ROCK2UK continued.....rest day in.PAMPLONA

ANOTHER CYCLISTS RIG AT THE PAMPLONA CAMPSITE

 After hammering across Spain at some speed and in very hot weather we were glad to get to the campsite at Pamplona. This was to be our first rest day and we planned on being tourists for a day. We had planned on spending the day in Pamplona itself . Neither John or I had been there before and we were both keen to see the streets where they hold the Annual 'Bull Run'.

ART STATUE SHOWING THE BULL RUN

 In the centre of the pedestrianized area of the city we saw this sculpture of the bull run and I can tell you that it looked pretty scary to me......Why anyone would want to run through narrow streets with huge bulls chasing you I just cannot imagine. Having said that it is all part of a very colourful festival that takes place each year and obviously brings in a lot of visitors to Pamplona.

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE BULL RUN SCULPTURE

PAMPLONA  MAIN SQUARE

ANOTHER SHOT OF THE MAIN SQUARE

ONE OF THE STEETS OF THE BULL RUN

The streets down which the Bull Run takes place are pretty narrow and I could see very few places where you could 'hide' from a group of rampaging bulls......seems like madness to me.
We had a really good day in Pamplona visiting a number of places including the bull ring......back at the campsite we managed to complete most of our chores such as washing clothes and stocking up on food and other supplies. The campsite at Pamplona was the best one that we stayed at in Spain. It had a great swimming pool and also a bar and it even had grass on which we could pitch our tents. It really was a good place to stay before our next stage of the trip which would include a traverse of the western end of the Pyrenees.......to be continued....

PAMPLONA BULL RING

PAMPLONA TOWN HALL

ANOTHER NARROW PAMPLONA STREET

ONE OF THE MANY PAMPLONA FOUNTAINS

ROCK2UK continued......

BOURNEMOUTH BEACH - 7 DAYS AGO

 The above picture shows Bournemouth beach only a week ago....amazing weather for early October. It couldn't last of course and the following day the temperature started to plummet back down to what is considered normal for this time of year.

Mind you....this good weather was nowhere near the kind of heat that we encountered on the Spanish section of our ROCK2UK trip. Once we had made the decision to get as much of Spain covered before Dave had to return home we had a new target to aim for.
We found the roads in Spain fantastic for cycling.....in the main very smooth and very little traffic as can be seen in some of the photos below.
From a distance all the villages appeared to be very similar and some of the views between various mountain ranges appeared vast with the road ahead disappearing into the horizon.....not the kind of views that we are used to in the UK.

WIND TURBINES AND SPANISH LANDSCAPE

We saw lots of wind turbines and also felt the wind that was certainly powerful enough to turn them at some speed. As you can see  in this image the landscape could become a bit boring after a while and the wind turbines did at least create a bit of interest.

WHITE PAINTED TOWNS AND VILLAGES

LONG STRAIGHT ROADS

 We saw lots of white painted villages and towns however from a distance they tended to all look alike. We also came across a good number of olive and orange groves.
In the photo above you can see one of the long straight roads that crossed the plains between mountain ranges.

ANOTHER LONG STRAIGHT ROAD

 Cycling in 40c on these roads needs a fair bit of determination.....mile after mile it all looks the same and you start to question how far you have actually travelled. When you have struggled all day in what seems like an open oven, you then have the wonderful luxury of a Spanish campsite as can be seen in the next photo......

SPANISH CAMPSITE PITCH

 As can be seen in the picture the pitch is more like a wild pitch than a campsite.....after a day of struggling in the heat this is the sort of pitch that we were greeted with.....the ground on this one was so hard that I couldn't get my tent pegs into the ground so in the end I just gave up and didn't bother with the tent.

WHO NEEDS A TENT?

After deciding not to bother with the tent this was my bed for the night....on the face of it not too bad. The only drawback was being bitten by huge ants that decided to crawl all over me during the night...and believe me those things really knew how to bite.

ANOTHER WHITE VILLAGE

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JUST ANOTHER VIEW

SOLAR PANELS

As well as the wind turbines we saw vast areas of solar panels....hundreds and hundreds of the things. These seem a good idea in Spain because they certainly have plenty of sun to power the things.
TO BE CONTINUED..........

MORE...GOOD WEATHER CONTINUES.

More Autumn Cycling

 Since my last post I have been out cycling every day in the brilliant Autumn weather that we have been having. The temperatures have been setting records for this time of year and the autumn colours are fantastic talking of which- now that I know about Rantwicks 'SARATS' competition I have an added incentive to get out into the wonderful Dorset countryside.  Apparently this good weather is set to last for a few more days and judging from how packed the beach at the end of our road was today I think that everyone is out enjoying it before it all changes to bad weather.

Our campsite pitch near Gibraltar

 As I have said before, the weather was pretty hot during the Spanish sections of our ROCK2UK ride. We stayed at a campsite on the Spanish coast about five miles from Gibraltar and our pitch can be seen in the above picture. The ground was rock hard and we had difficulty getting the tent pegs into the ground....a problem that we had throughout Spain. At one site Dave managed to get hold of some special 'rock pegs' and they certainly worked well but they were far to heavy for us to continue to use them after Dave had returned to the UK. I love nice grassy pitches and as you can see we had no grass at all. Back home in the UK there is no way that I would choose to camp on such a rough surface but throughout Spain we had no choice.

JD & I with Dave (the broom wagon)

 The above shot (taken by a willing passer by) shows the three of us at the start of the ride. Being on the coast  the temperature here was cooler than we were to find it further inland. At this point we had no idea how difficult this first days ride was going to be.

The Rock from the road to Ronda

 As we travelled further inland you could feel the heat building up. None of us are used to this level of heat and it proved to be a major problem for us throughout Spain.

JD winching up the road to Ronda

 In this picture of JD winching himself up the road to Ronda you can see that he has taken his helmet off. Now this is something that he would NEVER normally do but the heat was proving just too much for him. Because I don't really have much hair to speak of this wasn't a problem for me....and anyway since my crash two years ago I won't ever get on a bike without my helmet on. Perhaps JD should have had his hair shaved off before we started the ride...........

JD & Dave after the first day.

That evening after cycling the longest hill that I have ever ridden..(62 miles Gibraltar to Ronda) we found ourselves at another 'grassless' campsite. In this photo the strain of the days ride can be seen in JD's face.  We had a meal in the campsite restaurant and discussed how best to proceed with the ride given the oven-like temperatures that we had spent this first day cycling through. Because we had Dave with us we were not having to ride with the panniers on the bikes as all our kit was in the wagon. We all agreed that we would not have managed this first day if that had not been the case. It was during this discussion that it was agreed that for the time Dave was with us...we would try and travel as far north as quickly as we could in the hope that by the time he had to return to the UK we would be far enough north for it to be a bit cooler. Also Dave was able to carry more water supplies than we could on the bikes alone....and in these temperatures this was a real and major concern........TO BE CONTINUED

IF YOU INTENDED TO SUPPORT MY ROCK2UK RIDE WITH A DONATION FOR 'CYCLISTS FIGHTING CANCER' BUT HAVEN'T DONE SO YET- MAY I GIVE YOU A GENTLE NUDGE.....
WE ARE ONLY £155 SHORT OF THE TARGET AND IT WOULD MAKE SUCH A DIFFERENCE FOR THIS REALLY GOOD CAUSE IF WE MANAGED TO HIT THE ONE THOUSAND POUNDS THAT I SET FOR THE FUNDRAISING......THANKS IN ANTICIPATION.......

CYCLING THE DORSET COUNTRYSIDE.....

Within  just a few days of returning to the UK I have been out on the Felt cycling around the Dorset countryside. The weather has been great for cycling with very little wind and some nice dry days. This weather is set to continue so I will be out making the most of it.
The first time I got back on the Felt it really seemed odd....after a month of riding the Touring bike the Felt was really light and twitchy but after a few miles it was business as usual and after all the hills that I have ridden on the ROCK2UK I found that I was flying up the steepest hills that Dorset can offer.. Today I even managed to speed past a couple of twenty something year olds on a 20%. I was riding behind them when it dawned on me that I was able to pull out and accelerate past them.......Oh what pleasure!
Now I have acquired a pretty high level of fitness and ability I must make sure that I try to maintain it.....

 ROCK2UK..............
Wow - what a trip that was......Everything went well until we had to actually start cycling...!!!   The weather in Spain was just too hot. I had originally planned to start the ride in September but John was unable to get the time off in order to complete the ride during September so we had to start the ride in mid August....Oh what madness..!!

They do say 'Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun'- well we certainly did that.
After the first days ride from Gibraltar to Ronda we really felt that we had bitten off more than we could chew...The route from Gibraltar to Ronda was uphill for the entire 62 miles....in temperatures approaching 112F the difficulty of what we had set out to do became all too obvious...

Starting in my next posting I will explain how we tackled the problems we faced and also share with you some of the photographs taken during the ride.

BACK IN THE UK...

JD and I are now back safe and sound in the UK.

The last few miles to Cherbourg were covered during a gap in the wet weather....However the wind continued and some of the gusts were really quite scary. On reflection, probably not the best of days for cycling with such dangerous winds but we both wanted to get home.

One good thing was that we managed this last section to Cherbourg without getting caught by any rain.......however - the rain did get us in the end.
With a kind of cruel irony, as we were standing in the queue to board the ferry  the sky's opened and it poured down. JD and I got pretty wet while all the smug car occupants in the queue remained warm and dry. Mind you- I bet that none of them had had a trip as exciting and memorable as we had experienced over the past four weeks.

After a break for the next week whilst I get some rest and try to re-adjust to life 'off' the road I will start to post on this blog again with a series of mini reviews of the overall ROCK2UK trip.

More bad weather!

Last night was a bit of a wild night. Wind and rain off and on throughout the night. This morning gave us more of the same. Due to the continued bad weather we have decided to stay on for another night. The farmers wife has allowed us to move all our gear into an out building and that is where we will sleep tonight. John has even erected his tent in there as can be seen in the photo. Talking of John, he is suffering with a few problems at the moment. First he has an infected left foot. This has been caused by having constantly wet feet from all the rain. His sandals have rubbed when walking as has his cycling shoes when riding. Secondly, he seems to have caught a chill- again caused by being wet through a lot of the time. Our plan is to remain where we are until there is a break in the weather and then we will try and get a ferry back to the UK. The next posting I will make will be to confirm our safe return. I will then not make any more posts for about a week while I enjoy the benefits of R and R. After that I will post a bit of a review of the trip. Thanks to all of you who have travelled with us by way of this Blog.

Almost there!

Yes, we are almost at Cherbourg. It is four weeks ago that John and I left home to set out on this journey. After four weeks of travelling we have almost cracked it. Today we gave ourselves another nice day of meandering along with no pressure of time or distance. In some ways these last few days on the road have been amongst the best. All the hard cycling has been done and we can really enjoy the last miles of the trip. Up to now there was always the thought at the back of our minds of all the miles that were still to be covered. Well those miles have now been covered and I can tell you we are feeling pretty good. While passing through Portbal we stopped for a drink and a bite to eat for lunch. We got talking to two very nice ladies called Maggie and Allison who are over here for a few days cycle camping - they told us about the great farm site that they were staying on at Bricquebec which was about 11 miles away. So that is where we are camping tonight. If the weather is not too bad tomorrow we will complete the last few miles to Cherbourg and camp at a site about 3 miles from the port. We hope to have a day or two in th Cherbourg area before our return to the UK. I will let you know our final plans in my posting tomorrow night.