation profile

Elevation profile

A few pics are here

Day17 Soulac sur Mer to Biganos – Livingday 25,266

Posted on September 29, 2016September 30, 2016

With a late breakfast I didn’t hit the road until just after 9am but it was a totally gorgeous day without a cloud in the sky all day 🙂

Amazing to find real dedicated bike tracks for 90% of the day on the La Vélodyssée. It’s lovely & smooth well marked and totally perfect. It’s so cool not to have to worry about vehicles behind you.

Such a pity that we sold of all our disused railway tracks, government policy of the day to prevent any likelihood of railways making a comeback, they make such perfect cycling ways.

The only bugbear of the day was the headwind, all day from the south – the direction I’m going. Plus the lack of cafes since it was mainly through woodland. After the one litre water stop at Aldi in Montalivet Les Bains there was nothing for the next 36 miles to the very upmarket restaurant La Bicyclette Jaune in Lacanau 🙁 I slurped a one litre bottle of water in a few minutes followed by a totally delicious fresh fruit salad and ice cream.

The next stop was an Intermarche in La Vignas where a one litre bottle of some jogurt was summarily despatched.

Since I was making such good time I decided to progress further and booked The Hotel Delta in Biganos. Probably the best hotel yet on this trip – the shower was really strong 🙂 For dinner I pottered down to Malhibou Ananas restaurant which amazingly is run by an English lady!

The success story of the day was using the cyclema.ps app reall simple will suck in a gpx file and let you follow the route with the direction of travel in the up mode. It shows cycle paths etc and even with no signal you can still follow the route.
[ride id=728931338]
The Strava for the 77 miles covered and 597 feet of ascent is here

The pictures are on Dropbox here

The heart data from my Blaze is:-

Associated Facebook posts:

Day 16 La Rochelle to Soulac Sur Mer on Day25,265 of my life.

Posted on September 28, 2016

What an amazing day 🙂 It’s just so pleasurable to walk of a plane to a nearby hotel and pick up your bike. Have a great night’s sleep, yep OK the salmon steak that I ordered for dinner was I reckon part of a cow’s behind, but we won’t that let ruin a great day 🙂 Neither will convincing myself to buy a Fitbit blaze heart rate monitor from Dixons at Stansted 🙂

I set of this morning with various routes planned to Royan, Strava and maps.me wanted me to avoid the centre of La Rochelle. However, the hotel owner and Google maps shrugged their shoulders, so I went through the centre with no problem 🙂

All went well until I hit the Route Barree signs, which I ignored of cause. The problem was they were rebuilding a level crossing at St Laurent, the guy resolutely refused to let me cross, even though i could easily have done 🙂 So France has jobs worth characters too. My little detour all went well although I thought I could never turn left as Gmaps kept wanting to send me across fields.

Then it was the awesome crossing of La Charente although quite why the bridge is so high is a bit of a mystery to me.

I arrived at Royan to find that I had missed the ferry by 15mins and the next was at 4pm so I made a quick return into Royan to devour three scoops of delicious ice cream 🙂 🙂

Eventually I made it across the Gironde Estuary on the €5 ferry across to Verdun. On arrival, all the map apps had ceremoniously crashed! the gps thought I was still on the other bank 🙁 Eventually Apple maps came to life (I ended up deleting Google maps and reinstalling it later) it took me on on a very circuitous route to Soulac, which has to be said is a rather gorgeous town especially on a warm evening, although the Germans on the next table at Restaurant La Station kept complaining, so much so i moved outside so the poor dears could seal themselves in 🙁

The Hotel Neptune is adequate although I had to remind him of the free pression donated by booking.com

Todays heart rate according to the Blaze

All in all a great day after a lovely weekend with Sally 🙂 The Blaze is disappointing as the heart rate only appears much later and the screen is difficult to read on the move.

Strava says I did 57.4 miles and 6.7 miles so 64 miles of very pleasant riding.

Some pics are here

Day 5 a whirlWINDY tour of Jersey on my 25,253 day.

Posted on September 16, 2016October 3, 2016

What a wet and wild night that was, thank goodness it was only my bike outside. After a much better nights sleep, on a firmer bed I had a gorgeous scrambled egg breakfast and left The Village b&b to a windy but dry morning.

I freewheeled down the hill and biked to St Aubin to meet up with snowboarder Peter, my guide for the morning. When he arrived on a uber lightweight carbon bike, I knew I was in for a struggle especially when he started talking about 8min running miles 🙁 in ParkRuns

We shot off up the old railroad track to the lighthouse at Corbiere Point and met the full force of the huge westerly wind 🙁 It was really stunning scenery and I was glad of a breather :-). At the bottom of the hill Peter suggested a rough track around the hill although it meant carrying my heavyish bike up a flight of steps..

Once down at sea level again and along the bay we stopped at the Jersey Pearl shop for a much needed cream tea. 🙂

Then it was of again up a very steep hill appropriately named Mont du Vallette , after a rest at the top to admire the view and Peter”s old childhood haunts we biked on, a bit inland of the coast, to our next tea break at the Durrell Wildlife Park. Then it was time for Peter to do his domestic duties so he flew off. I continued at a more leisurely pace, even spotting my first red squirrel, around the island. It really is beautiful with well maintained roads and on the whole courteous drivers. With the ferry from Portsmouth it probably makes a decent long weekend trip from the UK.

Once in St Helier I make a quick recce of the seawater lido, looks promising for a dip! Instead of returning back to the b&b I started the circuit again this time dropping down to St. Brelade’s gorgeous sandy bay. However, The Crab Shack had closed for an afternoon nap so I discovered the Wayside Cafe for my crab salad instead.

Once back at the b&b I confidently started to book a ferry to St Malo for tomorrow. However, to continue a theme, no ferries run that way on Saturday 🙁 so it’s another night on Jersey for me! I’ve moved myself to a place in St Helier so I can use the lido etc.

A good day and it was great to have Peter, a local, to show me around. The Strava shows I did 44.7 miles and 2094 feet of climbing

My pictures of the day should be here on Dropbox:-