04/06/2023 – 11/06/2023 – Barcelona to Home

I got an email from work reminding me that I had a lot of holiday outstanding and to put forward some Annual Leave dates to reduce the balance so that I wasn’t left taking it all in December.

At the same time I realised that I was under trained for the Pan Celtic Race due to the weather in the UK but also not having a specific training plan and being a bit lazy.

The easy way to knock off both of those was to go on a cycling holiday.

Whilst searching where to go, I wanted to be able to do it in a week. Ideally I’d be able to do the whole thing without flying. I looked at trying to get over to Scandinavia which I really want to visit but sadly there wasn’t a ferry over there from the UK and I have done the stretch from London to the Netherlands a couple of times and if I rode there, wouldn’t actually have that much time there.

Next I looked at the Alps but again, I had ridden there before but had the option of cheap flights to Geneva which was a real potential and could be a future trip.

I settled on going to a mountain range that I’d never been to before which was the Pyrenees.

A quick scan of Skyscanner and flights to Barcelona were cheap so it was set, I was going to Spain.

3rd of June 2023

I was at Heathrow ready for one of the first flights out. I had my bike packed up in a cardboard box with all of my kit. It was essentially the exact same kit that I took for the Pan Celtic Race in 2022, my lightweight bike packing set up with bivvy bag and my new fancy TT aero bars.

The bike got checked onto the plane with no issues and I hopped on the plane and grabbed a quick nap.

A short flight later and I was dragging my bike box from the airport to my hostel. After checking in I was left to putting my bike together in the lobby of the hostel getting a few strange questions (rightly so).

My bike went together fine and it was locked away in their storage cupboard so off I went into Barcelona to find some good food.

After a Vegan burger and fries I went for a wander to Sagrada Familia and it really was very nice. I decided not to get a ticket to go inside and sat on a bench with some snacks taking it all in.

The weather was great so I headed down to the the beach and it would have been rude not to have a dip and it was far fresher than I thought it would be.

The Grand Prix was on this Weekend and I saw that one of my friends from Uni was down so organised to meet up for dinner in the evening.

An early night was on the cards as I had a big day ahead of me, I was going to Andorra.

4th June 2023

I woke up early and was all set to go when I realised I had an issue with my newly bought Garmin. It only arrived the day before I left so didn’t have a chance to test it out and I was really struggling on how to get the routes onto the device.

I bought the Garmin as I was having issues with battery life and my new Garmin 530 had a great battery life in addition to the ability to attach an external battery onto it to make it last days at a time.

Eventually at 6:46am I left the hostel and the sun had already risen but the roads were quiet. My route for the day entailed 230km and 5,000m of climbing to Andorra. It took me straight out Barcelona and over my first mountain of the day on the way to Montflorit up to 340m with stunning views over the city and sea.

After a stunning descent and a quick stop at a corner shop to get some more liquids in, I had the next steady climb all the way up to 850m with some stunning views in the Sant Llorenç del Munt national park.

I was descending at a cracking speed knowing that I’d earned it but still had a lot of climbing left in the day.

The next few hours were spent on a steady climb further inland going from town to town with the temperature slowly rising. I stopped at 110km in a town to grab a quick pizza knowing that I was halfway into the distance but still had the bulk of the climbing still to do.

After 125km I started the next proper climb from 700m to 1,700m in the early afternoon sun and as I was going through another national park the sights matched the climb.

It was starting to get a little chilly at this altitude which was a welcome relief from the heat. The rain looked like it was going to hold off but I had to press on to try and stay ahead of it.

The route took me up and down from 1,000m up to 1,500m as I crossed on mountain ridges and made my way towards Andorra.

Eventually my luck ran out and the weather turned and I was suddenly caught in a proper storm. I raced into the next town and stopped at the first cafe/bar on entry to the town where some other riders were hiding out. Sadly the only food they had on offer at this time of the afternoon was the crips selection.

After some Diet Cokes and Ready Salted crisps whilst huddling by the radiator I managed to warm up and refuel a little bit whilst the storm blew over.

Once the rain had reduced to an acceptable level I headed back out and was rewarded with the sun trying its best to break through the clouds.

I reached the last town before the big climb into Andorra, grabbed a pizza and cracked on with it. I was starting to fade a bit fatigue wise after 205km but only had 25km to do and go from 700m elevation to 1,250m to the hostel in La Massana.

Sadly the road was a main road the whole way through but the hard shoulder was large enough to hide in during the steep sections and could pick up some good speed on the flat and slight descents.

I flew through the Andorra passport control and ticked off a new country in the process.

There aren’t many hostels in Andorra so I couldn’t stay in the capital so passed through as the light was fading and arrived at the hostel as the sun went down, popped the bike in the bike storage and went straight to the local restaurant and ordered 3 meals.

The stats of the day were that I id the 230km 5,000m day in 12 hours and 1 minute.

5th June 2023

There wasn’t anywhere for breakfast so a supermarket snack-fast was on the cards and I was ready to leave by 9:15.

Day 2 was scheduled to be a very different route to Day 1. 235km and 2,200m of climbing but it was all stacked in the start. It took me from 1,250m up to 1,950m, down to 1,500m then up to one of the highest elevations I’ve ever been at 2,400m with a descent down to sea level then the rest of the day down at that level..

Heading straight into a climb on fatigued legs is never ideal but the scenery definitely made it a lot easier. The presence of professional cyclists on the roads was a strange experience but was quite good fun, I never realised quite how slim they were.

After a lot of sweat I reached the top of the first climb of the day and was chuffed with myself. My legs hadn’t given up on me like I was worried they would do, perhaps I had done enough training after all!

The real test was ahed of me though so I quickly descended down into the next town where I munched on some supermarket food whilst Jumbo Visma riders rode past and I gave them a wave, a little bit awestruck and got a little wave back.

The last climb of the day and the last real climb of the entire trip to be honest was the one that would get me out of Andorra less than 24 hours after arriving.

It was on a main road as it was the main road to France before the tunnel was created but because of that, it was pretty quiet.

I followed a pro cyclist on their TT bike most of the way up and amazingly didn’t get dropped, I presume they were on a warm down but you never know, they could have been doing a FTP test.

I reached the top and noticed that the altitude was having quite an impact on me and I definitely felt like there was less oxygen at 2,400m that I was used to. It also got pretty cold up at the top so upon reaching the peak I threw on my gilet and made my way straight down to try and warm up.

The road quality was amazing so was able to sit at a really high speed with gentle corners and lovely switchbacks.

Cars were nice and didn’t overtake unless it was really safe if at all to be honest, it was such a flowing road. I could take the corners faster than they could but they had a higher top speed on the straights.

The French border control was no problem at all and flew straight through, for over an hour of the descent I averaged over 40kmh with only pedalling out of corners which felt insane to me and was making up for the very slow morning that I’d had so far.

Every minute that I descended the temperature got slightly warmer due to both the reduction in elevation but also the rising of the sun.

The surroundings was lovely aswell, right in the mountain valley with trees either side and the gentle downhill meant that it felt like I was flying.

The rest of the day flew by, I stopped in a quaint little town and managed to find the vegan restaurant and stocked up on as much as I could stomach and headed on to Toulouse.

The weather turned and the rain came down hard as I approached Toulouse so I found shelter in a Vietnamese restaurant.

Back when I was in Vietnam my favourite dish was the Banh Mi. There is a place in Cardiff that does Banh Mi’s and they’re good but not quite as good as the ones when I was out there so didn’t want to set too high of an expectation of the ones here.

I was pleasantly surprised though as these were really good and I kept them coming, partly to refuel but partly to stay out of the rain for a little longer.

Night had now arrived in Toulouse and I didn’t want to stay in a hostel or a hotel despite the fact that it had been raining as I was trying to do this trip on a budget and camp out a few nights.

With no cheap options I set off for a campsite 35km down the road. Once out of Toulouse the majority of the road was alongside the canal which would take me the majority of the way to Bordeaux.

I pulled into the campsite just after midnight and there was no-one to take payment for my stay so I rode straight through, rolled out my bivvy bag and prayed for a dry night.

6th June 2023

The morning was a quick turn around to escape before I got found out so I filled up my water bottles, brushed my teeth and rolled out onto the canal path.

It was 225km to Bordeaux with only 700m of climbing and the first 100 miles were all pretty much downhill.

The first 80km of canal path took me to Agen where I stopped for a pizza and saw my first strike action in the streets of the trip.

The rest of the day was full of canal paths and rolling wine fields as my made my way across North West. The sun was shining and I got my first flat of the trip.

The wheels were set up tubeless so after messing around with pumping the tyre up and trying to get it so seal eventually. I had a spare inner tube but didn’t want to use it this early into the trip and hoped that the tyre would seal and get me into Bordeaux.

I rolled into Bordeaux as the sun was starting to set which was really something.

I hopped over the river and headed to my hostel. I decided to stay in a hostel rather than camp as I wanted to pop to a bike store in the morning to see if I could get something to fix the tyre. I had never used tyre plugs before but wanted to give them a go.

Thankfully Bordeaux has Uber Eats so I got a big order as there wasn’t anything open nearby so I wolfed it down and headed up to bed. Today was a day where there wasn’t much climbing at all but still ended up being just shy of 10 hours in the saddle.

7th June 2023

The bike shop near the hostel didn’t open for a while so I had a relaxed morning getting as much food down me as I could before I headed out.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I was after and fluffed it a little bit so instead of getting what I actually wanted which was a Dynaplug system, I ended up getting a patch kit which I already had. Evidently the fatigue and difficulty with the French language was impacting my decision making.

I ended up setting off at 10:30 with La Rochelle in my sights. The later starting time meant that it was already starting to get warm and with 190km to do I had to get a wiggle on.

It would be another very flat day with less than 1,000m of climbing so I got in the TT bars and made my way north.

The route took me on busier roads than had been the case the last few days as I was on the more populous west coast going from town to town.

The afternoon heat is starting to ramp up and I swing into a local village and find a nice restaurant with a vegan burger on the menu. To my horror, they stopped serving food at 3pm and wouldn’t be serving again until 7pm.

French restaurant timings are very strange but I wouldn’t let it get me down. I nearly cleared them out of ready salted crisps and diet cokes and then headed straight back out again into the heat.

I carried on through flatlands and floodplains and was eating up the miles.

On the route I encountered a very strange type of bridge. Something I hadn’t seen before but it was the only way to get over the river without going on a chunky detour so I got my ticket and rolled my bike onto what was thankfully the last trip of the day.

A short trip over the river and I was only 40km from La Rochelle.

The miles ticked by and the heat started to subside as I made my way into the town centre. As I hopped a curb to get to a restaurant the tyre that I had had an issue with suddenly lost pressure and as I contained my inclination to shout out some rude words. I found a pizzeria, ordered 2 pizzas whilst I figured out what to do.

I was considering taking a day off here anyway as I didn’t want to get back to the UK too early and had been making some good progress.

I found a municipal campsite in the town with a bike shop not too far away so pumped my tyre up which slowly deflated over time and headed there to set up camp.

8th June 2023

I awoke to a beautiful day with some things on my to do list. First things first I went to the bike shop, got them to fit a Dynaplug to my tyre to get it to hold pressure. Sadly they only had their own one in the shop and didn’t have any for sale but I managed to order one off Wiggle to arrive by the time I was home.

Now that the most important thing was done, I headed down to the beach to relax for a bit. There were some restaurants there but the only thing I could eat there was chips and so a double portion for me alongside a smoothie and I was set.

I hung around the old town for the afternoon and had some really nice vegan food including pasta and a lemon tart which I haven’t had for ages.

I went back and relaxed at the campsite before heading to bed in my Bivvy bag.

9th June 2023

It started to rain in the night but wasn’t too heavy and thankfully I was under a tree so managed to survive it. Then, out of nowhere, the heavens really opened. The rain was coming down really hard so I ran and moved my sleeping set up underneath one of the camper vans gazebos a few pitches over.

My plan was to stay there, wake up at dawn and scarper so they’d never know I was there.

Sadly, this gentleman woke up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet and seemed to have a real issue with me using his gazebo to shelter myself from the thunderstorm.

Being shouted at in French at 4am and being kicked out of the only shelter around I quietly trotted back to my pitch where after 15 minutes of trying to sleep I gave up.

Next part of the plan was to just hang out in the covered area by the sinks until it calmed down a little bit and amazingly, someone else was there hiding out the storm so we got to chatting which made the time pass a lot faster.

After a couple of hours chatting I decided it was light enough (both in terms of the sun and the rain) to head off. I didn’t have a huge day ahead of me but it was still 180km with 1,500m of climbing which was eased into gently with the first 50km being pan flat along canal paths.

The topic of the day was rain, pretty much the entire day was spent soaked to the skin. The rest of the day was uneventful in the grand scheme of things as the rural roads took me further north.

Due to the weather, I decided to check into a hotel for the night, order myself a Dominos and dry all my clothes out for the rest of the trip.

10th June 2023

The plan for today was to wake up early and get up to the north of France to Caen for a ferry over to Portsmouth 235km away.

Again, a thunderstorm was brewing and was intermittently drenching me to my core Perhaps due to this and the slightly unimaginative but pretty landscape I didn’t take any photos of the day.

After 1 or 2 detours I made it to Caen where I checked into a Vegan restaurant where I hid from the rain, ate the best vegan burgers I’d had in a while and dried off before a last 15km sprint to the ferry port which I’d also be visiting on the return leg of the Pan Celtic Race in a months time.

Thankfully the last part of the day was perfectly dry and flat along the river to the coast. There wasn’t much of a queue to get on the boat so I hopped straight on and went to my room for a shower.

I got out of the shower and soon heard some loud banging on the door. I open it just in my town and stood there is an annoyed looking member of staff who says that having my door open of the bathroom has set off the smoke alarms so he was there to make sure there wasn’t a fire.

After the quick telling off I got into bed and crashed out for the night.

11th June 2023

All that was left was a 228km ride back home and thankfully the weather was a lot drier than it had been the last few days. I had the option of following the Pan Celtic route all the way to the old Severn Bridge but in an effort not to just copy it and be seen to gain an unfair advantage by scoping out the route beforehand, I made my own way up which included going through the tunnels around bath and Bristol which were really cool.

At that point I didn’t know that they were also on the Pan Celtic Route but in the end it didn’t really matter and was definitely the fastest way back home which was needed after a long week in the saddle.

I made it to the bridge and at that point home is almost in sight, only 50km left. The roads back from the bridge are very familiar and I could get myself home without the use of the bike computer but it is always the case when you’re almost home that you glance down to see how long you have left every now and then and it just takes forever.

After what seemed like an eternity, I pulled up outside the flat after over 1,500km ridden, 4 countries (Spain, Andorra, France, England and Wales) and a lot of canals seen, I hauled my bike up the stairs, had a shower and spent the evening on the sofa with a Deliveroo.

The final stats are as follows: 1,536km ridden, 14,282m climbed (with over one third of that on Day 1) and 2,924 TSS. I consider that a good training session. On to the Pan Celtic Race.