The calm delights of an Autumn bike ride through Andalucía: Part Three

Since arriving in Seville in early October 2021, I had spent two and a half weeks pushing my creaking yet strangely attractive fifty year old body and my creaking yet strangely attractive eighteen-month old bike along steaming valleys, up and down steep hillsides and now along the madness of the Costa del Sol. The weather had been magnificent: clear blue skies every day. The scenery had been magnificent: orange, lemon and olive groves, stunning mountains and pretty white towns. And the people had been… a mix, as people tend to be… I had had my skin saved several times by a succession of patient and generous bike mechanics. I had been treated kindly by hotel staff, waiters and waitresses. And I had been exposed to COVID several times by unthinking selfish tourists.

But it was time to head back towards Seville, pushing along the coast to Malaga and then inland to Ronda and then down to Seville. And all of this with an unexplained creaking saddle and an equally unexplained mystery bolt that had literally dropped from the blue on the fifth day of riding. Would I ever get to the bottom of that creak? Would I ever understand the meaning of that bolt? Would I ever get on with telling you about what happened on the final stage of my bike tour without resulting to the repetition of threes? Possibly never. Probably never. Oh there we go again.

On with the story…

Wednesday 27^th October: Nerja – Malaga: 56km

After two days of trying to rest up in the once restful town of Nerja but had my sleep and nerves jangled by the many different types of noise of building works nearby, it was back on the bike, pushed out the door by the combination of the jackhammering and its musical accompaniment, several kinds of drilling.

Initially, the road was better than I expected: relatively quiet, fine views along the coast – orange crags and breaking waves – and more cyclists in one hour than in the previous two weeks put together.

But then the drear of Torrox and mile upon mile of apartment blocks as if I were riding through a loop. An hour of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. Let me repeat that. An hour of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. Let me repeat that again. An hour of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. And again. An hour of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. You’re bored already and we are only three sentences in. Imagine an hour of it: ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. That is a full sixty minutes of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. Mile after mile after ugly mile of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. And really we are only getting started with ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. Well I could try to vary this, but ultimately I had to spend an hour of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. I was trundling along wishing for anything but an hour of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea.

Finally a brief lull – albeit through what is called la plasticultura – crops being grown under plastic. And then after a further ten kilometres of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea, I actually got to see the sea: a long trek along the seafront of Torre del Mar, again ugly apartment blocks followed by apartment blocks with the odd palm tree and finally a short detour through the fishing boats at the harbour.

But then back to the development, mile upon mile. More ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea followed by yet more ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea.

And in the middle of it, Bob the Wahoo seized up. Or rather his screen did, turning completely black, though the electronics sort of still functioned. So I had to navigate my way with occasional looks at my iPhone, coupled with a bit of beeping from Bob.

After Rincón de la Victoria, I passed through a brief bit of sandy cliffs before having to walk my bike over a pedestrian overpass and then navigate the entrance to Malaga proper, and this in rush hour. It was a bit crazy and at one point, a bike path abruptly started but was ignored by pedestrians, but finally I was through and over the Guadalmedina to my quiet but classy hotel, close enough to the pedestrian centre but not in the thick of it.

My priority was getting a replacement for poor old Bob. Luckily I found a bike shop less than a mile away that looked as if it stocked Wahoos, and when I went in, the guy offered me a choice of the Wahoo Roam or the successor Wahoo Bolt, both sitting on the shelf behind him. Enormous luck.

Then time for a wander through the crowded maze of central Malaga and up, up, up to the Gibralfaro castle on the hill, watching the sun set, and then down the other side through a shady park. I found Malaga to be a fun place with a real sense of life. I found a cheery tapas bar in the thick of it all and sat outside, ordering a few plates, while watching the world move around me.

Thursday 28^th October: Malaga – Coín: 47 km

Out along the seashore on another amazing morning, cycling along paths and promenades past the joggers, exercisers or people walking their dogs. On a day like this, you think of your colleagues back home, having to sweat away at yet another unreasonable deadline. And I did, and laughed my head off.

And then turning my back to the shore and towards the hills, passing along a sandy path past the airport and then slowly up and away through the craziness of Malaga and neighbouring towns, initially along bike paths of varying quality which would end abruptly without warning but then joining the main road up to Alhaurin de la Torre. At a crossing for bikes over a dual carriageway – who thought that that was a good idea? – a car nearly slammed into me, screeching its brakes and the driver looking sheepishly at me. All in all, a rather tedious 25 km and not helped by the fact that my new GPS had not downloaded my routes, so I often had to turn back and renavigate.

At last, at the edges of Alhaurín de la Torre, my route took me away from the traffic and on a steady uphill to the outskirts of Alhaurín El Grande along quiet country roads with increasingly nice views over to Sierra de Mijas and the Sierra de las Nieves on my left. The occasional tall palm tree alone, like a military watch tower. It was a joyful ride and good to back out in nature.

And then after skirting Alhaurín El Grande, out along a main road and finally up a brutal hill to Coín. In the absence of turn-by-turn GPS directions, and having to rely on the map on my iPhone, I made a bit of a pig’s ear of finding my accommodation, eventually doing a circle of the town before locating the place above a pottery shop run by the owner.

Except he was not there and the gates were locked. And he did not respond to calls or messages, even though I had given him a clear indication of what time I would be arriving. And there was nowhere else with accommodation anywhere near. So I called and called and eventually resorted to calling [nameless internet hotel booking site] who then called and did not get through. All they could offer was a place back down the coast at Marbella. I was stuck…

After an hour, he turned up on his motorbike, all sweet and innocent. When I asked him why he had not answered my calls or messages, he looked at his phone, frowned and realised that he had put it on silent.

So he let me in, only for [nameless internet hotel booking site] to call me and say that because he had not got back to them in a specified period of time, they had cancelled the reservation… I explained that all had been resolved and that they could restate it. After 15 minutes of waiting on an international line, they said that they could not and this was my problem. I should rebook for myself. Which I could not as they had blocked the place. So in the end, I paid him in cash the next morning… A mess and a shame as the place was a nice apartment where I was able to wash my clothes, have a decent shower and sort out my GPS, downloading somewhere in the region of 200 routes…

But a decent dinner of boquerones and chips in a nice café on the church square made up for it. On days like this, you have to shrug your shoulders and appreciate the good bits. And I liked Coín: a pretty town in a beautiful setting.

After what had felt like a long ride, it felt like the edge of nowhere, but I was reminded of my closeness to the coast by the sounds of English with an Irish accent and a woman on the street the next morning with a Scouse accent and an endless string of swearwords…

Friday 29^th October: Coín – El Burgo: 32 km

And so the serious climbing begins again. Only 32 kilometres but over 900 m of climbing and most of them packed into the opening 25… It was like being back in the Alpujarras.

And I could feel the change in climate with an autumnal nip in the air.

After a gentle descent along the main road out of Coín to the valley floor, a turn off onto a quiet country road, often badly potholed and a steady climb up and down through olive groves with hardly any cars. The sound of frustrated dogs barking, the tinkling bell of grazing sheep and the odd conversation in Arabic. Fog and clouds and mountains in the distance.

It all seemed rather perfect. Until the road got more potholed and the hills got steeper and steeper, yawning up at 10-15%. Three times I decided to get off and push because the combination of the gradient and the rutted road made it too steep. The last time was the hill up into the white town of Alozaina, reaching 20% at points.

And all the time, a regular squeak, squeak, squeak from my bike seat, a sound that had accompanied me for so long that I had got used to it. And I had never got round to finding out the origin of that mysterious bolt that had dropped out of the seat on my fifth day, but guessed I would ask on my return to Brussels.

I stopped for a break on a mirador at the top of Alozaina. A spruce old gentleman beckoned me over and saluted my ride, warning of the hills ahead. “Fuerte duro!” He winked and moved on.

In truth, the main road out of Alozaina was fine: much less steep and with little traffic to bother me. If I were to ride it again, I would have stayed on the main road the whole time. It was a steady 5% for 10 kilometres but with the scenery rewarding me by getting better and better, with wonderful views as I climbed to and past Yunquera. Outside Jorox, I took a few minutes to simply stop and admire. A British car pulled in, the driver did not get out, and then moved on again, missing it all. So much better to experience it by bike.

Finally, the hill crested and I had a quite fantastic – mostly – descent to my overnight stop in El Burgo, a hilltop farming town with narrow white streets and tremendous views over to crags in the setting sun. Mud-caked Land Rovers charged hither and thither.

This time I really felt that I was away from it all, though the shine was somewhat taken off by a waiter who deliberately overcharged me for an overblown glass of wine, the most expensive in the house. A shame because my gazpacho and Argentinian steak was rather nice.

I knew that I had a tough ride ahead and with a forecast of wind and rain, so headed off to my rather basic but pleasant hotel room for an early night, with the wind picking up.

Saturday 30^th October: El Burgo – Ronda: 28 km

An early night but a massively disrupted night. I woke in the early hours to howling wind and rain and the noise of a door banging repeatedly in the room next door. After trying and failing to get back to sleep, I slung some clothes on and crept out onto the open air balcony overlooking the courtyard to investigate. A locked storage room. With an open window. Banging in the wind. Marvellous.

And then a meagre breakfast in a room full of people not bothering with masks, including a fellow coughing desperately on a nearby table. Marvellous.

And with a rotten weather forecast for later on, I figured it best to get going up the hill before the rain started again. So off I went on an overcast morning, straight uphill for over 7 kilometres at a steady 5-6% but with regular kicks of 9-10%, accumulating 450m or so. Warm but with the wind picking up, and only minor sprinkles of rain.

Was it bad? No, it was oddly wonderful: that meditative feeling that you get on a quiet and steady road as you climb a long hill, just listening to your breathing, feeling the slow energy in your legs, and at peace with the world.

And let us be honest, I was also listening to the slow creak, creak, creak of my leather saddle. But I was rather used to it after three weeks of riding, a constant whining accompaniment to my long slogs up hills. I would get it looked at properly when I got back to Brussels, and try to uncover the mystery of the metal bolt that had dropped out on the fifth day of riding, just shy of Jaen.

I stopped at the Mirador de la Guardia Forestal, a rocky outcrop with a large statue of what I assumed was a fire watch overlooking the valley down to El Burgo, glinting in the sunshine. But the wind picking up and becoming quite fierce. A family of two cars also stopped and made the walk, also in thrall to the austere beauty of the place.

Then back onto the main road for a final bit of that first climb and then after an all too brief descent along a narrow road with some tight corners at 20 kph and the sudden awareness of the possibility of rockfall, I was out onto a plateau with the wind really picking up. It was stunningly bleak: an ochre brown landscape dotted with granite crags and the odd delicious orange rock and the wind howling around me. Ah, the elemental power of nature!

I was mostly out there on my own, but saw the odd convoy of motorbikers stream past. Smugly.

Then up, up, up, and thank you, yes a bit more up, the clouds getting more and more ominous. Fierce wind in my face, rain in my face, steady uphill to the pass, the aptly named Puerto del Viento (Wind Pass). I wanted to take it all in in its magnificent destructive empty glory, but the truth is that in that fierce wind, that harsh rain and that biting cold, those 3-4 kilometres felt like torture: my head down, just counting off the metres to the top. The great comfort of modern technology though is to see the profile and to know that at some point that hill would end.

I stopped briefly at the pass, but in that wind and rain, it was no time to linger or take photos. Just time to put on a fleece under my rain jacket so as to not get too cold on the descent. As I started the descent, I passed my first cyclist, a bearded fellow, slowly grinding his way up, but giving me a big grin: that flash of acknowledgement between two cyclists out in foul conditions.

There is a mathematical equation for all this that it helps to remember at such times:

Unpleasant situation in which you might actually die + Time + Not actually dying = Wonderful anecdote to tell over dinner later

And this was the case here. Looking at that video above, it all looks wonderful, though I decided to leave the natural noise to give you a better sense of it. And in some respects it was magnificent. But it was also bloody cold, extremely windy, and I was out there on my own.

Would I do it again? You already know the answer. Of course, I bloody would. And so should you!

The other side of the hill was rather disappointing: a boggy and rather flat moor, dotted with boulders and then rather bland countryside as I got closer to Ronda.

On the outskirts of Ronda, my GPS abruptly directed me off the main road, over the train tracks that I had been riding parallel to, and down a muddy slope: a pointless diversion. So as I examined it all on my iPhone, I concluded that it made more sense to follow the main road, so started to turn my bike around to face the main road, and snagged my bike shorts on the nose of my bike saddle.

I heard a clanking noise as two metal bits dropped out – a short bolt and a strange twisted metal fitting – and the nose of my saddle abruptly bucked upwards. I picked them up for later examination and struggled into town in the wind and rain, my bottom squelching on the unharnessed leather of the seat.

I tried to find a bike shop to fix it, but here my luck finally ran out. I arrived in town at 1.40 on a holiday weekend and every bike shop in town was closing early, the shutters down well ahead of their usual 2pm closure and not reopening until 10 am on Tuesday… by which time I needed to be 30km away in Grazalema… And no ironmonger either. And just to compound it, Fate threw in my path one of those awful people who want to do good but have no clue how.

“You… er… need a what… a bike shop… yes, now let me see. I am sure that there is a bike shop in this town… Maybe there is one on the other side of this town.”

“There’s a bloody bike shop a few streets away. I can see it on Google Maps. Now please get out of my way.” Was what I did not say.

“So, er… yes… if I take a look… mmm…. yes, I am sure… Now is possible that….“

And with that, the Foul Halitosis of Fate snuffed out the Candle of Misplaced Hope. So I checked into my hotel and considered my options and whether my trip had just abruptly ended.

And in my dark hotel room, I made a quite interesting discovery.

That the mysterious bolt that had dropped out on Day Five of my trip fitted the short bolt rather well. Indeed perfectly. And together, they would have held together inside the metal fitting, itself holding my seat together…

So let me tell you what had happened here. The bolt had snapped in two. And for roughly six hundred kilometres, up and down countless hills, through rutted tracks, sand, cobbles and you name it, through the great cities of Granada and Malaga, and over the course of roughly twelve days of riding, that little snapped bolt had quietly sat inside the fitting, ready to break out at any moment, miles from anywhere.

And you can react to that in different ways.

You can sit there and think “Well, wasn’t that incredibly dangerous of you and imagine if that had happened earlier”.

You can reframe the situation and say “What enormous luck that it held all that way”.

Or you can do what I did and go “Oh giant jiggery bollocks, what am I going to do now?” And head off to the nearest supermarket for a sandwich, a bag of crisps and wine, and then consume it and head to bed in a stinking temper…

I had plenty of time to mull and stew in my own acidic juices. And most of it indoors.

The wind and rain stayed all afternoon and evening. As I sat inside the most sophisticated laundrette I had ever come across: all remote controlled, card paid, multilingual options and automatic soap, I could see people struggling outside: umbrellas and hair all blown away, and in one case a group of four girls dressed up for Hallowe’en in matching black dresses, black lipstick, devil horns on their heads and dainty silvered wings which threatened to fly away… It was more like a grim coastal resort in the north of England than the hills of southern Spain.

My mood was not helped by my room: perfectly fine but very dark and basic. Nor by the news that my neighbour’s house in Belgium had been burgled.  And my legs were feeling all the climbs of the last three days.

I was tired. I had been on the road for three weeks. It was time to head home.

I ate a decent meal of croquets and cazon en adobo in a strangely empty restaurant and one that remained empty even when I left, and retreated back indoors out of that foul wind and rain.

Sunday 31^st October and Monday 1^st November: Ronda (rest days)

The next morning, I resigned myself to the inevitable, cancelled my hotel reservation in Grazalema – which they kindly did not charge me for – and booked a place around the corner as my hotel was fully booked. I had worked out that I could make it direct to the next destination with only a few extra kilometres added.

Leaving the bike at the hotel, I set out early, determined to take advantage of a break in the rain, and headed over the famous bridge and into the old part of town and down a track to where I had a magnificent view of the bridge and river. Then along through the old town before taking a breakfast in a nearby café, and one of the best cups of coffee of my life.

Otherwise a dreary day of dodging rain showers and with the air always full of moisture. I had lunch in a crowded bar full of maskless people: a shame as the food was rather nice: fried squid and a pleasant glass of white wine. As I walked around the town, I had to regularly flatten myself against buildings to dodge cars going round narrow streets at top speed.

And the same on All Saints Day, despite a visit to the Arabic baths and a pleasant evening stroll on the edges of the town.

All in all, my spirits were rather low. Even my nights were not brilliant, disturbed by a mosquito, dripping pipes, a TV in the neighbouring room and people shouting in the street at 5 in the morning…

Tuesday 2^nd November: Ronda – Montellano: 71 km

After two days of being cooped up in dark rooms by wind and rain, I was desperate to get out. So after a poor breakfast in another den of masklessness, I headed to the local ironmonger, explained my problem and picked up a long 8mm bolt and plenty of screws, and then after failing to fit it myself, took it to the local bike shop who just about fit it, though with the screw slightly protruding from the nose of the bike.

It would get me to Seville but not ideal.

Then out, out, away from Ronda in more spitting rain and scowling wind and onto a busy main road for a fast descent.  Then back up again… a long and slow 200m climb through a rather featureless valley with traffic passing every 15-20 seconds.

Finally I turned off onto a quiet back road… and thick fog. The temperature was supposed to be 16-17C but I was freezing even in my rain jacket. It was too wet to even contemplate stopping to put on extra clothes. A time to pedal away with lights on, with only my GPS giving me any sense of direction or where I was, peering nervously through the wet grey ahead of me and trying to spot any oncoming vehicles – mercifully none – and any potholes in the road.

At last the fog cleared and I picked up the road that I would have taken down from Grazalema and along a big artificial lake created by a dam. Nowhere to stop and initially not many views. When they did come though, they were stunning: a luminous turquoise blue shining through yellow and brown uplands. Even with an artificial lake, I was surprised that they did not make more of it.

And then I pass the hillside village of Zahara de la Sierra, with its hilltop castle looking quite austere and stunning on this bleak grey day. I stop at the dam to admire, all alone…

Then away from the dam and a gentle ride down and up to a rather grim main road, up and down with cars whizzing past, mostly giving space but still… Lots of litter as usual on the road side: broken glass, beer cans and at one point, a plastic tube of “Liquid Magnesium and Potassium” written in English… An afternoon of slowly grinding away the miles, up and down, up and down.

As I turned off to Puerte Serrano, much better scenery, brown fields, burnt Saharan dunes turning purple in the distance.

Then a steady final climb to the town of Montellano. My hotel on the outskirts would have been perfectly pleasant in ordinary times, but in the pandemic, with staff and guests wandering around without masks, rather scary. And another hotel with very poor Wi-Fi. How addicted to these things we become.

But a magical sunset: the sun finally coming out with a few clouds: gold then pink then deep, deep red.

Then that Spanish experience: the only restaurant in the town only opened at 9. So I sat at a local bar eating peanuts and drinking wine, desperately hungry. At 9.01pm precisely, the restaurant had three tables of foreigners, all staying at the hotel.

I order taquitas de pollo and albondigas, followed by an indulgence: a rich creamy dessert called tocino de cielo. By the time I leave, only 10pm, I am the only one there. The barman comes over and makes friendly conversation, trying to explain on the white paper tablecloth how the tocino de cielo is made. My Spanish is not really up to it, but I engage and he engages back to me.  He is not remotely fazed by the foreigners. “But you should have been here yesterday: full, full, full”.

Or at least, I think that he was saying that.

As I reach the hotel, I see the glinting lights of Seville far away in the valley… Time to go home.

Wednesday 3^rd November: Montellano – Seville: 75km

I wake up to a beautiful but foggy morning and away from that nice but COVID-friendly hotel. I braced myself for a cold descent into the Guadalquivir valley but was pleasantly surprised and quickly stripping off my layers as I settled into a mass of slight but long hills followed by quick descents, following the main road – the A375 – as far as El Coronil. The winds were picking up again and buffeting me, and with the long climbs of the previous day, I was feeling a bit toasted.

Still, the autumn sun was out and the views to distant brown and purple hills were wonderful.

The road from El Coronil to Utrera was a lot quieter but less interesting: flat farmland on both sides. Starlings on electricity wires. Even a ‘farm’ of solar panels, yawning out in the midday sun, like those sun loungers in Nerja.

Then after Los Molinos, the landscape became more green, though with the odd cactus here or there, and olive groves from time to time.

I had a long grim ride through the ugly town of Utrera, followed by ten long kilometres on a service road to a motorway from Utrera to Seville. Finally a turn off back into hills, past abandoned houses and factories, with dead animals along the edges of the road, and to Alcala de Guadaira.

On a roundabout on the edge of the town, I connected up with the route I had taken three and a half weeks earlier. It was like a homecoming of sorts as I picked my way down to the jolting compacted mud bike track, thumping my poor injured bike along. And then as I cleared out of the banks of the Rio Guadaira onto easier track, I was exposed to the full force of the wind, up to 25kph at times. A small diversion as I passed through a herd of sheep, grazing on what little grass was still left at the end of the season.

As I strained along ungracefully, a gravel biker came to overtake me. “Are you riding all the way to Santiago de Compostela?” he asked, expectantly. “No, I am just heading to Seville” was all I could manage in my weak Spanish. “Oh” he said, clearly disappointed and disapproving.

I wanted to say “But I have just ridden a thousand kilometres. I have gone up and down through the Sierra Nevada and the Alpujarras. My bike has nearly died on me five or six times. And I have seen the wonders of these parts.”

But my throat was dry, my Spanish was rusty, and the gravel biker had sped off, literally leaving me for dust.

Even the flies had deserted me, deciding that the game was over and that they had faster transport available. On the sheep. On the snails.

And as I trundled back into town, getting closer and closer to the Torre de Seville and retracing my pedal strokes back through the empty landscape, then the grassy paths by the motorway, and then finally, the thick of the city, back on the banks of the Guadalquivir, I had the time to reflect on that conversation with the waiter the night before.

I thought of the quiet magic of it: a small moment in an empty hilltop town, fumbling around in another language but engaging.

That small conversation summed up so much of what had made my little trip through Andalucía so wonderful and memorable: the kindness of the Spanish and their willingness to engage. I thought of the numerous bike mechanics who had helped me on my way, never accepting payment except for parts, the kind hotel staff or apartment owners and the random strangers who would engage with me when I pedalled into their small town. I thought of an elderly couple in a village near Cordoba who had gently asked me about what I was doing on my bike, and why I had ended up there. “I hope that you are not looking for anything in this place, because there’s nothing…” (No hay nada) he said, with a laugh.

I thought of the good food and good drink. I had worked my way through most of the Andalucian repertoire: game, beef, fish fried or marinated in any number of ways, aubergines in honey, dozens of bowls of gazpacho or salmorejo, and of course slice after slice of ham and goat’s cheese.

And I thought of the wonders of the landscapes, constantly changing, though with olive groves a steadying presence. I thought of the small white towns and the big cities with their wonderful Moorish heritage. I had had the time to appreciate. Sometimes too much time, as I slowly trundled up an endless hill. I had biked through landscapes of every possible hue: deep red earths, dusty yellow emptinesses, verdant groves, blue, blue ocean and distant purple mountains. I had swum in the ocean and hiked in the hills.

All of this had been open to me, because I had left my comfort zone far behind, pushed myself and got on with it, savouring the moment. I had done it all under my own steam.

But back to reality: over the river to Triana and the hotel where I had started.  I took my bags off, quickly locked my bike against a lamp post and was rushing into the hotel when a hotel employer rushed out “Don’t leave that there, sir. It will get stolen” so he ushered me into the hotel car park.

After packing my bike up as carefully as I could, I took a leisurely day to walk around Seville, ending with sunset on top of Las Setas, a bizarre mushroom-shaped structure rising above the skyline.

The next morning, a taxi came to pick me up to take me to the airport. To my delight, it was Mauricio, who had picked me up from the airport four weeks earlier. “My friend said “I have to pick up a guy with a bike box” and I said “I know that guy. Let me take him.”” So over a too-short ride to the airport, I told Mauricio all about my adventures. What a wonderful way to end.

“Loco. Absolutamente loco”…

A small postscript

A few weeks later, I took my bike into my local bike shop and had it looked at, especially the gear wires. “Nothing wrong with it. Superficial damage” said the mechanic. He recommended a bike shop across town to order the replacement bolt for my saddle. When I picked it up, they tried to hand it over to me. “Can you fit it?” I asked innocently.

So the young mechanic shrugged, went replace it, was surprised that it would not fit, so pulled a bit. And then tried another tactic. And then another.

For twenty wonderfully satisfying minutes, he plugged and strained, and yanked and hammered, his face increasingly red then puce, then purple, and using more and more tools and holders. At one point, I thought that he would bust the leather of the seat entirely. I was grateful for my face mask so he could not see how hard I was laughing.

Finally, he wedged it in and returned triumphantly.

And there it remains. Though I keep the spare bolt that I bought in Ronda just in case…