Today a special edition of BiciCritica, Madrid´s version of Critical Mass, was organized. Essentially a large mob on bicycles that take the streets of the city centre, today some 3000 strong.
The weather was amazing and at around 18:30 we pushed off from Cibeles, first in direction Neptune for a u-turn again in direction Cibeles and following that toward the north to Plaza Castilla. The police were trying to guide all as much as they could, and really only succeeded at the front of the mass.
It was awesome to take the major thoroughfares of this wonderful city, and we soon filled the entire width of the Castellana, hardly a narrow backstreet. Some of the motorists, who had no choice but to wait, were a little peeved. The majority took it well through and were in awe of the sheer number of bikes passing by.
Prior to pushing off I was interviewed by the TV station Cuatro, for a nine o´clock news section. Checking it out later on I noticed they had reduced my contribution to the mere "Soy de Holanda.." (I am from Holland)...:-) Below some video footage of my own of parts of the BiciCritica.
We just picked up our credentials for the Camino. This is essentially the booklet you fill up with stamps on your way to Santiago. It is required to demonstrate the minimum number of kilometers such that you can qualify for the Compostela, the proof and official document. For cyclists the minimum is 200, and we will do about 700 so no problem there.
This time I will claim to have done the Camino for pure religous reasons. This in order to receive the niver caligraphy version with my name translated into Latin.
Let the fun begin, only a couple of weeks until we embark on the Camino del Norte.
Yesterday, Sunday 25 April the sun was out and it felt more like summer than spring. We headed out to La Pedriza in Manzanares for an MTB trail in the afternoon.
The climb was tough as usual, and as we were approaching the top a few dark clouds were gathering around the peaks. It looked a little ominous and from experience we know that the weather in these parts can turn quite quickly and become real nasty in a matter of minutes. The only reason for us to choose an alternative route, was the thunder and lightning that we saw approaching from the north-face of the mountain.
So we descended using a route we had not taken before. It took us right through the pine forest on the southern side of the mountain, taking us right back to the Manzanares valley. Yet again an amazing trail, and certainly great for training as we are approaching the Camino del Norte in May.
After a long night of planning the Camino de Santiago last night, with Real Madrid playing in the background and some red wine for inspirarion, we have decided to do the full Camino del Norte starting in Irún. This is on the French border in the Basque country. On 8 May we will take some form of transportation to Irún, one-way of course.
8 days will be the time we will take to cover the 850 kilometers to Santiago. The Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias and of course Galicia will be the Spanish Autonomous regions, sort of like States, that we will cycle through. An aggregate 16 km of climbing over the total stretch.
Tomorrow we'll be heading into the Guadarrama mountains for some much needed training... ;)
With the Camino del Norte about a month away, we figured it might be a good idea to step up the training schedule a little. So today we decided to head out on this beautiful day to ride around the mountains of Cercedilla. After stuffing the car with our gear we headed out there, sunshine and not a cloud in the sky it promised to be a wonderful trail.
We decided to climb up to Puerta de Fuenfría, passing the Roman way and ending up on the Carretera de la Republica. Climbing this beautiful stretch of the Madrid mountain range, we came past one of of the downhill tracks that a local MTBer once pointed out to us. A downhill cutting right through the pine forrest and passing a few streams. Clearly the snow is in full meltdown mode, as there is plenty of water coming down the mountain.
So after we climbed all the way up to Puerta de la Fuenfría, we decided to take this forrest path to descend back to the car. It was awesome! Technical and required all the concentration and skill that we could muster. Needless to say, there were a few crashes. I took the lead in falling off my bike, and have some scratches and a bloody knee to prove it. No real damage though, neither to me nor my bike, so the descend continued. Moments later, just as I was clearing some major rocks, I noticed Edwin as he flew through the air, with the bike right behind him. Both airborn for what looked like a slowmotion scene in a movie. The landing was a tad rough, but also Edwin continued the trail with just a bloody knee. Apart from our slightly dented pride, all was well and we continued an amazing downhill.
It is time to mount some helmetcams for this sort of action, to be continued.
The Camino training will need to be stepped up a little bit more still. But today´s trail and more the coming weeks will surely help, all we need to do now is to not break any bones.. ;)
We set out a little after nine this morning on this beautiful day. A crisp sunny day with around freezing temperatures. We started at our usual hang Restaurante Montaloya At 9 in the morning this place is filled with what can only be described as a colorful crowd. From working girls warming up for a busy day, to runners and cyclists getting ready for a workout. What they all have in common though, is that it takes a few coffees and some inspiration in order to head out there for an accomplishment of some sort.
Both Edwin and I had a bit of a cold, which left us a little out of breath on some of the steeper climbs. The trail was still frozen hard, which made it very easy to cycle across. At times though a little tricky to navigate around the frozen tire tracks and other marks left in the frozen mud from the torrential rain that we have seen the last few months.
All in all a great morning and it looks as though training for the Camino in May is very much on schedule.
Today we cycled the Tres Valles tour around the Manzanares National Park. The tour starts in Cercedilla, with a first climb up to Puerta de la Fuenfría. This basically takes you past an old roman road and eventually a trail that curves along some stunning views of Navacerrada and Manzanares.
As we got closer to the top the amount of snow started to increase quite a bit, although all packed together into a thick layer of ice. Much easier to cut through compared to the snow we had two weeks ago in Pedriza.
As we reached the top of Fuenfría, we had noticed that this was going to be a tough trail. Once we decided to cross the Madrid / Segovia border though, by descending on the other side of the mountain, we had basically decided to go for it. Once you go far enough it does not matter if you go on or turn back as the distance and ascend will be the same. So we descended into Segovia, took a right turn towards the CL 601 after passing the ruins, and retook the camino on the other side of the highway.
At the end of the smoothly paved trail, we quickly found the ascend to Cotos to be far from ideal for cycling. Snow, ice, puddles softly frozen over and very deep trench-like and frozen tire tracks, made it all very challenging. Not to mention the fact that it was all incredibly steep. The last bit we had to dismount and walk, after which we took a warm cup of coffee at a nearby ski-hut.
From Cotos we made our way to Puerto de Navacerrada, a place that as you can see in above video is a ski resort. Minus 4 Celsius temperatures, and people walking around with ski and snowboard gear, made it all a bit strange to be here on our bicycles. We did not fancy the Schmidt trail, so took the 601 highway down towards Navacerrada and turned right to Cercedilla. The downside of this route was that we had another climb to get back to the car. All in all we cycled over 50 kilometers with a aggregate climb of nearly 1.5 Km. Needless to say we were kind of nackered at the end of this and were extremely pleased to be able to defrost our feet. Despite the protective gear they felt like blocks of ice. To give you an idea how cold it was at the top, my camelback tube froze up constantly, such that the water I drank came with crushed ice. Frans´s water bottle froze completely.
You may think, where is the fun in all this? I promise you though, it was awesome and am sure we´ll head into the mountains again soon.
OK, so we did it... Frans, Edwin and I headed out to Manzanares el Real last Sunday and climbed Pedriza, in itself nothing special. But this time there was still a considerable amount of snow at the top of the trail.
As you can see in below videos the natural park of Cuenca Alta del Manzanares is absolutely stunnig, also with low hanging clouds and rain. We passed a few amazing ice walls created by the many water falls that are active this time of year.
Just as well we undertook this pretty tough trail, as we have set the first week of May as the week that we will complete the "Camino del Norte". The wet and sludgy trail, mixed with snow and ice made the climb exceptionally tough on our ageing legs.All in all a pretty good work-out.
We descended the same side of the mountain which had climbed. There was simply too much snow at the very top, which we nearly made by about a kilometer, and we did not fancy walking the last little stretch. Our feet were already near amputation state as it was, so we figured we'd head back down.
Snow, and lots of it.. even in the mountains surrounding Madrid... OK, would we rather head out there in short sleeves and with semi descent weather? Absolutely! But, we have decided to ignore the weather and are planning for a winterwonderland adventure this coming Sunday. Without a doubt the downhills will be slippery, spectacular and not without some interesting crashes.
At 9 AM on Sunday we are planning to start our ascend of Pedriza, one of the MTB trails near Madrid, that is sure to be covered in snow. As this is all very wintery, we needed to kind of bribe ourselves..so, the tour will be celebrated (if completed) with a typical Swiss cheese fondue in one of those smelly cheese places in Navacerrada. Just to kind of round off the winter sport experience. Al this hoping that all snow will disappear quickly and that warm weather will return to this part of the world. I mean, we need to get ready for the Camino after all.
More on this MTB snow extravaganza over the weekend
This blog is dedicated to describing the various MTB trails that I intend to undertake or have already completed. Expect many photos, trail descriptions and film footage.
