Vancouver in the rain

Hi Ho.The flight was OK after a very comfortable night in the Premier Inn at T 5.
On arrival at Vancouver we picked up our bikes only to find that the plastic was all ripped and they looked a complete mess. I seemed they had a pretty rough flight . Early next morning with bikes in our hostel room I checked them out. I now think they were searched by UK customs. Everything on the bikes had been searched. Interesting as there was probably 400 or 500 folk on the flight so maybe 600 checked bags. I know there was a very dodgy looking Chinese Laundry bag held together with brown parcel tape - so which one do they search? yep - the one in the see though plastic bag that you see what it is! !
Rained all day yesterday and took an hop on hop off bus thingy to get our bearings and hope today to get on our bikes. Vancouver first impressions - OK but a lot of homeless on the streets.
Pat n Di arrived yesterday -

gradually the team assembles.
We are in a Hostel International with the great unwashed - interesting - now I know how my youngsters lived on there travels.

The Pacific West Coast - it begins

Our bikes are in plastic bags, our worldly possessions are in Chinese bags held together by parcel tape and we are off to Heathrow tomorrow. It is an adventure 3 years in the planning, we are going to cycle the Pacific Highway from Vancouver to Mexico. 2000 miles down the Pacific Coast at 35-40 miles a day plus side trips to Seattle, Yosemite (if it has not been burnt down by the current forest fires) and a few days in San Francisco. 

This is a recognised cycle route, details can be found at http://www.adventurecycling.org/ . The Adventure Cycling Association is the US equivalent to our CTC. We plan to head south from Vancouver on 4^th

September and arrive in San Diego about 7^th or 8^th November – about 65 days.  The guide book recommends starting after Labor Day (1^st Monday in September) as this is the day that the locals put their RV’s in the garage for the winter and the roads are much quieter. The weather is still good and the prevailing wind is from the north and should blow us to California.

We will be stopping at the Mexican border as the guide book says “Tijuana (just south of the border) is no place for a Gringo on a bike”!

So ‘Who’s Who’.  Gilly and I (Brits) who have many miles of cycle touring under our belts – bums as hard as steel and panniers as light as a feather (well mine are!).

Pat and Di (he Kenyan and she Brit) now living in Atlanta, this is Di’s first major tour and hopefully she will remember the golden rules of cycle touring:

1.     Always look cool.

2.    Sometimes things go wrong.

3.    If rule 2 applies always – yep always - refer to rule 1.

4.    Absolutely no whinging!!!!

Di will have a couple of weeks off in the middle of the trip as she has a previous engagement with a golf course.

Jim and Marlene (Canuks), we met them in a small village in Northern Spain, Villaviciosa, they were walking the Northern Camino to Santiago in the rain and we were cycling to France in the rain! They are native to Vancouver.

Michael (Yankee Doodle), we spent 6 weeks or so with Michael and his wife Donna in Africa. He is now the wrong side of 70 but, as in Tanzania when he joined the macho crowd to climb Kilimanjaro, he has decided it is never too late to try something new. (P.S. I stayed at the bottom with some of the ladies).

Gilly and I plan to stay in the US for about a month at the end of the trip. We will pop across the border to Tijuana with a friend of Pats (who works there) for a night or two. After a few day exploring the San Diego area we fly into Las Vegas for a week, then we fly to Los Angeles to catch the Amtrak across southern USA to New Orleans, then onto Atlanta and into the Appalachians for a few days staying with Michael and Donna at their mountain house. We should be back home on about 8^th December – just in time for the British winter.

Nous sommes ici - hurray!!

Tuesday 5th November 2012 - it is 0730 and I am watching the sun rise over the Mediterranean from the balcony of Mike & Jenny's 5th floor appartment in Le Barcarès while out of our bedroom window we can see snow covering the Pyrenees. We arrived yesterday afternoon in glorious sunshine and strong winds.
From Carcassonne we had a good ride to Narbonne - not on the Canal but on very minor roads through some typical French villages. The forecast was for rain in the afternoon but we were caught with some heavy stuff in the morning - the day then improved and we arrived in sunshine but it p....d down in the evening. The town/city surrounds a massive cathedral and the most immpressive Hotel de Ville we have seen.
0800 yesterday morning Philippe (Mike & Jenny's agent) met us in our hotel for the handing over of the keys ceremony - this was to be our last day of cycling. Mike had described me to Philippe as a British Admiral reduced to riding a bike because of the cuts - this made me laugh. We were expecting sun and wind which was what we got but thewind was gusting 45 - lkph andwith loaded bikes made for an exciting ride - Gilly found it more horrifing then exciting. We went off-piste for 12 or so k and had to cross a flooded causway with deep water on both sides and a strong gusty crosswind - interesting. However we made it in good form and we are here for a week or so.
It's been a good trip, hillier in Spain than expected,propably wetter then expected but the journey  for me  has reinforced the reasons why I like cycle touring - the people you meet and have fun with - seeing the parts of the countries others don,t see as we travel on minor roads and just the joy of traveling at your own pace on your route.
We have cycled w1181.19k  with an average cycling speed of about 18kph and cover abetween 35 and 75k per day. In Spain cos' of unexpectedly steep hills we averaged less than 10 kms per hour. A big dissapointment to me is that I have overtaken just 2 cyclists, one of them with hanging basket of fresh mushrooms fromthe woods over his handlebars.
 We have been overtaken by runners, many cyclist and a windsurfer. The bikes have been good - they are a bit sluggish now after cycling thro' mud, sand and muck - I broke my mirrow and have a broken pedal strap. Gilly had a puncture in her back wheel which is not bad for 2 bikes over some of the terrain we have journeyed.

Thats all from me. Au revoir & Adios

The Canal du Midi et al .....

Saturday 3rd November - Carcassonne. Just two more days cycling and we will be dangling our feet in the Mediterranean at Le Barcares. All good things must come to an end and this trip is drawing to a close.

We left the hotel in Valence to a haloween market - ghosts goolies and lots of smoke - all good fun and we battled our way to the Tourismo to find out about the Canal du Midi. It appeared that the canal would take us all the way to the coast. It took us 2 days to get to Toulouse - great tarmaced tow path, tree lined and hardly anyone else on it. It is a working canal with a series of locks. It follows the course of the Garonne to Toulouse and the river feeds the canal. We stopped overnight in Montech and the only accommodation was a Gité- very comfortable but the town was shut, we had been recommended a restaurant by two separate people so we waited until 1930 got on our bikes and pedalled the 2k into town to find it all shut. We got into the supermarket just as it was shutting and grabbed some food.

Toulouse , as far as cities go is great. Big river lots of cafes and a good atmosphere.   My Weather Channel app for my phone indicated gusts of 65kph winds for the following day so after our experience in Scotland last year we decided to shelter in Toulouse for an extra day - we explored the town and it was a holiday, I said to Gilly these folk don't know whats going to hit them today. We strolled down by the river and had an early lunch incase the outside cafes were going to be blown away. We basked in the sunshine all afternoon and when the flags over the Hotel de Ville rustled I said here it comes. It was calm all day  My cycling buddy from the States was a big wig for the Weather Channel Ihim on the case! a50k outside Toulouse as we exited the Haute Garrone the tow path turned into a muddy track and apparently it is like that to the coast. We are now back on the roads. We stopped at Castelnaudary (nothing to say abput it really - I suppose a bit of a dump) before arriving here. A city with a complet walled town within. Fascinating but it has turned into tourist honey pot selling junk.

What a difference a day makes.....

October 31st - Wednesday. We had great couple of days with our friends Mike & Julia who wined and dined us right royaly. It is a pleasure to put on clean clothes - although I normally wash stuff out each evening my clothes have not seen the inside of a washing machine for over 3 weeks - people in the restaurants are no longer moving to tables further away. We left on Monday morning with frost on the ground - I pleaded for a stay of execution but they said enough is enough, get on the road and remember our old school motto 'Quit ye like men be strong'. We were strong and rode over 70km down to Valence on the Garonne and Canal du Midi. It was a hilly ride but the weather was good and Valence was a good town and we awoke on Tuesday to a haloween market with couldrons belching smoke and witches all over the place. We had a late start as we were gathering info on the canal route.  It appears that we will be able to get to the coast by following a canal all the way.
The tow paths are tarmac and it is FLAT!!We have made good progress and after an overnight in Montech we are in a small hotel in the centre of Toulouse.
Haloween tonight and the fire thowers were in the central square and I was attacked by some sort of goul.
The canal is a working canal but quiet at this time of year. I thought we may have been able to do a burn off of a cyclist or two but no such luck - too old and slow - we have only 4 more days of cycling before we get to Mike & Jenny's place on the coast - let's hope there are some old folk out so that we can overtake another cyclists so far it is just 1 in 1000km!!

Looks windy tomorrow but should be behind.

Resting in Gascony

Sunday 28th October in Castra-Verduzan - about 20k south of Condom. We had headed up the coast to keep away from the main roads but this also meant that we were well away from the centres of population and consequetly somewhere to stay so we headed for Mount de Marsan which looked big on the map. It was a great ride still on flat roads and in good weather. The town was great with small cafès around a square and river and bronze naked statues of women all over the place. we were a bit concerned about accommodation the following day so went into the Tourismo and asked for help. The guy in there was great - we discussed where we were trying to get to and he thought Gabarret would be a good bet for a hotel - after 15 mins on the phpne he finally located a place and directed us out of town on another cycle path.

On Thursday we set off along another great cycle path - fully paved for nearly 20k. We met a Frencfh couple who advised us to take the road for the last 30k as the cycle rou
te was rough. They were great fun -  she speaking good English and he kept interjecting telling her what to tell us although not understanding a word of English and thus not following the conversation at all. We arrived in Gabarret at the hotel at about 4pm  only to find that it did not open for another 2 hours - it was raining nd I thought ba...... as there was nowhere to shelter. Then a smiling face appeared at the door and we were in. What a great plCe - such friendly folk and fantastic food. The man of the house did the greeting and serving and he made me laugh. No English and spoke realy slowly smiling all the time nd acted just like Bazil Fawlty when trying to impress the 'Hotel Inspector' sort of bowing and rubbing his hands together.
Then Friday it was to here  in pouring rain and on terrain getting ever hillier. We are now staying with Julia and Mike in a fantastic old French farmhouse being fed and watered with local stuff and some smooth , velvety red wine.Not only that they have a great washing machine.Mike and I were at school together and I think the last time we saw each other was about 1990. Since then he and Julia have had many adventures not the least of which was sailing around the world in their yacht taking 3 years. I have just seen a video of Mike from 1963 when he was a fresh faced new chum at HMS Conway  -
my how that brought back memories.

We set off tomorrow on the last leg of the trip to the coast - it will probable take us about a week.

Flat in France Yipee!!

Tuesday 23 - Castets France. We arrived in Bayonne yesterday after a not very pleasant ride from San Sebastian. Busy roads and very poorly signed in Spain. We met an old boy cycling - another one of these 'don't I do well for 68' - if I ever say that you can shoot me! well he is unhappy with Lance and the drugs , thinks all the old champions were at it except the French but thinks Cavandish is fantastic - I mentioned Wiggins and he said who ? can't have an Englishman winning the tour.

Today was a great ride - a 55k cycle route all the way from Bayonne to Leon Flat - yep flat and smooth all the way. We wanted to stay in Léon but it was shut (as it was when I cycled through a few years ago) so on to Castets and a great little hotel with a very friendly owner.
The coast here is just one long surf beach with rollers crashing on to the shore.

On any of my trips one of the highlights is actually overtaking another cyclist. Today after nearly 600km on the road it happened. Gilly and I were having a short rest when onto our cycle route came a couple pushing their bikes but once on the cycleway the started pedalling - this was my chance. I must mention at this stage that age does not matter nor the state of the bikes - a burn off is a burn off - we took both hom and her!!


Bikes are going well - Gilly has a very slow puncture in her back tyre which needs a bit of air each morning and will give them a bit of tlc in a few days time.  We are heading for Condom and will be stayong with an old school pal - we have about 150k to go so will be there for the weekend.

total so far612.3k