Spain to Norway on a Bike Called Reggie

by Andrew P. Sykes

  After 10 km, the climbing had still to begin in any serious way. This was a little concerning, as I reasoned that the longer it didn't happen, the steeper the incline when it did. I continued for a few more kilometres and arrived at the Puerto de Ibañeta, the mountain pass, where the sign told me that I was now at 1,057 metres. A modern church to one side of the road also marked the spot. I paused for thought. Strange… Where were the remaining

  400 metres?

  My error was in assuming that the walking path and the road upon which I was cycling were one and the same. A couple of kilometres to my right, the pilgrims were reaching the heights noted on the altitude profile. My contemplation of great physical efforts to come whilst munching on a sandwich back in Roncesvalles had been misplaced. Disappointed? A little. But disappointment severely muted by a fabulous 20 km freewheel ride along the narrow valley to the unmarked border with France.

  —

  My plan was to follow the west coast of France as far as… Bordeaux? Royan? La Rochelle? I hadn't yet decided, but I did plan to cycle along the Loire Valley before heading to Paris.

  My first night in La Belle France would be in Saint-Jean-Pied-dePort, the traditional starting point for pilgrims setting off along the Camino de Santiago. My guidebook spoke well of the small-yet-perfectly-hyphenated town and it delivered on most levels. I was almost overcome with emotion to find the kind of campsite upon whose grass I could happily have spent the rest of my life. Cheap, basic and in a prime location near the centre of town; it could only be the famous French municipal campsite. The reception was closed but I pitched the tent, D-locked Reggie to a lamppost and wandered off for something to eat.

  'How was the journey from the coast?' was my first question the following morning to a fellow touring cyclist and neighbour at the campsite who was heading in the direction of Spain.

  'Valloné,' he replied. Up and down. The poor bloke hadn't slept well.

  'Did you hear all those people talking last night?' he enquired in French.

  I hadn't. I had spent much of the late evening in my tent – just a few metres away from his – catching up on episodes of The Archers. Having lost my earphones, I had been playing the everyday story of country folk through the speakers of my iPad... Ahh...

  'I didn't hear a thing, sorry…'

  The route to the coast wasn't at all valloné. It was a continuation of the gradual descent that had started on the previous day at the mountain pass. The French drivers did, however, seem a little faster and closer than their Spanish counterparts, so after a short recuperative pause at Cambo-les-Bains, a spa town seemingly dedicated to offering therapeutic procedures mastered in the nineteenth century, I extracted myself from the main road and sought out more tranquil back routes. The plan worked a treat and before you could say 'soothe me with a moist white flannel and a sulphur-infused glass of spring water', I was standing outside a Portakabin bearing the words Office de Tourisme de Bayonne. The geometrically intriguing building shrouded in scaffolding next door was, I assumed, the angular tourist office of the future.

  Having decided to hug the French Atlantic coast, it seemed a good idea to follow the Vélodyssée. This was the portion of the EuroVelo 1 cycle route that started at the coastal border with Spain and finished at Roscoff, in Brittany. I enquired at the temporary tourist office if they had a Vélodyssée map.

  'Err… Joséphine? Joséphine? La Vélo— Pardon monsieur, pouvezvous répéter?'

  'La Vélodyssée,' I repeated.

  'Non. Je suis désolée monsieur. Nous n'avons pas de brochure pour La Vélo…'

  It struck me as strange that a major tourist office – even one in a Portakabin – had never heard of the route. I trundled north out of Bayonne in the hope that I would bump into a sign for the cycle route and, shortly after crossing the Adour River, I did. The good news, however, stopped there. The sign indicated I had reached the point after which the cycle path had yet to be built, at least here in Bayonne. The route did continue but along the road rather than as a segregated track.

  In my ideal world, we wouldn't require any special facilities to be built for bicycles, because cyclists would feel safe and confident in using the extensive network of cycle paths that already exists. This intricate lattice of routes has been developed over many centuries for people who wish to travel from street to street, village to village, town to town and occasionally city to city, and is commonly referred to as 'the road network'. Not 'the motor road network' or indeed 'the cycle road network' but 'the road network'.

  Alas, we don't live in my ideal world and what's more, as a cyclist, I want to have my cake and eat it. I like the idea of having cycle paths from which vehicles have been excluded, mainly down to reasons of noise and pollution. It's never going to be a reasonable goal that cycle paths link everything in our societies together in the same way the current road network does. Well, not unless you live in the Netherlands. It is, however, a very reasonable goal that the road network be transformed into a desirable resource for all travellers, not just those who move quickest and all too often shout the loudest.

  In the meantime, in the absence of dedicated cycle paths or at those points where there was a 'Fin provisoire d'aménagement' as in Bayonne, cycle route designers have often adopted an altogether different approach: sending the cyclist on a tortuous obstacle course that incorporates more twists and turns than your average tango. The northern suburbs of Bayonne were not unpleasant but why I needed to visit so many of their streets I wasn't quite sure.

  As I neared the town of Cap Breton, only 50 km north of the peaks of the Pyrenees, the landscape began to adopt a softer feel, as the pine forests of western France started to become the dominant feature of the landscape. Away from the sphere of interest of the women at the tourist office earlier in the day, the Vélodyssée had now become the fully-fledged, segregated and wonderfully smooth cycle path I had been dreaming about prior to my arrival in Bayonne. It cut a narrow path through the tall pine trees of the forest; a kilometre to my right were the unseen towns of Tarnos, Ondres and Labenne, and to my left were their equally hidden coastal offspring: Tarnos Plage, Ondres Plage and Labenne Océan. Here, I ventured west towards the sea to pause, sit and stare out over the water. It was the first time I had had the opportunity of doing so since leaving Cádiz and I revelled in the momentary sense of achievement of having travelled under my own steam from ocean to ocean, albeit the same one.

  I assumed that it wouldn't be difficult to find a campsite along this stretch of the coast, but many places hadn't yet opened at this early stage of the season. I eventually stopped at a municipal establishment to the south of Cap Breton where, over a leisurely mug of wine, I spent the evening chatting with a young British lawyer called Pete who had taken time out to cycle to Spain. Pete, young and lean, made me wonder if I had taken my own career break 20 years too late. My concerns eased with the overnight arrival of French cyclists Pascal and Laurent, who pushed our average age (and waist size) to beyond that of my own. I didn't feel so over-the-hill after all.

  They were also cycling south and concurred with Pete that the journey through the pine forests had been much hillier than they had expected. We all went our separate ways, with me scratching my head. My maps and limited knowledge of the area had me believe that the ride from here north would be as flat as an étang de canards (duck pond). What hills could possibly be hiding out there in the forests of pine? It was one of those questions that would normally require me to spend a good 30 minutes sipping strong black coffee and eating a croissant or two for breakfast in a pristine French square in the spring sunshine, so I proceeded to do just that.

  'Vous avez des croissants aux amandes?' I asked the smiley lady in the boulangerie.

  'But of course,' she replied, in perfect English. 'Is that everything?' she asked, giggling with delight. Cap Breton was a delightful little place. Almost too delightful.

  I crossed the road to sit on a low wall in the square. I put on my sunglasses, as the sun was bou
ncing off most of the surfaces surrounding me: the whitewashed buildings, the scrubbed floor, the teeth of the locals... The only surfaces absorbing light were their mahogany skins. They all appeared very happy. Too happy? Time for a coffee:

  'Un petit café, s'il vous plaît.'

  'Absolument monsieur. Avec plaisir.'

  Had I wandered into a French version of The Truman Show? I glanced around to see if there were any off-message extras lurking behind the hôtel de ville having a crafty fag and looking glum. Not that I could see. Conclusive proof that there was, at the very least, something in the water came when I went to la poste to send some documents back home. No withering glances. No complaints that I hadn't filled in the form properly or wrapped everything securely. Very strange.

  Pine trees were omnipresent in Les Landes – the French département through which I was now cycling – especially along the coast. Unlike many corners of the world where deforestation is rampant and the decline in the number of trees seemingly unstoppable, the story of the pine forests of Les Landes was one of careful management and growth. Today it is a forest of about one million hectares, four times its size compared to the end of the eighteenth century. Up until that time the trees were limited to naturally drained areas and were systematically cleared to use the land for the grazing of sheep. The nineteenth century, however, saw the introduction of effective drainage and the development of a flourishing timber industry that continues to this day. So said the information boards erected to educate the masses about such things. There was more…

  The management cycle of your average maritime pine from planting to chopping down is 50 years. Periodically, I cycled through parts of the forest where a few hectares had been cleared of all their trees. It made for an ugly duckling of an area but it was just evidence of the cycle starting again after 50 years. That meant that the efforts of workers back in 1965 was only now reaching fruition and, in turn, those workers had been living off the back of the tree huggers of 1915. What a wonderful thought. It was actually a little more subtle than that, as four periods of éclaircie, or thinning out, took place during the 50 years, but essentially the sweat and toil of the swinging 1960s were providing us with soft four-ply toilet tissue today. Now there's a thought.

  THE NINTH DEGREE

  44°–45° NORTH

  30 April–3 May

  Cycling through the forests on a well-maintained tarmac track was very easy. The Vélodyssée/EuroVelo 1 was clearly signposted and every ten or so kilometres, where the path intersected with one of the east–west roads leading to the beach, easily negotiable wooden barriers prevented any nasty collisions. That said, the area was almost deserted of people, cyclists or cars into which I might crash. On several occasions I cycled for more than an hour without seeing any other signs of human life. What's more, there was barely any wind so when I paused, the only things to be heard were the waves crashing onto the unseen beach a few hundred metres to my left.

  The roads I was crossing created umbilical cords to small towns and villages a few kilometres from the coast. After 70 km of travelling due north from Cap Breton, I took my chances with Saint-Julien-en-Born, where I found another municipal campsite, albeit one that had closed for the evening. When I returned to the reception the following morning to pay, it remained shut. I made a point of hanging around for a few minutes and toyed with the idea of pushing €10 through the letterbox in an envelope, but didn't. Had the owner of one of the static caravans not spent most of the previous evening strimming every blade of grass in his vicinity, I may have felt more charitable. I would call him and his annoying strimmer as witnesses should the matter of my non-payment ever make it to court.

  The morning was wet and grey, and a quick 360-degree glance around the sky gave every impression that the rest of the day would turn out to be equally miserable. I attempted to shake the tent dry in a small undercover area assigned to the washing of dishes. As I did so, I pondered life under canvas.

  Tents must rank as one of the oldest forms of human habitation, just a few rungs up the ladder of longevity from the cave. They were not invented with forty-something men on recreational career breaks in mind; they were, of course, created out of necessity. At the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs are the physiological requirements without which any human couldn't survive: water, food and oxygen. But let's face it, it's also nice to wear clothes and have some form of shelter before we start to worry about such trivialities as safety, love and belonging. And this was just as true for the first humans as it is for their modern-day descendants. It seems a reasonable assumption that if you didn't have a handy cave to sleep in but you did have a few animals that you were in the habit of killing for their meat, one day you would pull one of their skins over a branch to keep out the rain at night. The tent had been invented.

  Scroll forward in time to the summer of 1980 and a large field near Benllech on the island of Anglesey, just off the north coast of Wales. A long line of canvas tents had been erected and in each of them were four 11-year-old children trying desperately to stay warm at night. In the morning they would spend several minutes flicking earwigs from their sleeping bags and several more minutes wondering why it had ever seemed like a good idea to sign up for first-year school camp. I was one of those children and I was experiencing my first-ever week in a tent.

  In the several tens of thousands of years between its invention and my trip to Wales, the tent hadn't fundamentally changed. It was still a large expanse of thick material lifted above the ground by a wooden pole. I dare say my tent in Anglesey was just as draughty, just as insect-ridden, just as heavy and just as difficult to dry as the tents of early man.

  But look what has happened in the last 30 years. Should I be so inclined, I can drive to my local outdoor shop and, within half an hour, have purchased the kind of tent about which Edmund Hillary (and I in 1980) could have only dreamt. For a couple of hundred pounds I can buy a hydrostatic (waterproof to you and me), lightweight (under 3 kg) and fire retardant tunnel tent (with a porch no less) designed with a double skin and manufactured from a mixture of breathable polyester and siliconised nylon, all supported by alloy DAC (not quite sure what that stands for) anodised poles – and it will come complete with an earwig-resistant groundsheet (i.e. no gaping holes through which they can crawl). Should I have a friend (or get lucky on my travels), it will comfortably sleep two and the whole thing can be packed into a bag that's only 41 cm long.

  A couple of years ago, I did feel so inclined, and the description above is that of the tent I bought and have been using ever since. As with everything 'outdoor', many of its specifications were wasted on a casual adventurer such as me, but it was good to know that the innovations were there, should I ever decide to go commando. The fact that it would stay erect in winds of up to 150 km/h – that's off the Beaufort scale by some way – was reassuring the next time it got a bit breezy.

  Following on from my experiences as an 11-year-old boy, I've notched up a significant number of nights in a tent. Although many of these have been during cycling trips, they are outnumbered by the several hundred nights spent under canvas – and it was canvas, not polyester – when working for Eurocamp, the British tour operator specialising in camping holidays around Europe. The pay was pitiful, the work menial and the days long, but the camaraderie amongst the employees was good. As part of a small group of other twenty-somethings who fancied a little adventure but didn't have the inclination to climb the Himalayas or the money to finance a year of doing sod all on a beach in Thailand, we travelled across Europe putting up tents. We were the 'erection team' or, as the company preferred to call us in French, the 'montage' team. Can't imagine why. But was it proper camping? Tents equipped with (brace yourself…) double beds, thick mattresses, mains electricity, fridges, freezers, gas cookers, full sets of kitchen equipment, barbeques, wardrobes, tables, chairs, sun loungers, parasols… It was glamping before glamping had even been invented.

  My tent-shaking technique back under the water
y sky of SaintJulien-en-Born was reaping few results. Despite its many other technological features, the designers of my tent had drawn the line at making it shake dry. All I could do was set off in the drizzle and hope for a break in the weather later in the day.

  Although in no way could my journey along this stretch of the coast be described as strenuous, I was beginning to understand why Pete and the Frenchmen had called the terrain 'hilly'. Ahead of me there was always a small, short incline to contemplate as I ascended and then descended a seemingly endless string of sand dunes. Occasionally, the wind would pick up slightly and I needed to protect my eyes from the airborne grains of sand. What I couldn't prevent, however, was the extent to which the sand was getting into the workings of the bike. On numerous occasions I paused, found a stick and cleared the chain of gunk, but within a couple of hours a new layer had built up. Perhaps I could find a bike shop that could clean the bike thoroughly? They might also be able to explain why Reggie had developed a rather annoying click. Was it the gears? Or the bottom bracket? (Or even me?) Whatever its origins, it didn't sound at all good.