Day 5: when everything goes slightly off

Day 5 started with great optimism. The road we took during day 4 had been great, the campsite we stayed at was nice and we had decided to wake up even earlier to save some time. 

 Our first 50 km or so went quite well even though we had to heavily interpret both the EU's idea of a cycling road and Google maps. Here I need to explain that, theoretically, the EU has decided to create some cycling routes, one of which should be capable of getting you from Spain to Greece. If you ever see this advertised, beware. The best thing I can say about this is that it sometimes uses departmental roads, which are quite good for cycling at a good pace, providing you don't mind the cars. If the EU bike road ever recommends going off the departmental (D) roads, take a hard look at your day and see if you have a couple of hours to spend negotiating either incomplete roads or useless detours and climbs.

So, first 50 km go by and we're feeling quite happy with ourselves, stopping in a small but quite nice town called Varages for a quick croissant and pain au chocolat (or chocolatine) and a water refill. However, just as we start to leave, we find out that Sergio's tire is now flat. We stop at a park and attempt to repair it for a while (until we are successful... of course) and Franco starts calling some campsites to see if they're open and have room. As soon as we get the tire installed, Franco confirms there's a campsite available but they're specifically asking for a pass sanitaire, which one of us doesn't have (Sergio, it's Sergio).

This requires us to find a place where we can get him tested. Thus, we continue and start looking out for pharmacies in the next town's. When we finally find one (in a town called Barjols), they tell us they are just closing for lunch and to come back later. We decide to make the best of our circumstances and figure we'll have lunch here in Barjols, since they claim to have, among other attractions, a mushroom shaped fountain. One thing about this town, city center is at the bottom of the hill and the pharmacy is at the top. The hill is also very steep and the temperature is now about 34°C. You probably can figure out the rest but let's just say this was the day we climbed the most.

Some time after, test completed (passing grade) we head up to our camping. I say up because we really had to climb a lot at this stage. This you can also try to imagine but it will be difficult, you really had to be there. After much climbing, through nice scenery mind you, we reach the descent and limp to our campsite.

Scenery wise, I'd really like to make justice to the sights. We crossed wooded hills, crossed channels and small rivers and passed through extremely beautiful towns perched in the aforementioned hills. If you're lucky, there will be some pictures of some of these sights below. Otherwise, you'll have to picture it in your mind from my not remotely competent description and wait until we can upload some pictures.

Day 4: good day

A good day starts always with darkness at 5 am somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

It follows with a regular breakfast and some flexing, as part as a 2-hour ceremony.

In a good day, the morning is spent doing 80 kilometers while eating croissant, cereal bars and drinking flavored water. Also, (almost) nobody falls from the bicycle during a good day.

A good day is slightly less hot than other days. And, sometimes, the wind actually helps. 

There are many things that can still go wrong during a good day. Like for example running out of water in some town at 14h with 30 C. Or calling 5 campings and getting excuses like "there is no space" or "do you realize this is a nudist camping?". Or even some chain deciding to go wild. 

Still, a good day means that many kilometers are done (sometimes in the wrong direction), that the final camping, who does accept us and is very very far, is super nice and welcoming. 

A good day ends with good food (galette bretonne + half a kilo of pasta) and ends early so we can wake up at 4:45 and start what can then become a great day.

Day 3: Oh brother where art thou

05:00 am, I hear someone half whisper half scream my name to wake me up from a 5 hour -if even- sleep. Dozing into the world thinking about the 2 hour preparation into starting a 100km-ish ride  And this is how we decided to spend pur holidays, and I can't be happier (most of the time).

After the get-ready ritual, we manage to start by little after 7 am and it feels the world's different from starting one hour later the day before. However, that margin would quickly slip away as we went back and forth, turning, stopping, checking routes around an annoyingly tricky quai area. Furthermore, our -completely unfounded- prospect of a glass submarine waterway in which we could ride our bikes surrounded by fish didn't come to happen. Surprising.

Instead, ground level bike paths traversed the water reservoir, granting us a marvelous experience to cylce "entre dos aguas" as we went at close to 30km/h, profitting from the route's flatness, the lack of wind and the temporary benevolent temperatures. Marvelling at the scenery, I (Sergio) had to ask Alfonso to snap a picture of the scenery (with me on it) much to Franco's contempt on the precious morning time spent vainly.

After having bordered a sretch of 60km of bay area with the Mediterranean on one side and the reservoir on the other, we started cycling inland. Not too far from our destination and having just crossed Aigues Mortes (dead waters in Occitan, an omen perhaps?) a small inconvenience took place. An ill timed distraction caused Alfonso and myself to crash onto each other while going at over 25km/h, making us both lose control and fall (heavily!) on the rocky road. Never have we been so grateful about wearing protective gloves, although we were far from unscathed. Knees and elbows -left on mine, right on his- were bleeding profusely at the same time we had the sun at it's highest point -on one of the hottest days- scorching us. After recovering (and a reasonable amount of swearing from my end) we made it to a restaurant, retrieved some ice and made our way through lunch (serrano ham, camembert sandwich + 1/3 of a fuet each). Deciding it was not wise to keep going, we decided to go to a camping 2km away, which was quite enough to arrive to the 99.8km milestone (yay). Incredibly friendly staff at the best camping so far bandaged my wounds, we ate an icecream and went ahead with the tent-setting ritual, this time with an added excitement: canned duo of cassoulet and chile con carne. A fusion delicatesse, for sure.

Day 2: it's just three brothers (on the way to Montpellier)

 Day two started relatively early, although not as early as our campground neighbors (also biking) who leave camp as it is barely light out. Of course, they probably didn't bike 160 km the day before, but I digress...

The morning starts a bit slow. I (Alfonso) am still quite tired and the heat never really went away fully. As I hope you'll discover by reading this (and me constantly complaining about it) the heat is and will remain the main challenge.

Sergio brought something important besides himself: we know have some sort of hydration mixing powder that will remain key in the coming days. These are the boring parts (the heat and the constant looking for water) but I guess it's what you think of the most when your head is being broiled by the southern France heat.

The way starts relatively cool, something like 28°C, which allows us to make a relatively good distance early. However, we soon start to wonder about where are we going and how to get there. The general consensus is East, of course but recent experiences with the French cycling infrastructure and Google maps apparent disregard for our lives force us to be more strategic. We finally settle on a target: the area around Marseillan, a small town on the coast and the route: follow medium and small departmental roads.

Day 1: hot hot heat

I'm on a tent. It's 23:16. It's hot, there is a concert we miracously do not hear. It's 00:00. I open my tent and let air in.  

 

Today we had a great day. That's what we'd have said if we were in the beach. The 34 C in the afternoon almost took down Alfonso during a climb in the last 800m before the camping. Wait, what do you mean the camping is full? We need another 15km back from where we came from?? Ok. They were super nice in what later became the camping were we did not stay: they gave us water and a table to eat and rest. But nice as they were, they were unable warn us we would pierce a tire in the last-last part of our trip.   

 

The morning was actually the best part of the day. We woke up at 5 am, left my house at 7 am. We wish we had left earlier : the alarm of a nearby house rang from 10 PM to 7 am (we suspect it still goes on until now). Also, there was 30 C INSIDE my house regardless of the time of day. Kind of like inside the tent, actually.   

 

I was saying, the morning was the best part of the day. We did 100km to Carcassonne before noon. Which is very impressive I think. We were confident. Too confident we later learned.  

We drank water like... Horses? And still the heat was very extreme. We need to stop riding in the afternoon we decide. Specially the next days that we will have fewer kilometers   The end of the was celebrated drinking sprinkle water in the bar at the definitive camping. The main event was the arrival of the third brother who came riding from the Narbonne train station.   

 

Now the  team is complete, nothing should ever go wrong. We go to sleep late and very tired.

Brothers with bicycles 2021

Many things have passed since the last post almost 4 years ago. So many, that I'm not going to attempt to describe them. Instead, I announce that we're making another trip. Now. But this trip is now in English (by popular demand). This time the trip starts in France and ends in Italy (one country is never long enough for the fierce Brothers).

With that. Let the stories begin.

Estadísticas post viaje 2

Bueno

Este ahora sí que es el último post.

No he hecho mucho más con los datos y no creo que vaya a hacer mucho más. Estuve calculando velocidades "semi instantáneas". Y con esto me refiero a velocidades medias por grupos de 10 segundos.

Estuve haciendo pruebas con velocidades medias por minuto y por segundo. Por segundo había demasiado ruido (además de que tardaba demasiado en construirse la gráfica) y por minuto se perdían nuestras velocidades máximas de, aparentemente, 60-70 km/h.

À cada día le he añadido una curva con la media móvil, calculada por ggplot.

He partido las gráficas en dos porque no tenía suficiente espacio para que se vieran bien. En el eje X, se tiene la distancia acumulada recorrida en ese día. En el eje Y la velocidad media cada 10 segundos. Los ejes X é y están sincronizados en una misma imagen. Pero no entre las dos imágenes.

Se puede ver, por ejemplo, como cambió la velocidad media en función del día y cuánta variación tuvo la velocidad, en función de si el día tuvo muchas subas o no. Supongo.

Por ejemplo, los días 13/09 y 14/09 los hice íntegramente siguiendo el canal al lado del Garona. Debido a esto, no había que parar mucho ni subir mucho y se puede ver que la velocidad es bastabte constante (unos 20 km/h). Esto también se puede decir de los días 06/09 y 07/09, cuando íbamos al lado del Loira. También en el primer día, cuando seguíamos en Bélgica.

Al parecer, nuestro día más lento fue el 03/09, donde tuvimos una velocidad de entre 10 y 20 km/h. La velocidad máxima a la que llegamos creo que fue 70 km/h, aunque usando las medias de 10 segundos la máxima parece ser 60 km/h.

Una estimación de la frecuencia de las paradas podría hacerse viendo los momentos en los que la velocidad baja puntualmente abajo de 10.

Yo asumo que las veces que la velocidad es constantemente baja (o algo errática y baja) es porque estamos en una à a ciudad y estamos algo perdidos o estamos caminando con las bicicletas buscando algo. Creo que suelen coincidir con el momento en el que decidimos almorzar o con el final del trayecto diario.

Finalmente, los momentos en los que la velocidad es una línea recta es porque Strava murió o no estaba encendido. Estas líneas rectas suelen estar por debajo de la media diaria porque no saben excluir las paradas.