51km / 2 hours 23 min / 507m gain

(For my reference: Komoot estimated 1 hour 44 min and 400m gain (assuming road bike speeds, I guess))

It was a very easy ride today.

It rained last night, so I decided to stay on the road today (which is a much faster ride). I don’t want to deal with the mud, and I don’t have a spare belt in case this one breaks. There were few cars since I was in the middle of nowhere and on back country roads. I kept my jacket on all day because of the icy wind with this cold front.

I am staying in a small village, so I biked another 5k to find a gas station grocery store to stock up on food. I managed to find a car wash and cleaned up my bike.

I am taking Thursday off, so hopefully, things will dry up. However, the weather doesn’t make that look likely, and Friday is currently forecast for rain. We shall see.

What else?

• I randomly stopped at this Church, which was very pretty with many relics…
• I think I saw a fox, but it could have been a cat (its legs went piter pater, though).

63km / 4 hours 13 min / 461m gain

(For my reference: Komoot estimated 4 hours 59 min and 420m gain (without mud))

Today was intense!

Last night, I slept like a baby. I was overlooking the Douro River, and the hotel was comfy. It drizzled for the entire evening. I had super intense dreams.

Unfortunately, the rain created some mud, which was like super glue due to this region and made for some very intense moments today.

I had to stop and scrape mud from the bike several times, and my back wheel slid out a few times (luckily, I caught myself). My belt came off 3 or 4 times, which has never happened. I think the mud and small stones were putting pressure on it.

Then my belt broke just 4km from my end stop.

I think the mud and pebbles got between the belt and gear, which had too much pressure and snapped. It has been on my bike for around 4 years and lasted far longer than it was supposed to (I think they are rated for 10,000km, and I’ve done more than 2.5x that).

I carry a spare belt with me, just in case. I need to clear the mud better for future mud sessions and walk the bike if the stones are getting between the gears and belt.

I tried to put on the belt out in a field, but I’d never done it before and couldn’t figure it out. I decided it was better to walk and roll to the endpoint and do it there. About 2km from that point, it started raining on me, lol!

I reached the little rural apartment and found a faint 4g signal for some YouTube tutorials. I didn’t realize the frame came apart to get the belt in the right area. Seven screws later, it is fixed!

I am worried that I stripped one of the little screws, though (a problem for future Ben). I also no longer have a spare belt, which might be a problem for future Ben. Why can’t we make better screws that don’t strip so easily?

What else?

• I surprised a pretty big deer.
• Some little quail birds ran along the path.
• I had so much mud flinging up by the wheels that it went in my nose, mouth, ear, and eye.
• So many beautiful views and wine fields today.
• So quiet out here… my mind feels relaxed.
• My energy levels were finally at 100% today, even if my butt is sore.

I stopped in Guzman, Spain, tonight!

It is so tiny that there are no grocery stores or food options. I only have carrots and nuts, so I wandered in case I missed something. I stumbled upon an artisan store that told me to ring the doorbell, and I did!

A lovely man and his wife came out to open it up for me. He is Portuguese and from Porto (close to where I live). He runs a restaurant in the next village and is a Sommelier. Next thing I know, he is having me try some delicious vermouth he brews and a glass of local port-style wine he makes (and his wife gave me two amazing cookies).

He told me that the town is famous because of a book and showed me the book. I kept thinking Guzman sounded familiar, and I realized I had seen the book in several Shepherd articles and maybe the NYT a while back about this famous cheese from here. The book is called The Telling Room (bought on my Kindle).

I walked out of the beautiful artisan store with a bottle of local wine,  two packages of the famous cheese, local sheep pate, and local jam. Plus his wife was kind enough to offer to drop me off some bread later today after she gets back from the store, so kind!

Great stop! The cheese and wine are so good!!!

46km / 2 hours 35 min / 101m gain

(For my reference: Komoot estimated 3 hours 11 min and 100m gain)

It was an easy ride today; I got an early start, so it was much cooler. The route was as fantastic as yesterday. I did have one spot where the path disappeared, but I found a detour a few blocks away.

I stayed in Tordesillas, Spain, last night! I wandered around a bit, ran into a few history signs, and realized that the Treaty of Tordesillas was signed here. I remember learning about this in high school, where Spain and Portugal divided the rest of the world between them.

70km / 3 hours 45 min / 408m gain

(For my reference: Komoot estimated 4 hours 33 min and 330m gain)

Lindsey and Calico drove me to the start of my route this morning. It was weird to have an audience, as I usually start my rides solo!

We got a late start with breakfast and checkout, so I didn’t get going until 1130am. It was a beautiful sunny day, although a bit hot (UV of 7).

The route was 90% gravel and FANTASTIC!

The perfect trail for adventure. There were tons of fast, smooth gravel, random sand pits, double track with overgrown bushes blocking the way, large chunky routes where I had to go very slow, and everything in between. A lot of very careful lines so that I didn’t fishtail out of control as parts of the path went from gravel to sand.

Spain is such a beautiful country… I wish we could live here!!! I have to come back to more of Spain for gravel routes, as the roads are amazing (just look at the pictures below).

I went past plenty of wine today, fields of different veggies and wheat, and lots of scrubland. I didn’t see any snakes today, but I did see 3 huge fish in the river that were probably 2.5 to 3 feet long.

My route today ended near Valladolid.

I am staying above a bar in a small town (only 25 euros a night).

For my end-of-ride lunch at said bar, I had Havana Club 7 (thanks to Laura for introducing me to my favorite rum!), a coke, morcilla (I love blood sausage), tortilla, and some bread (picture below). Life is good!

I realized that if I want to do a bike tour, I need to do it now, so I will take a trip across Spain in mid-May (we are moving this summer, plus we are visiting family in the USA).

I will start in Salamanca and bike across Spain, through Zaragoza, up around the corner of the Pyrenees to a small town called Ille sur Têt (in France). The weather should be cooler, which will help, given Spain’s intense summer heat.

What are the stats?

• ~1,050km
• ~8,500 meters up and 9,310 down.
• The route I’ve mapped should be 70% gravel and 30% pavement. Hopefully, the gravel is a little more defined than in France, as I found myself hiking through random forests with no path a few times in France (not to mention the field routes that didn’t always work out). But that is also part of the adventure!
• I will do it over ~17 days of riding. I will try something new this year where every 5th day is a rest day and see if that balances me out. I get so excited that I overdo it in the first 7 to 10 days.

Training?

Because of the late start and dates I was confined within, I didn’t get as much training as I would like. It would have been better if I had not gotten a cold over our Bordeaux spring break. It won’t be as bad as my Portugal Camino tour in 2021. And I’ve got two more weeks to train, so hopefully, I can get to a good spot.

Why Ille sur Têt?

There is a fantastic French bike company that is based there. I will do a bike fitting with them for a custom frame for a new bike (gravel)! Then I will take the train with my bike to Bordeaux, finish signing on our new house, park my bike there, and fly back to Porto to organize the move. Huzzah!

We went camping near El Barco, Spain, this last weekend and it was beautiful!

It was a pretty rainy weekend but with plenty of sunshine as well. We had a very fun Friday night in town at a wonderful little bar before heading back to our tent (Lindsey was in the house on the riverside property we rented). Calico played soccer with some local kids in the square while Lindsey and I had a few glasses of wine. We tried to go hiking on Saturday but got hit with some heavy rain and thunder and had to jog down the mountain quickly :).

Calico and I slept in the tent both nights despite a little rain. And we managed to make cheeseburgers, hot dogs, and smores. Next time I need to bring a better metal grill top as it made the hamburgers pretty difficult with the one they had.

Good times :)!

On the way home, we visited Granada and Malaga in Andalucia, Spain.

Grenada was beautiful! We toured Alhambra and found an amazing Syrian place to eat. We ate there twice; it was so good. I also did one bike ride, but it was way too much city riding, and I finally found some gravel at the end of the ride.

Malaga was bigger, sunnier, and had a beautiful beach.

We really liked it, and I got to have a fantastic lunch with Serita. Serita is the freelance editor who takes care of many things at Shepherd. It was really great to meet her, and she brought some of this Tequila she has crafted (I am looking forward to trying it)!

I also managed a long bike ride; the Malaga trails were amazing. I hope to go back and explore more of the gravel routes one day.

We are home now, and I am catching up on a lot of work and random family things we’ve put off. I am feeling more rested which is good.

I LOVE Valencia Spain!

It is by far my favorite city. And, it is one of the first places that both Lindsey and I feel is “home”. It has amazing weather, amazing people, and a perfect blend of city, nature, and beach. Plus great biking!

It has been really hard to think about leaving the city and we’ve dealt with waves of grief/anger over the last couple of months :(. We do not want to leave… we would like to stay here long term.

We always knew we couldn’t stay in Valencia for more than 1 to 2 years because of Spain’s tax system. They have some taxes that are poorly designed and we would be paying 60% to 70% of our income in taxes. Which makes it impossible to live here. Spain has a very badly designed Patrimonio tax and because we are American we are stuck between the two systems. If you are not an American citizen it is pretty easy to avoid these taxes and pay much less, but as Americans, a lot of those options are not available to us given American regulations (waiting on the USA to switch to a territorial tax system like every other country in the World). The other option we had was to move to Madrid as it is the only region to void the tax, but we did not like Madrid.

Part of our trip last month was to scout locations around Europe and see what clicked. We were debating between Austria and Portugal… and Portugal won out based on weather/cost.

So… we are moving to Portugal :). We’ve been to Portugal several times and we are looking forward to finding our neighborhood and settling in. We hope is we can find a place we like as much as Valencia in the next couple of months.

We have hope that Spain will fix their system given the huge economic crisis. The current system makes startup/business investment near impossible and they need labor reforms to make it easier to hire people as employees. The current system punishes risk and pushes money into real estate where it won’t lose value but your returns are very low (how a lot of people avoid Patrimonio taxes if they don’t leave in Madrid).

Delicious Greek meal at one of our favorites :)!

And, a bit of a non-pandemic birthday lunch for my lovely wife :)!

We celebrated Lindsey’s birthday last week under lockdown. We are going to celebrate once we get clear of the lockdown too :). Lindsey made a really cool flour combo from some flour that fell on the floor. It gives Calico some fake sand to play with his trucks in.

Wow, so Spain is all shut down for a period of 15 days.

Good move and hopefully we can beat this thing in the next 4 to 8 weeks and then get the economy back online… everything is shut down. You can’t go outside without a clear reason.

According to the government decree, people will only be allowed to leave their homes to buy food and medicine, commute to work, go to medical centers and banks, or take trips related to the care for the young and the elderly

Effective immediately, Spain is also closing all restaurants, bars, hotels, schools and universities nationwide, and other non-essential retail outlets, a move some of the hardest-hit communities have already carried out.

No biking, no walks to the park, indoors unless walking the dog briefly or going to get groceries. This is much needed but going to be tough.

I forgot to blog about this :)… I bought an apartment in Valencia Spain last year! When we visited we loved it so much that I started looking at apartments here. At the time, I thought we might visit a few months each year and I could rent it out on AirBNB the rest of the time (good investment IMO as it is grandfathered into a license). And, now we are living here for a few years.

The apartment is in the old city, close to the massive park, 3 bedroom / 2 bath, and full of light. After I bought I converted the master bath to a shower, refinished the floors, painted it, fixed some odds and ends, and updated the HVAC system. Here it is before we did anything to it:

After we got here we decided to redo the kitchen. The appliances and cabinets were old and broken. The walls on the oven were melting and dripped black gunk all over our pots. When we removed the oven we found we were probably a few usages away from an electrical fire. And, we decided to redo the floor/walls at the same time. Here is what the kitchen looked like before:

Here is what the kitchen looked like as they started in…

And here is the finished kitchen! We cook a ton so it is really nice to have our kitchen back and designed how we wanted!

And, we are slowly getting moved into the rest of the place. We finally got a couch last week which helps. We only have some small stuff left like to make it feel like home… a coffee table, bedside tables, a fold-out couch for guests, and something to jam the TV devices into. Calico’s room was finished first. We got him a “big boy” bed so that was pretty exciting for him. Plus an Ikea kitchen set too. We wanted to make sure he felt settled the quickest.

We are in Valencia Spain and going to be living here for the next 2 years :). I’ve always wanted to live abroad and Lindsey was kind enough to jump on board and try it!

We are slowly getting settled and are buying a lot of Ikea furniture among other things! Our apartment should feel more like a home in a week or so.

Below you will see just a random mix of images from the last month… my favorite is my awesome son standing next to a cardboard robot we made. He told us he wanted to take a picture with “it”, it was so sweet. You will also see him drinking water like a cat, as we saw a cat doing similar outside. He picked out all his own clothes for most of these shots, at age 2 he has more style than I ever will :).

Just some shots of things we’ve been doing around Valencia :), we love this city!

This is the BEST cheese I’ve ever had, Manchego has been my favorite cheese over Asiago for a while now but this stuff is crazy good.