Tag: 2023

Spain Again (Tarragona and Valencia)

by blacridere

It’s still dark when I wake up. I’d prepared and laid everything out the evening before so all I need to do is shower, get dressed, eat and drink something, put my kit into the panniers and head out. The evening before the receptionist asked me to post the key to my gite through the letterbox of the main gate, as no one would be up at the ungodly hour I must depart in order to beat the heat. I post the key through the slot in one of the gate pillars on my way out and head West out of Biarritz.

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Wheels, Waves, and Wanderlust (Biarritz)

by blacridere

The evening before I look at several routes to Biarritz. The most obvious one, via Zaragoza and the Spanish side of the Pyrenees is the longest, but it seems the easiest. However, around the point where I’d have to actually cross the mountains there’s a severe weather warning for thunderstorms and flooding in place. Recalling my near death experience not far from there a few weeks before, I decide to extend the route, taking me across the mountains a bit further west, somewhat closer to San Sebastian. In all it’s just over 600km, a hard day’s riding. I ensure I have enough fruit, baby food, cereal bars and water with me, and before setting off, along with coffee and breakfast I take an aspirin to alleviate numbness and ensure good blood circulation.

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I’ve Been Everywhere, Man (a musical interlude)

by blacridere

A journey without music is no journey at all, as far as I’m concerned. There are many famous aphorisms about music, some so famous and true that they’ve become cliches. “If music be the food of love, play on”, wrote Shakespeare. Nietzsche went further: “Without music, life would be a mistake”. For me it was Dick Clark, US television’s equivalent of John Peel, who summed it up: “Music is the soundtrack of your life”. My journey would have far less meaning without it.

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From Zaragoza to Barcelona (via Hades?)

by blacridere

My decision to break the journey up in Zaragoza was made not only because I heard it was a cool city and wanted to check it out, but because it’s only a relatively sedate 200 miles (320km or so) to Barcelona from there. I’m not too hungry at breakfast, so I load up on fruit and coffee, check out and I’m out of the hotel and out of the city by 9am.

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Of Dust and Valour

by blacridere

At the end of my previous post, I think I possibly went off at the deep end with fascism, climate change, and Phaedrus, and my readers are owed an explanation, so I’ll attempt one and hope that it proves satisfactory.

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The Long Ride South (part 4: Zaragoza)

by blacridere

Despite the late finish the previous evening, I roll out of bed at 7am as usual, pull on jeans, a t shirt and flip flops and make my way down to breakfast. This is the most upmarket hotel I’ve stayed in during the trip, delusionally boasting 4 stars, and easily the worst. Breakfast is a wilted, dry and tasteless affair. The coffee is probably the most awful I’ve had in two decades, although not as bad as one I’d tasted in a Northern Irish prison early in my career as a justice reformer.

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The Long Ride South (part 3: León)

by blacridere

I roll out of Vitoria-Gasteiz and towards León. The distance to be covered is not too great: I am travelling to Leon to meet with a business contact, Jorge, and have planned my stops to try and arrive in the mid afternoon so as to be able to get my bearings and catch my breath before we meet. He has suggested I take the National Routes instead of the motorway, and having learned what I have on previous trips, obviously I take his suggestion and join one upon leaving the city. 

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The Long Ride South (part 2: a Brush with Death)

by blacridere

“The future’s uncertain and the end is always near”, sang Jim Morrison. Bikers generally like The Doors, perhaps because the essence of Jim’s poetry speaks to us at a visceral level. Perhaps. The future is indeed uncertain as I set off from Bordeaux towards my next intended stop in Vitoria-Gasteiz. 

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The Long Ride South (part 1: France)

by blacridere

I need to get to Leon in North Western Spain to meet with a colleague. The route I broadly have in my head involves stopping in Nantes and Bordeaux in France and then in Vitoria-Gasteiz on the other side of the border and the Pyrenees, before a merciful 300km to Leon to get there with enough time to freshen up before meeting with my colleague. I’m not entirely confident that I’ll manage it all, but as the old saying goes, “eyes fear, hands do”. 

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D Week

by blacridere

“D Day”, (or “J Jour” as it’s known in France)  when the Allies opened the Second Front in 1944 and the largest military operation in history, has been documented in countless books, treatises and films, including such epics as ‘The Longest Day’ and ‘Saving Private Ryan’. It’d be pointless me trying to recount the sequence of events which occurred in early June 1944, as so much scholarship and popular culture is far more informative than anything I as an amateur could commit to this page. 

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