Heather Bikes

I love taking the Corsica Ferry. It’s not that expensive, they don’t hassle you about bringing a bike on, and it’s cool to be on a huge boat.

I got into Ile Rousse around 2pm and decided to take a train into the interior. Last year, I had been too scared of the mountains to venture off the coast. But now, I was carrying less weight on my bike and decided to do it.

The trains in Corsica are very limited and not welcoming to bikes. My ticket was about 9€ from Ile Rousse to Corte, and I had to pay 19€ extra for the bike! Plus, there was a bus connection from some town about 25 km away from Corte and the man at the train station said I could only go as far as that town. I decided to do it anyway. Being on the train felt like I was on that roller coaster on Coney Island. Very rickety, only two cars, winding through the mountains. The conductor had to constantly blow his horn to alert the cows on the tracks to get out of the way.

It was the second time in my life I’ve ever seen a cow run. Very funny!

When I got to the train station before Corte, I was able to talk to the bus driver and he wound up letting me on the bus. He just said, ‘if anything happens to the bike, its not my fault.’ There are benefits to being a female travelling alone.

Corte is a really beautiful town.

I spent the night camping, and just like last year, my first night camping on Corsica is always scary!

There were crazy thunderstorms and I was worried my bike was going to wash away. Luckily, I had put my tent up well, remembering to tuck the tarp under, and everything was ok by the morning. I was worried about riding because I heard the storms were going to continue, but I came to Corsica to RIDE!

Am I going to make it???

After two months of working as a bike tour guide in France, I had a week off. Being a tour guide is different than I thought it would be. I am doing a lot more driving and a lot less riding than I expected. I don’t think I’ve ridden a bike this infrequently in the last six years.

So, with my week off, I decided to put my bike together and go back to Corsica!

I was so excited after I bought the Corsica Ferries ticket. I think it was the first time I’ve been genuinely excited since coming to France this year.

Putting my bike together was relatively easy. I am having an issue with the front brake but its not a big deal.

However, I must say that the Ortlieb Handlebar bag attachment SUCKS. I took the attachment off the handlebars so I could fit the bike in the box. I could not figure out how to get it back on and it was extremely frustrating. I wound up just taking off the cyclocomputer and duct taping it to my handlebars.

I rode about 25 km to Avignon and took the train to Toulon. The SNCF (French Railway) charges extra for a bicycle on the TGV, but not on the regional trains, so I took two slower trains and saved about 15€.

My first view of the Mediterranean since coming back to France!

I spent the night in Toulon in a nice hotel close to the train station.

TRIP TOTALS:

3,625 km / 2,252.47 miles
226:25 hours

Most beautiful places: Corsica and the Costa Verde of Spain

Easiest part: Finding camping every night

Hardest part: The days that I didn’t ride

Best part: Having complete freedom every day to wake up, ride, and see something completely new

Worst part: Losing 2 sunscreens, having to buy a new camera and noisy campgrounds

I had to check out of the hostel at 9:30 so I decided to go right to the airport, even though my plane didn’t leave until 1:30.

These were the girls that I shared a room with in the hostel. It was cool because we were all travelling by ourselves, for different reasons.

Here is my stuff, all ready to go. The duct tape totally hides the fact that its a bike box.

Spain has so many different versions of Cheetos!

And this is the perfect example of Spanish vegetarianism. A vegetable sandwich with a piece of ham, just hanging out.

I was worried that I wouldn’t find a bike box to pack my bike in. There were only 2 bike shops in Bilbao, and they were closed on Friday for Aste Nagusia, the Festival.

The first one I checked out on Monday morning said to come back in the afternoon and they might have one then.
Check out these fat tires on this fixed gear!

Well, luckily the second bike shop I went to had one right away, so I took that and went back to the hostel to pack it up.

I decided not to un-coupler my bike because it wouldn’t make a difference in the size of the box when I was done packing it. I was lucky to have found a box that was the exact size of the wheels before I left for Europe, but coming home, I decided to just put it in a regular bike box and risk getting charged at the airport.

I went to a hardware store to get bubble wrap, but that is definitely a Spanish word I didn’t know. I tried to mime it by going ‘pop pop pop’ in the air, but they thought I wanted a staple gun or tape dispenser. Finally I drew a picture and they knew what I was talking about. I am glad I kept my extra zip ties because there is no way I could have mimed that.

And here is the bike, almost all ready to go…

I went to a bar to get my last round of pintxos, the Basque version of tapas. They are really good, some with fresh seafood, and they’re little so you can try a lot of different ones.

Monday had to be reserved to pack up my bike, so I decided to get in one last day of riding before I came back to New York.

I left Sopelana around 11:30, after making sure my tent was totally dry, and rode east along the coastline.

I had wanted to ride all the way to Guernika-Lumo, the town that was bombed in the 1930s and prompted Picasso to paint ‘Guernica,’ but by 2pm I realized that it was just going to be too far to ride there and back to Bilbao.

I found out at a tourist office that there was a train that ran from Bormeo to Guernika and to Bilbao, so I was really happy to find out that I could see everything I wanted on my last day of riding.

Unfortunately, the tourist office in Guernika was closed when I got there, so I didn’t have a map of the city, but I found my way to the Old Tree

and Picasso’s mural.

I was really glad to have made it to this city. I saw Picasso’s Guernica in the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid, and coming to the town was a good experience. It really had a peaceful feel to it.

I took the train back to Bilbao and went to the hostel, where I had made reservations for Sunday and Monday. There was another girl in the room who was visiting her cousin in Bilbao, so I went out with them to the festival and it was great. There was a fireworks show which was awesome.

Coming back to the hostel, I was so relieved to be spending the night inside. I don’t think I’ve ever slept in softer sheets than what was on that bed…

distance 56.57
time 4:13:53
avg spd 13.36
max spd 55.19

When I was thinking about what city I wanted my trip to end in, I came across a photo of the Guggenheim in Bilbao and knew I wanted to see it, so booked my return flight from Bilbao.

I spent most of Saturday at the museum and it was really awesome. Seeing the building from the inside and up close was worth the cost of admission alone.

It was nice that there was an audio guide included in the price of admission, and it told me a lot about the construction of the building, in addition to the individual works of art.

This was a really cool exhibit in the museum, by Richard Serra, and its part of the permanent collection. If you go to visit the museum, I would recommend experiencing it first before you listen to the audio guide. There is a great narration by the artist, but it really takes you out of the experience of walking through the pieces to be listening to him talk and explain them.

There was also a really cool retrospective on Juan Munoz

I went back to the campground in Sopelana, to spend my last night camping!!!

It was still rainy in the morning and I didn’t want to pack up my tent all wet, but by around noon I couldn’t stand waiting around anymore and I just decided to ride. I was not too happy about the rain, though

by the time I got going, it was not so bad.

I am really glad I brought this raincoat, even though I never used it in the beginning and thought it was just extra weight, when you need it, you really need it.

This was a cool church in Castro Urdells

The coastline was really beautiful and quite challenging.

I rode up two 10% grade hills.

I knew that this was one of my last days of riding, so there was no way I was going to get off and walk!

People had told me that the language in the Basque region is totally different than Castillian Spanish, but of course I had to see it for myself to believe it.

Immediately after crossing into the Euskadi region, the language on the signs was completely different. I’m glad that most of them had little pictures, because otherwise, there was no way I could decipher the Basque language.

I ended in Bilbao, where I was told at the tourist office that there was no camping in the city, and the closest one was a 30 minute drive away. This came as a big surprise, because I had never had trouble finding camping before, and a 30 minute drive could be a 3 hour ride. The woman directed me to the youth hostel, and I begrudgingly went.
Well, the youth hostel was completely booked for Aste Nagusia (‘big week’ in Basque), the festival that takes place every year in late August.
It was only about 5pm, and I was tired, but knew I could ride to the campground since that was my only option other than an expensive hotel. When the woman at the hostel told me that the Bilbao subway went all the way out there, I decided to take it.
The public transportation in Bilbao turned out to be really extensive and cheap.

I stayed at the campground in Sopelana.
distance 54.37
time 3:54:35
avg spd 13.9 (HILLS!!!)
max spd 50.79

This is the beach that Camping Derby was on, and there were a bunch of surfers. This is the first time on the trip that I’ve seen surfing, I guess the Mediterranean is too calm for it.

The houses here are so colorful!

I spent the night in a campground about 7km west of Castro Urdells, but I forgot to tuck my tarp under my tent. It rained heavily that night, so in the morning, it was almost like I was on a water bed, I was on a huge puddle. Luckily the tent didn’t leak, but it was cold and clammy inside…I was really ready to be done with camping.

distance 57.94
time 3:42:50
avg spd 15.60
max spd 52.25

Well, I finally had canned meat and beans, which was the only food I could think of that you could eat when you go camping. The beans were actually good, but the meat scared me, so I gave it to a little yapping dog who’s owners had just left him tied up by their tent.

distance 97.79
time 5:53:06
avg spd 16.61
max spd 50.79

totals: 3456 km
214:34 hours