Jen went right and I went left

After a great ride out of Valence I managed to catch Jen's cold.  Kinda hard to quarenteen oneself from someone that you're sharing dishes with and no hot water....oh well.  Not surprisingly Kyle had managed to get sick right away when he was with us.  Only three days of suffering for me; sore throat then sinus pressure.  I managed to still enjoy the cliffs, gorges, and canyons that we saw in France.  And drafting Jen thru narrow French village streets was fun, reminded me of tour coverage on TV.  I rode okay for two days, the third I cracked and we rested in a monistary rennovated into a hotel that we found in a quaint little village called Alet les Bains 100k from Spain.  It had midevel ruins, a house that Naustradamus might have lived in, and, most importantly, steak taretare at the local casino.

Some things have become old on tour, like navigation.  Especially in France signage is randomly terrible.  More than once we went to the office of tourism to find our way out of town.  And then there's my spoke problem.  Even though I am not using the rear (disk) brake at all I managed to break three more spokes.  Of course when they break at the nipple you have to take off the tire and rim strip.  And for one outbound left spoke I had to take off the rotor which takes some time on a rohloff, with the shifter box and chainstay brace thingy in the way.  I think (hope?) there is such a thing as downhill spokes that are 2.4mm at the nipple.

So I got better fast and we enjoyed an easy day into Spain.  As we entered the Pyranees we met up and rode with Andy Gordon from England.  He was bandit camping and traveling light (admittedly he was getting cold at night).  At one time he raced for GT and was ranked 25th in the world on mountain bikes, but that was in the early 90's.  "When you could still get results like that without dope" as he put it.  When asked he said he thought the top guys at the time were on the sauce (our heros J.T. and N.O. I suppose) he said he thought so.  When Andy was 22 he had to stop racing because he came down with chronic fatigue.....for TEN YEARS!!!!  Oh man that's rough, I can sympathize with him cuz I had it for two years, not fun.  That's how I got into the whole healthy eating, my kilo of butter a week and plenty of raw beef.  I can't imagine 10 years of no cycling.

The gorges in the Pyranees are awesome.  I took some pictures.  Some places reminded me of the Rockies of Colorado and others of the Gila forest in New Mexico.  Jen said one area was like Northern California.  Definately quite arid and I used plenty of sunscreen to keep from drying out.  One campsite was at the edge of a canyon....nice.

Then I had a second tough spell with a sore back.  And during two days over two ports per day in the Spanish pyranees...ouch.  But I toughed it out and saw more great scenery.  Apparently we were only a week behind the Vuelta a Espana as we rode rt 260 west for three days.  Many climbs had names like Contador, Sastre, and Valverde freshly painted on them.  And for some reason Nick Noyens was painted all over one port, I thought he was Belgian.

And suddenly we were going our seperate ways the next day, I felt kinda sad.  It had been quite an adventure with Oracle Jen over the past 12 weeks.  I jotted down the directions to Madrid from her map and left her my dragonfly.  The next mornoing we rode 35 k's before parting ways.  It was a crisp sunny morning that featured a Llopis sighting in a remote village with a population of 40 (smaller than E Alstead) and then I rounded up four spanish horses that were loose in the road with my bike.  I think I could have been a cowboy, if cowboys rode bikes.

The mornings are cold and the sun comes up after 8am here cuz the time zone didn't change since we entered Poland.  I ride with all my warm stuff for a lot of the morning.  After parting with Jen it was scenic for a bit then became quite descolate and remote.  Dry ground, not many trees and plenty of wind.  Ocassionaly very nasty wind.  Then the Banesto ATM told me my debit card expired...ooops.  I still had 21 euro and my credit card and made it to Madrid, checked into a youth hostel (I hope its quiet at night), and am resting before the flight home.

Thanks for reading my blog and thanks to Chris Li at the Bikeway Source (Bedford MA) for hosting it.  Be sure to check back for photos in a week ot two and some gear review.  Velocity rims and DT spokes sure will get some harsh comments from me :)  But there will be lots of good review like rohloff, mountain hardwear, ibex, tout terrain, etc that may intrest you.  And maybe Jen will write us an entry to tell us where she went.  Maybe she met Big Mig and he towed her BOB for a day (I would be very jealous if I missed that).  I'm sure he could have gotten some euros out of that Banesto machine for me!  If anything exciting happens in Madrid I will let you know.  But there will be no more biking cuz there is a shuttle to the airport.

And Go Nat!  He's doing ironman on Jen's birthday this weekend.  His goal: 9hrs.  Go Nat go