Big climb at Navacerrada and Cercedilla

Today Frans and I did a sizeable chunk of the Camino between Navacerrada and Segovia. We did not exactly cycle very far, but the climb was pretty steep and it made us realise that our first day from Madrid to Segovia is doable, yet fairly tough. We ended up climbing an aggregate 1.4 Km. today, enough to break a sweat anyway.

The mountains around Navacerrada are stunning and the trail easy to navigate. One thing we learned the hard way was not to take the Roman path just past Cercedilla, which is part of the Camino. We now know to circumvent that nasty little stretch and stick to the tar road going round it. Especially as we will be towing our luggage with us next week.

So all in all we had a great day with brilliant weather, as the photo's will show you. We noticed there were already a fair amount of pilgrims hiking their way towards Santiago. Let's see what traffic will look like next week as we set off on our journey. We made sure to buy some horns to fix on our bikes, the ones you typically find on a 3-year old's tricycle. We could have bought simple bells, but that would have been too sensible surely. The important thing is that we will be equipped to ensure that any pain-in-the-ass "I do not move for cyclists" hikers will at least hear us coming.

Today I will leave you with this video of Frans explaining why he feels that a helmet is a passion killer, something that makes him sweat and cramps his style. This segment is in Dutch, for those of you that master this romantic language.

Apologies, had to pull the video, Frans was threatening to sue so I had to delete it, as MikMTB does not have sufficient funds to be tied up in the inevitable legal battles... ... sorry people... ;-)

Navacerrada planned for 30 May

As we have little time left before we set out on our Camino adventure 6 June, Frans and I figured it would be a good idea to do a serious training run this Saturday. In order to get used to the Camino, the trail as well as being on the look-out for the yellow markers.



So Saturday 30 June we will start at 8 AM and will climb the Camino just above Navacerrada, which at the top will take you into Segovia province.

This evening we will need to get some stuff at the bike store in order to further prepare, things such as extra inner tubes as well as a carrier and bags such that we can at least take the small amount of stuff we do intend to bring with us. We have decided to take at least one can of deodorant spray. Spartans we are not.

More on our Saturday run and preparations in postings to come.

Hasta la próxima

We are officially pilgrims

We have just been given our pilgrim credentials, essentially our booklet (see above pic) in which we will collect the stamps on our way to Santiago. We will depart from the Plaza de Santiago in the centre of Madrid. At the Santiago church we hope to get our first stamp. Let's see if the priest is willing to bless a couple of atheists on this holy journey.

We have decided on the route and have made all the b&b bookings for us to crash at. The stops will be in Segovia, a village near Valladolid, Sahagun, León, Triacastela, a village in between Triacastela and Santiago, and of course the finish in Santiago where we will collect our certificate.

We are keen to get going, t minus 11 and counting....

Tomorrow I will pick up my new bike, and we have a few more training routes planned before we push off on 6 June.


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Today is a great day!!

Got a new bike today, am real excited... only drawback is that I will have to wait until Tuesday to pick it up as they are getting it ready. It is a Trek 6700 and am real keen to give it a whirl next week. For now, here´s a photo of my new steed ;-)

Cycling through Barcelona

Today, this magnificent Sunday, is an off day with very little in the way if real cycling. We are in Barcelona today with the kids, and just did a relaxed 3 hour bicycle tour through the centre of the city. Pretty awesome.

The tour took us past several of Gaudi's masterpieces, including the Sagrada Familia.

Now that we are done, we decided that it's time for lunch so we are in a cab right now heading to Barceloneta and the beach. The girls can play on the beach and I am sure we will find some half descent place to hang out the rest of the afternoon.

So, greetings from Barcelona (who sadly just clinched the championship) and hasta la próxima.


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A slow day today

We are on our trail today, completely and utterly unprepared we set out on a route starting with the nude beach. Very little activity and mainly geriatrics displaying their bits to the world at 9 am on a saturday. Following some nice tracks right along the beach we ended up climbing a fair bit in direction nuclear plant.

Crossing the high-speed railway track which is in development, the AP7 motorway as well as the A7 Motorway uder construction we ended up in some rough terrain. A tad difficult to navigate through tracks with very rough gravel, and after one slight incident we decided to get the hell out of there. We schlepped our bikes onto the new A7 which is not yet opened and headed back in direction Hospitalet with the intent to go to Cambrils for a coffee break. After a while we saw the highspeed railway track which is currently being built connecting Barcelona with Valencia. We found a large enough hole in the fence, drove through it and were headed to Cambrils at a high speeds.

It got a little boring after a while, so crossing a dried up river bed we decided to pierce through the nearest hole in the fence, and made our way to the coast.

That is where we are now, enjoying a cofee and sandwich right at the beach front in the sun.

Later more on this slacker route that we are on today, which includes but is not limited to many half hearted attempts at getting fit for the Camino. (Frans made me use that phrase, sorry...)

For GPS details on this ride goto my mapmyride.com pages

Hasta la próxima

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Getting ready for our next route on this lovely day

The weather is amazing, blue skies and not as much wind as yesterday. We are contemplating where to bike to today. We might take a stretch of beach and head into the mountains a little south of Hospitalet.

First things first, some coffee, breakfast and chit chat to kick off this fantastic Saturday morning.


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38.9 Km with 1.3 Km total climb at Vandellos

After an awesome trail we are resting our legs in the mediterranean sun overlooking the bay, and making plans for lunch. I think the local fish restaurant will win, perhaps a nice paella or plate full of Merluza.

The trail back from Vandellos turned into a bit of an impromptu selection of routes, keeping an eye on the GPS that we were at least sort of heading in the right direction. The views of the mountain range and the sea were stunning.

The road back to Hospitalet was interesting, as we were challenged by some very strong sidewind with gusts up to force 7. That combined with the speed at which we were descending required us to navigate carefully.

Over lunch we'll think about what trail to do tomorrow, but with Vandellos done I am sure we will be looking for a bit of a challenge.

One thing is for sure, we are getting fit and will be well prepared for the Camino to Santiago starting 6 June.

Hasta la próxima!


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On the Vandellos trail

So we set out this morning on the Vandellos trail. Pretty steep climbs and I am sure I saw Frans weep and suppress some tears from the corner of my eye from time to time ;)

We are on our cafe con leche break right now, and are sort of half way on todays trail. We just passed a small pueblo in ruins, simply deserted, will post some photo's of the ruins in the middle of the mountains. We were kind of speculating that this may be one of those places that got wiped out in the civil war. We just asked about it in the café and the answers were a tad sketchy.

We will head out now, have to find the camino that will take us around the mountain and back to the mediterranean side of the trail. Will post some pics and Gps data in coming posts.

Hasta la proxima




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We are getting ready for the Vandellos trail

One of the advantages of living in a catholic country like Spain is the many public holidays they give you, even to an atheist like myself. Tomorrow, 16 may, is a public holiday in Madrid. Not sure what it's about, but a long weekend is always welcome and we decided to head out to the beach house in Tarragona province. Frans joined us and we have two serious MTB trails planned.

The first one will be a pretty steep and tricky one around Vandellos, one I have been on before. There has been quite a bit of rain here lately so should be a muddy ride. The cumulative climb is around 1200 meters, so am sure we'll get a bit of a work-out out of it.

Attached picture is Frans who is claims to be looking forward to tomorrows trail, but I'm not convinced ;)

More on our ventures with some pics tomorrow.


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10 May Trail from Colmenar to Navacerrada and back

We ended up doing a stretch of the Camino today, albeit a different part we initially set out to do. It was a good workout nonetheless and took us through some beautiful terrain. Plus we got to get a first touch of the Camino, a mix of narrow dirt tracks, gravel to some tar roads. By far most of what we did was off road however.

For a map of the route click on below button. It's data taken from my GPS.



We ended up doing 38 KM. One of our objectives of today was to see if we will set our target on Segovia for the first day of our Camino trip. I believe we will, eventhough from Madrid this will be slightly more than 100 Km and with some steep climbs.


Next weekend will be a bank holiday weekend in Madrid, so we will be doing some trails in Catalonia near Tarragona. There are two trails in particular that we will do there, more on that later in the week.

5 June, our departure date for the Camino, is approaching quickly. A bit more training to do....

Getting ready to eat a chunck out of the Camino

Today we will do a 40 km training run near Navacerrada and am mentally preparing myself for what I know will be a very interesting climb. We'll see.

The excuse of this posting however is to test the email to blog interface. Blogger allows you to post by way of simple emails (with or without attachments). So am using my blackberry to see if this will work out.

That way we can do regular posts on the blog, without having to either schlepp a laptop along or find an internet cafe.

Will post more this evening on how the Navacerrada run went. We're mainly doing it to help us decide if Madrid - Segovia will be the first leg of the trip.


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Training run this Sunday

OK, so we decided that we will ride the Camino from Madrid to Santiago. We will leave on 5 June and take about six days to get to Santiago.

As we are not sure what really to expect on the first leg, Madrid to Segovia..well, we know there are some mountains in between..., we will give part of that track a go this coming Sunday to make a more educated guess. It is not that the 100 Km distance from Madrid to Segovia scares us, but it is rather hilly.. just after Navacerrada

We have already started going over the route and Frans was kind enough to pass by the Madrid Friends of the Camino station to buy some guides and maps. Below photo shows one of the guides that we are studying and we noticed that the Madrid (semi official portion) of the Camino will start at the Santiago church in the centre of Madrid. We have decided to start there, would be kind of nice to do the whole tour. From there we leave Madrid via Plaza de Castilla and El Pardo. Past Fuencaral we will start to hit the dirt tracks we suspect. The first leg to Segovia goes past Tres Cantos, Colmenar Viejo, Manzanares el Rey, Navacerrada and Cercedilla. We'll see if the first leg to Segovia is reasonable, more on that this Sunday.

El Atazar

OK, so on 2 May we hit the beautiful countryside around El Atazar. Spectacular views that took us through the nort-eastern tip of Madrid (Comunidad) and into parts of Castilla la Mancha. We took a bit of a short cut on account of not interpreting the GPS entirely correctly. This trail is not for those who would like to stay away from long and steep climbs, it was quite challenging at times and both Frans and I were a tad out of breath after 28 kilometers of this terrain.

Click on below button for a detailed overview of the route and to download the GPS data if you wish to head out on this trail.



What has become clear is that we (at least I) will need to get a little bit more in shape still for our camino to Santiago. The 6 day 750 KM ride will be pretty tough I am sure.

For more photo´s of our route at El Atazar goto my facebook album

Next weekend we want to do another run (30 to 40 Km´s) near Madrid. If you have any suggestions please just post them to this blog.