Sunday, July 29, 2007

invisible

Well now - I realize I've dropped off the face of the earth for a while now; don't worry, it just means I'm having fun. Barcelona has a way of swallowing you up whole, and I have met a lot of people living here who 'just stopped for a week or two' - a few months or years ago.

I'm out of here tomorrow to start heading south to Valencia. From there I'm taking a ferry over to Ibiza (where I plan to spend as absolutely little time as possible) and a connecting boat to Formentara where my long time friend Ian lives on a pirate ship. Beaches and bbqs anticipated.

Expect more details when the fever of barca wears off and I get back into road mentality.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Aqui Bici

Fiets
Velo
Bici

New words at every stop for the bike. I love particularly how Bici sounds, being a BC boy myself.

Anyhow, not lots of net time here, but I managed to squeeze a few new photos up onto flickr (check the link under the map to the right). Slow to upload so maybe I can find a faster connection elsewhere and put some new ones up? Also maxed out my flickr space for the month so I'm going to start putting photos on the old midnight mass flickr site, www.flickr.com/

oh yeah, barca rocks.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Homage to Catalonia

I'm sitting here in Barcelona, dirty, smelly, and hands completely black from patching the flat tire I got about 20 minutes out of town. I'm swearing inwardly at having to learn yet ANOTHER keyboard. Feeling pretty super about the last couple of days though.

Where to start. I left Toulouse late, waiting for rain to subside and enjoying the company of the couchsurfers I visted so much that it was hard to leave. Eventually I loaded leuze up and hit the road after buying some new sunglasses and gloves, both of which items Toulouse had eaten. It was warm and sunny, and my brakes worked PROPERLY (and I mean, damn good!) for the first time since Rex died (a good thing it turned out). I stopped for dinner and caught myself smiling - I realized I was having realy fun again.

The trip from Toulouse to Saint Gaudin was nothing special - more rural farmland and pretty pastoral countryside. Anticipating scarcity in the days ahead I stopped at a supermarket and loaded up with food for the next couple of days, and then turned in towards, and then past Bagniers de Luchon, the town at the mouth of the Col de Portillon and Catalonia beyond. Think whistler village; expensive, touristy and boring. I spent my second night out camped half way up the mountain next to a bubbling brook and sleeping uneasily because I hadn´t bothered to hang my food and word on the street is that there are still bears in the pyrenees. I mean word on the street literally, as there seems to be a local debate over culling the bears going on in the area - spraypainted on the road at various intervals were 'non a l'ours' and 'oui a l'ours!'

So the pyrenees. These are some fucking mountains. The Massif central region of france was beautiful, and I'd never seen anything like those volcanos - but even there at the highest peak (higher, incedentally than I ended up climbing in the pyrenees) was a part of gentle rolling mountains. The Pyrenees don't fuck around. They are steep, jagged things - the bare bones of the world exposed for all to see. One of the rawest peieces of natur Í've ever seen, and you're hearing that from a BC boy here.

I woke up early the next morning and finished the climb to the col de Portillon (yeah, I cheated and did it over 2 days. Partly it was just the way things worked out, me rolling up at 6 pm the first night and all, needing somewhere natural to camp - but also, hey, that road was HELL OF STEEP). Altitude: 1293M. And then the decent. Oh my, oh my. Pretty much a half an hour of breakneck speed down switchback after switchback. The grin was plastered to my face. REALLY having fun now. Glad those brakes work like new.

Suddenly I'm in Spain. Painfully aware that the facility that I had in France, as a french speaker (however awkward my phrasing at times) had now evaporated. I was for all intents and purposes now a mute.

That wasn't the only sudden change - the pyrenees really are a natural border; as soon as you cross, you KNOW you are in a different country. The climate is completely different. Gone the wet lushness of france (even southern france seems 'wet and lush' compared to Spain), and thankfully with it that species of orange french slug that found a way to get in all my shit every night. Suddenly everything is arrid, dry pine trees and brown landscapes. I realize why the spanish took so well to Mexico and California - it must have been just like an extension of home.

I´ll let you in on a little secret - Catalonia, for all intents and purposes, is really just an extensio/ the foothills of the Pyrenees. On the french side there is one slope up to the top, and thats it for the mountains. In Catalonia they extend for kilometers and kilometers. I hitched a ride through a five KM tunnel (took almost 2 hrs to get picked up) that bored right through a mountain that must have a 2500 M peak. All downhill on the other side too, until I found a abandonned town on a penisnula overlooking a beautiful but artificial lake. The town had been cleared out and the land now belongs to the hydro company; the lake is catchment for their dam. Picturesque ruins. I stopped and made use of the lake to swim, wash some clothes, and cook. Then set my tent up on a cliff part overlooking the lake. Thankfully hidden away a bit as a suspicious hydro employee turned up (must have seen me poking about, taking pictures and whatnot) but was too lazy to get out of his jeep and really look around.

The next couple of days involved me challenging myself by taking on mountain after mountain. Like BC, this region is pretty much nothing but mountains and valleys. For some reason, rather than follow logic and trace the valleys with their highways, the Catalonians have opted to paint their roads up and down the spines of these beasts. Lesson: the harder, hotter, more brutally painful the climb, the longer, more winding, more thrilling the descent. I think I had one drop that went for 19 km and lost 7 or 800 meters. My maps are maked with a > symbol designating Hard Climb - usually averaging 8-15 km, often with a grade over 6 percent. Coming from a snowboard background I call them black diamonds. >> are double black diamonds, though I only ever tackled one of those at the Puy de Mary. I´ve been averaging two black diamonds a day. My legs hate me.

The murderous murderous sun.

Potable water is scarce.

The landscape is beautiful though, the skies are constantly blue and the roads sparkle.

Did I mention the murderous sun?

Unlike in France where there are cute little departmental roads that take you from small town to small town, catalonia seems to be connected by a limited network of highways (probably because of all the dammned mountains), so I am confined to car country a lot of the time. I get occasional and encouraging honks from passing motorists, along with a lot of incredulous stares.

Who would be stupid enough to bike through Spain in July?

The motorcyclists seem to like me particularly, and I think we share a kinship as to perspective on the road. I admit to being jelous of them, as that effortless power would make the flats, and moreover, the ascents on these delicious winding blacktops just as thrilling as the descents. Must get hot under all of that leather though.

I rolled into Barcelona around 1 oclock here and now need to get in touch with the couchsurfer I'll be staying with. My friend Earl (met about this time last year though bike love in portland - the movement never ceases to provide) emailed me from amsterdam and said he knows some squatters here too, so mayhap I'll luck out there too - I'd like to spend some time exploring the city and resting my brutalized body. I now have absolute confidence in my body and my ability to be self sufficient. Its nice.

Miss you guys and miss the sea - perhaps next task is getting down to the med and kissing the sand; its been forever since I´ve seen ocean.

Pics, as always, to come when they can. More spectacular than usual I think.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

What exactly IS that thing attached to your bike?

I get this question pretty much more than any other (sometimes more than 'where are you from').

Its a mallet. For bike polo. Thats right, I'm wandering Europe looking for bike polo (amongst other things, of course). I got to play with some pros in paris, but I'll leave that story till I get around to my 'Paris post.'

Theres recently been lots of good press and info popping up on the web about the hometown club I helped found and am getting a little despondent about leaving behind. I know they're all going to thrash me when I get back after a summer of slack, while they have all been playing thrice a week.

Anyway, if you are reading this blog and are curious about what that mallet is for, I give you East Van Bike Polo!

Watch it in video Here
or read about it in the Globe and Mail

I'mm finally about to leave Toulouse after an unexpectedly long, but quite pleasant stay. Three couches surfed and some good new people met. My body and bike are both thanking me for stopping. Next stop, Espania - anyone reading have any kind of spanish bike vocabulary they'd care to pass along?

Monday, July 2, 2007

Comments

I've changed the settings on this blog so that anyone can comment (eg, those without a google account) - I hadn't realized it was set up so that comments were locked.

Anyway, feel free to comment away - but please attach a name so I know who I'm reading!

Still in Toulouse for a THIRD night (thanks to the awesomeness of France and its 'why on earth would we open our shops on Monday' mentality) - I did find a mechanic who seemed both friendly AND trustworthy (surely a first over here. I miss OCB really, really bad. I also miss having LCBs where you personally know the Wrench) to sort my brakes out tomorrow though.

While I'm itching to get moving, I think both my legs and my numb hand, after 10 straight days of hard KM are thanking me for the break...

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Nothing Toulose

I showed up in Tolouse last night dusty and grimy from an aproximately 100km ride in on a 'piste cyclable' along the canal that turned out to only be moderately cyclable. The girl from Couchsurfing.com who I was going to stay with's cel phone had run out of juice, and I was stuck, wanting a bed and shower pretty bad. Thankfully my account on warmshowers.net (like couchsurfing, but specifically for touring cyclists) had started to work again, and so I took a chance and phoned someone (rather rudly) at 9:30 asking for a place to stay - I had nothing to lose.

Thankfully Remi turned out to be a really cool guy. He was just about to go out with some friends but came and met me and gave me a few minutes to shower before taking me out with them to see a bit of the town. He's off to Ireland for a 3 week bike trip this thursday and i wish him good luck.

So what have I been up to for the last week or so? Riding through easily the most beautiful part of France I've yet seen. Cantal and Le Lot, two departments that are within the massive central were my running ground, and they reminded me (to the point of homesickness at times) of British Columbia. Rushing rivers, raw rock faces, lonely traintracks along the side of empty, winding, tree lined highways; it was like the BC of my youth and imagination. There are a lot of hours for thinking when you alone on the bike and riding through this area reminded me very strongly that I need to explore my home province in detail some more when I get back. I began to feel very nostalgic for the place that I remember and that I fear won't exist in the sqme way for much longer. 80s era brown painted log ranger cabins and BC parks: home. Ah nostalgia. Of course, there were some things in this region I've never seen befgore - like the volcanic peaks of the regional Parc Des Volcans. I made it my goal to conquer one of these beasts, and so I spent a morning huffing it up one of the most beautiful roads I've ever seen surrounded by green rolling ridges and valleys to a 1588 M pass, 200meters shy of the Puy de Mary, which was only accessible by foot. I don't really knoz how to describe what I saw save to say that it was like the photos I've seen of Hawaii, but stretching for miles in every direction and with cattle and cute little European villages scattered about. Perhaps a little like I imagine Argentina to be. I sat there listening to american tourist girls complain about how they didn't like thier sandwiches before piling back into their tourbus. Had a shot of whiskey while feeling superior for earning my view, then dropping back down to a reasonable altiude to make a 95 km day. If I ever come back to france it will be to this region to spend some serious time looking around; to anyone coming this way by bike, look at my Gmap for day 2/3, and ENSURE that you hit those routes. Its non negotiable.

I'm going to stay an extra day in Tolouse here to look around a bit and because all the bike shops are closed (yay sunday) - I need a shorter stem (persistant hand numbness is worrying me) and while my brakes have improved enough to be safe in normal conditions, I think I'm willing to pay a bit more to try and get them tip-top before taking on the pyrenees. Tomorrow I'll ride south to try and pass through the Col de Portillion, and then down through catalonia to Barcelona. Probably no email until then, so you'll have to wait for more updates.

Oh yeay, PS - NEW PHOTOS UP!
(like this one of the Brakes 2007 world tour)