I’ve wanted to get into bikepacking for years, but I’ve always been concerned about how I’d be able to ride for multiple days. I was on a cycling team in college and the longest ride I’ve done is about 70 miles, after which I was toast and my butt was really sore. Obviously this is different than bike touring, but it...
Since i do casual cycling only when i’m not touring, i try to get something like a weekender in before i go on a longer tour, or two longer day rides, to get my butt used to it. It will be a bit sore after that but after some rest days i’ll be ready to go and it’ll be fine. So yeah, conditioning myself to build “callouses” :)
I’m riding a brooks b17, no cycling pants. It is super comfortable now, best saddle i ever had, by far, but it took about 1000km to be that way. Before that it sucked and hurt and i almosted wanted to sell it, because i never had these problems with other saddles.
Did you loose money on rebooking the ferry? Anyway, good call, headwind can really suck the life out of you. And the stress of a strict timetable too, good that you still could stay flexible.
The photos look really great, it is an area that i have never really been to. Need to go at some point. Also so cool that you met the travel companion right at the start.
She said she planned to travel to Norway pulling this little bicycle caravan! We met her in Dangu, about 50 miles ride NE of Paris. I hope she is enjoying herself and not working too hard to pull it along.
It is kinda funny but i’m not sure why you would do that to you, unless you had a really bad back and need a real bed or something. Otherwise i don’t really see what it offers, it saves the 15 min to set up camp?
Just another sparrow. But pretty happy with how the cellphone photo turned out, it was totally not scared. I bribed it with french fries though (original ones, since i am now in St Jean de Luz, France). Probably not the best food but i guess it’s what it came for.
Just gave my bike and bags a rinse on this bicycle washing station, the BICIcleaner. I rode past one already yesterday but kept going, happy to find another one today. Both were in San Sebastian or a suburb town, located along cycle paths.
I have seen those around here too, but have not had a closer look at those. They are a lot more usual though, i have seen them pretty much everywhere in europe.
But i have never seen bike cleaning stations before.
Yeah. A couple weeks ago i came across this little monument, on top of small mountain pass in the middle of nowhere really, a small quiet road where i had seen zero cars.
That’s right, but all of the bicycle infra in San Sebastian looks very much spanish, unlike the infra in the french part of the basque country. I looked it up for you, the bicicleaner can be found also in f.e. Asturias. Never seen it in France.
I went to sleep being all drunk. I turned on a light switch and to my surprise i found myself in the staircase of the building i lived in, wearing underpants only, the door to my appartment was closed. I must have taken the wrong way after going to the toilet.
Tried to do the credit card trick to open doors with some paper i found at the letter boxes. No success.
I then went onto the street, there was a party crowd finishing their party, they were all hyped to meet me and thought it was really funny. Nobody of them was able to do the credit card trick though. They then called a key service for me, who then opened the door and i got back to bed.
Edit: the problem is gone, i assume it was a buggy track. The problem exists with the versio 4.7.10, from 24.04.24, which is the version that is recommended by fdroid. It is gone in the latest one from 14.05.24...
Yeah that didn’t work with the elevation profile, it stayed more or less like in the screenshot. But the problem seems to have disappeared now, thank you.
Actually it didn’t fix itself, it may have looked like it because the altitude span i still had to ride was so little. This morning i had the same problem because my route goes into the mountains again from sea level.
The problem exists with the version 4.7.10 from 24.04.24, which is the version that is currently recommended by fdroid. It is gone in the latest one from 14.05.24, which i have now installed.
(Title picture is from yesterday in the Parque Natural Sierra de Castril, narrow single track only went for a couple 100m but a good occasion to take a photo and make me look like a badass)...
What happened then? I was cycling through a nice lonely nature park again (i think) and then somehow ended up in Zangoza. The last twenty km or so i should have a super nice mellow downhill but i had a lot of headwinds, that was a huge bummer.
I wanted to make it to that town, i needed to go shopping and it was already kinda late. Then i found out there was a pilgrim albergue, for the camino de santiago crowd. The door was closed, i called the number that was advertised outside, ten minutes later a woman showed up and let me in, it cost me 5€ for a bed, kitchen, washing machines (not sure if they cost extra, didn’t use, i’m a dirt bag). 5 other pilgrims to share the room with, four french gus and one german. Nobody snorred that night, they all were very nice.
Next day i had breakfast with them all, i thought it was interesting how their journey also seemed a lot like a social experience while i basically had been in solitude for the whole time. They would now walk for two days to Pamplona, i got there before lunch that day. Cycling is the best form of travel, ha.
Pamplona is full with pilgrims. I did not expect or associate that with Pamplona, the whole camino craze. I stayed again in some pilgrims albergue, this time it was abou 15 people and there were snorrers and people who somehow didn’t hear their alarm clock in the morning, probably were wearing ear plugs against the snorrers. So, i was already kind of over the camino crowd.
The plan was to cycle to St Jean de Luz on the adriatic coast, across the border to France. Morning was real cold again.
By noon i was kind of pissed about how cold it was, but i didn’t let the temperatures kill my summer vibes and make me put on leggings, no way. I’ve been going uphill for most of the early day and at some point the downhill started, some rail trail with an incredible amount of soggy tunnels. I was in the Basque country now and the vibe was very different, super green and wet everything. I was really happy having fenders, i was thibking about sending them home every now and then, together with the kickstand to shave off another kg. I’ll keep them. At some point i got a pinch flat in my front wheel. Had become a bit complacent not getting flats on all the bumpy tracks i rode and hadn’t checked tire pressure since albarracin.
Road side fix worked fine, there were enough puddles around to look for the hole.
I later got stuck in a bar, just hanging around and then decided to only go to San Sebastian, in spain still. Took a room there and got a bit shitfaced in the bars, that somehow went real quick. San Sebastian is really nice, like the vibe a lot, i just wanted to not go originally because i had been here before a couple of times.
Today i made kind of a rest day and cycled the last bit to St Jean de Luz. It was sunny and almost hit 20°. Tomorrow it should even get over 20° but the days after it’ll dip down again. The route corniche along the coast was closed for all traffic, explicitly also for cyclists and pedestrians. I met a few cyclists and pedestrians on it anyway, was nice to know there won’t be any cars.
I checked in on a campsite, went into town, hung out at the beach and bought some glue to fix my fork bags. They already have holes after a few weeks of cycling and the weather report for the coming days in the pyrenees is not looking all that dry. I also just found out that the big tour de france cols here are known to be misty and cloudy and wet. I had no idea, haha.
So with me being in France now i conclude this topic, even though i will enter and exit spain every now and then in the coming weeks. I will make another reply with general thoughts about touring in spain though.
Pyrenees Traverse (lemmy.world)
cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/15863592...
How do you spend multiple days in the saddle without discomfort?
I’ve wanted to get into bikepacking for years, but I’ve always been concerned about how I’d be able to ride for multiple days. I was on a cycling team in college and the longest ride I’ve done is about 70 miles, after which I was toast and my butt was really sore. Obviously this is different than bike touring, but it...
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A lady at a campsite I stayed at had the same bike as me, plus one interesting extra accessory (lemmy.zip)
She said she planned to travel to Norway pulling this little bicycle caravan! We met her in Dangu, about 50 miles ride NE of Paris. I hope she is enjoying herself and not working too hard to pull it along.
So I was buying new rack... (sopuli.xyz)
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Longe Côte (lemmy.world)
I was talking with a friend about the basque coast in france and he told me...
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Sparrow by the beach (lemmy.world)
Just another sparrow. But pretty happy with how the cellphone photo turned out, it was totally not scared. I bribed it with french fries though (original ones, since i am now in St Jean de Luz, France). Probably not the best food but i guess it’s what it came for.
Bicycle Infra in Spain (lemmy.world)
Just gave my bike and bags a rinse on this bicycle washing station, the BICIcleaner. I rode past one already yesterday but kept going, happy to find another one today. Both were in San Sebastian or a suburb town, located along cycle paths.
What's the most alarming thing you've done while drunk or high?
[Osmand question] Graph widget elevation profile (i.imgur.com)
Edit: the problem is gone, i assume it was a buggy track. The problem exists with the versio 4.7.10, from 24.04.24, which is the version that is recommended by fdroid. It is gone in the latest one from 14.05.24...
Cycle touring in Spain (lemmy.world)
(Title picture is from yesterday in the Parque Natural Sierra de Castril, narrow single track only went for a couple 100m but a good occasion to take a photo and make me look like a badass)...