The calm delights of an Autumn bike tour through AndalucÍa

“Loco”. This is the exact word that the proprietress of the Casa Jazmin in Órgiva uses to describe my intent to ride straight uphill for the next forty kilometres to Trevélez, my bike thick and laden with three heavy packs at the back and a smaller handlebar bag at the front. “Absolutamente loco”, she adds for emphasis.

So how has it come to this? What am I doing flogging my ageing yet weirdly attractive and amazingly blonde-haired body up on a heavy bike with wonky gears and a bike seat with a strange creaking noise mimicking the noise of my own hips?

I’m fifty for fork’s sake… I should be sitting at home giving stern lectures to my children about the lack of realism of their choices for college and how they can pay for them themselves by working nights in a disease-ridden kebab shop… or deserting my stable but unsatisfactory thirty-year marriage for some hot and nubile young lady called Samantha who likes to call me Mr Chunky Chips and makes regular enquiries about the state of my pension fund.

So basically doing the same as most of my friends…

And at the very least, Samantha should be coming up the road behind me in the support van, occasionally handing out isotonic drinks or sports gels and mopping my brow. If she existed.

And how did I come to… enjoy it? And why would I recommend you take a similar trip?

And is Samantha getting a little too close to the imaginary hired driver Paco?

Read on to find out. I am breaking this into three parts. This is part one.

Friday 8 October 2021: Brussels – Seville

Why do I always end up getting flights that leave ridiculously early in the morning? Up at 4.45 to wait for a taxi at 5 to be there at 5.30 for a flight at 7.

My plan had been to use a pay-by-the-minute car, picking it up the night before, parking it in front of my house, and then hoping that no one had moved it overnight. But at the last minute, a colleague says “Why not use [nameless substitute taxi firm]?” and stupidly I agree.

When the car turns up, it is ordinary size. The driver takes one look at my bike box, shakes his head, and drives off, saying that he will waive the cancellation fee. So I look for the nearest pay-by-the-minute car, find one about seven minutes’ walk away, and head off, with my bike box and suitcase hidden in the dark at the side of my house… only to turn up at said car, try to unlock it using the app, get told that I am not close enough even though I am practically sitting on the bonnet, move around a bit in the hope of a better GPS signal, and finally give up, having lost ten precious more minutes… And then order a minivan from [nameless substitute taxi firm] which does at least come… and promptly charges me three times the usual price due to surge pricing…

Still, I make it the airport, have a relatively hassle-free check-in, and am on the way to Madrid… After an hour of peace and quiet in the serenity of Barajas Airport, I am on to Seville. There with relatively little hassle, I am picked up by a fellow called Mauricio with a car exactly the same size as the one that refused me earlier… but a markedly different attitude. With kindness and efficiency, Mauricio gets everything loaded and off we go. When I tell him my route, he is full of positivity, saying that I will have excellent scenery. He tells me that he yearns to go bike touring but will have to wait until his two young sons have grown up a bit.

To my hotel, not spectacular, but perfectly decent and well positioned in the famous neighbourhood of Triana and right on the banks of the Guadalquivir river. It is 2pm and I am exhausted, so I find a bar up the road and sit down for a decent lunch of arroz negro con camarillones and a glass of white wine. When I arrive, it is almost empty. When I leave at 3, it is completely full… Welcome to Spain. I have to adjust.

So I take a siesta and then descend to the car park to unbox and methodically reassemble my bike. I thought that it had gone quite well but when I head to a nearby bike shop to inflate my tires, the assistant looks at my bike with alarm: in putting my handlebars back on, I had managed to twist the gear and brake wires…

So there I am in the middle of a bike shop, disassembling my handlebars and when everything is finally sorted, I find that I have damaged the cable for the rear derailleur… The assistant clucked seriously at it before concluding that it was just about OK but worth looking at when I could find another mechanic as they had no time. So we would see…

But a fine end to an up and down day, sitting outside a bar in Triana with a few glasses of wine, a delicious bowl of salmorejo, a slice of tortilla, and two simple slices of bread with anchovies. Off to bed, weary…

Saturday 9 October: Seville – Carmona – 52 km

A beautiful morning to set off: clear blue sky and a warm breeze. After a fantastic breakfast up the road from my hotel of a large cup of coffee, fruit, yogurt and best of all, a hot bocadillo with a river of melted butter, ham and soft cheese, I checked out of my hotel, leaving my bike box and my suitcase behind for four weeks. Packing my bike bags in a large suitcase had worked well, allowing enough space for items like zip ties, duct tape and marker pen for the other end, and also allowing me to jettison some of the cooler weather gear that it was clear that I would not be needing.

Out along the Guadalquivir, then tucking inland through the grans vias of the city and the flow of tourists, and then out along bike routes through the outskirts and…

BANG!

My first puncture, not even 5k out. The inner tube of my rear tire completely wrecked, so I laboriously replaced it before heading out of the city nervously.

Then after passing a university, a complete change of scene: following an irrigation canal along dusty tracks with an arid sienna landscape stretched out into the distance, the odd rusty factory belching away at the horizon. Desolate yet eerily beautiful. Odd sewer pipes poking out here and there like mini-bunkers or glacial boulders. I half expect to see Mad Max thundering along on an armoured motorbike.

But instead, I have loads of delicate bikers coming this way and that.

The track was mostly easy to ride, but coming into the outskirts of Alcala de Guadaira, it got more and more irregular and bumpy, hard work for my poor bike, and then in the valley under the town, the track broke up altogether so I had to walk for a bit, dragging my bike up a muddy slope.

Beyond that, almost no one on the bike track as I passed a military base and women’s prison, the track following the perimeter fence for a few kilometres on the edge of a plateau.  Stunning views to my right down into the valley and beyond, over to mountains in the distance but hard work in a dry heat, constantly focusing on the track ahead and grinding my way.

It was like riding Italy’s famous Strade Bianche: the white mud roads raced on. Worryingly, my gears were starting to slip here and there, with no prospect of seeing a bike mechanic at my destination.

After 10 hard kilometres of this and 40 for the day, I decided to abandon the track and head uphill at the town of El Viso del Alcor, connecting with the main road to Carmona. It was not scenic but it was reasonably direct, up and down for a final 10 kilometers before uphill and through the beautiful town of Carmona, my gears shifting erratically, and my hotel on the edge of a cliff at the edge of the town. A quite splendid view down to the valley and beyond: buttes, farms, horses, sheep all in the setting sun.

But I was exhausted, feeling the heat and grind and the effects of hard days before my holiday. After a quick shower and lie down, I headed out through the streets in the setting sun, a very agreeable place… and then had to wait an eternity for dinner… Spain.

I sat outside having a cool glass of sherry, hake in green sauce and chopped steak in whisky, before deciding to end the evening back at my hotel with a further two media raciones of fideaua of shrimp and a tempura of aubergines with honey… I waddled off, a bit full, but after a hard first day, I had deserved it…

Sunday 10 October: Carmona – Palma del Rio: 54 km

There are advantages to spending a day going uphill: you often start the next day with a glorious descent… and so I did.

But first, breakfast, and if you are going to pay extra for a hotel breakfast, then you should take full advantage, and I did. Scrambled egg, green beans, fried ham, cheese, Iberian ham, croissant, pastries, three cups of coffee and a discreet few pastries and sandwich for the road ahead.

Out on the road, a wonderful slow and almost straight descent over 13km, never having to touch my brakes and waving nonchalantly at the Sunday riders straining their way up. But just a touch of wind….

And then the descent ended and I turned East… into the wind. It wasn’t relentless or massively strong, but it did sap me over the hours. I cycled through the plain: ploughed fields and more irrigation canals parallel to the mighty Guadalquivir, though I hardly saw the river itself. It was not the most stimulating of rides: a day for quietly grinding out the kilometres and getting your legs used to riding with a heavy pack.

But I did pass through cotton-growing country and clearly in harvesting season too, a first for me: like seeing snow over fields. And then the first of many orange and lemon groves, a novelty to my northern European eyes.

Then to Palma del Rio, and an overnight stay in a converted monastery. It was a little spartan but fine. The place had little to see, but it was nice to wander around and see people enjoying themselves on a Sunday night in a fairground area. And I had a decent dinner served by a friendly waiter: gazpacho with all the trimmings, grilled razor clams, and beef cheeks in gravy with chips.

Monday 11 October: Palma del Rio – Cordoba – 60km

After a poor breakfast at the monastery, out into the town for my most important task of the day: getting my bike fixed.

By all accounts, there only appeared to be one bike shop in town: “JR Whelee” and it did not look promising when I rolled up: half empty with motorbikes and hardware more visible than bikes.

But the owner was an amiable old man and tolerated my awful Spanish as I tried to explain my problems. Without a word of complaint, for an hour he fiddled with my gears, listening to the rhythm and trying to diagnose the problem, and also gently pointing out that when I had replaced my rear tire after the puncture, I had put it on the wrong way, with the tire treads pointing backwards rather than forwards. And after all this and assuring himself that all was well with my gears, he sent me on my way, refusing any payment whatsoever. A beautiful man.

Then on my way, back into the wind and rising heat: flat and featureless for the first 25 km but then on the outskirts of Posadas, my GPS told me to turn off the main road and onto a rutted cattle track. As I stood there pondering my options, two mountain bikers came up the track. When I asked them if it was passable, one looked at me with a “Not with that kind of bike” look but I figured that I had no choice, so for the best part of one very jolty up and down kilometres, I struggled with my bike like a recalcitrant mule, before the GPS instructed me to join the main road… that it had so painfully taken me off… a total waste of effort.  Sometimes it pays to plan routes more carefully.

The main road did not last too long and there was a decent hard shoulder to ride along before I was directed off and up some painful hills to the glorious sight of the Castillo del Almodovar, looming up. I sat and had lunch in the visitors’ car park, smugly surveying those who had driven up there, before heading down the other side…

Sadly that was my fun for the rest of the day: quiet and boring farm roads and then a horrible ride along a ribbon development whose town planner had decided to make things more interesting for motorists by studding the road with hundreds of almost invisible sleeping policemen.

For kilometre after kilometre, I cursed him and his fascist inclinations as my bike hopped over one after another of his fascist monstrosities. Perhaps his fascist brother had a side-line in selling tires or his fascist sister worked for a haemorrhoid cream manufacturing company, or both.  “These delightful fascist traffic calming measures are sponsored by Anu-salve, the cream that softens and purifies. Visit your local pharmacist now. Fascist.”

Mercifully my apartment in Cordoba was great: top floor, tastefully decorated, A/C, kitchen, nice shower, very quiet, good Wi-Fi, safe space for my bike outside, and not too far from everything. No fascists.

Dinner however was disagreeable. I started at one fancy place where I was offered half a table with one of those annoying bar stools and served a bowl of rancid acidic salmorejo, so bad that I paid the bill quickly and set out for somewhere else to remove the taste.

The only place that had a table – or rather an upturned barrel – was served by a woman in her twenties who walked around with her mask on her chin and barely covered the mouth when she came over to take my order and ask me about whether I was happy with my Kindle. Still the food was good: fried anchovies and fried cod: deliciously moist.

Tuesday 12 October: Cordoba – rest day

A day off. A chance to get some rest, wash my clothes, and gently wander around Cordoba. The town was full of people on Spanish national day, still rather unsettling in these virus times. I wandered around in a fairly aimless fashion, avoiding anywhere too crowded, but quietly ticking off major sights that I had wanted to see.

After a lunch of pleurotes with prawns followed by a ceviche served in a wine bottle sliced in half lengthwise, I took a pleasant afternoon nap and then headed over to the must-see of Cordoba: the Mezquita, the remains of an Arab mosque. I had been there before but knew that I must get back. The mosque is famous for its fantastic pillars, pulled together by several layers of arches in alternating red and white.

I arrived later than planned, with only just over half an hour to closure. I was quietly ticked off for my late entrance by the ticket office. “Bah” I thought, “I am not going to need more than ten minutes…”.

How wrong I was! The mosque was even more entrancing than I had remembered: a place of magnificent contemplation, helped by there being relatively few other visitors. We had time to wander around its immensity, taking in new visions not just of those fantastic arches but the mihrab and golden chapels, and in the middle, that most defiant of messages from the Reconquista: a fully blown white Catholic cathedral… I remember my shock the first time: a jolt of religion and style, aggressively breaking out of the mezquita and lunging to the heavens. I lingered in the arches of the mezquita, taking it all in, bathing in its coolness and subdued light.

Wednesday 13 October: Cordoba – Zuheros: 71km

The first of the hard days. I could have followed the Guadalquivir along its lazy, boring and gusty valley, but to me, the point of bike touring is to see a country properly not get through it as quickly as possible.

A magnificent morning to be out riding: relatively cool and sunny, and hardly a soul on the street as I threaded my way along the river, out through the suburbs, and surprisingly quickly out into the hills along a well paved and gently rising road with hardly any traffic. A joy to be on my bike!

Within a few kilometres, I was high above it all, cresting up and down along mostly easy roads, in a stunningly empty landscape of yellow and brown hills with lonely farmhouses and fincas in dimpled valleys below.

I felt beautifully alone and detached from the miseries and fears of the last years. Until the final kilometres of my ride, I only came across one cyclist, exchanging that delicate outstretched tilt of the wrist that Spanish riders use to salute each other, a sort of half-wank tilt. But I was passed by plenty of grumpy and unimpressed farmers…

I quietly congratulated myself on a job well done as I rode into one of the few towns along my route, the charming town of Castro del Rio and bought some cool drinks from a tienda whose friendly owner beckoned me inside. 43km done and 610m climbed and feeling good.

But as soon as I left the town, the real climbing began: 28 kilometres but a whopping 740m of climbing, most of it packed in the first 20 k. And on a broilingly hot and sweaty afternoon.

As I ground my way up hill after hill, stopping now and then to deal with the sweat and drink water, I attracted an increasing audience of interested onlookers every bit as zealous and crazy as the masses of the Tour de France or Vuelta a España. Flies everywhere, throwing themselves in front of me as if it were the narrow mob on the Alpe d’Huez. I gave them my full Bernard Hinault, swatting them out the way to little avail.

But the scenery was again magnificent: mile upon mile of olive groves like corncob braids on a brown head but with green trees and cliffs in the distance, and then the town of Doña Mencia gleaming white in the distance in the setting sun.

Then, after a brutal but short ascent, along the Via Verde, a converted railway track, to the outskirts of Zuheros, and a final desperate 20% incline up into…

And you know what? I got off my bike and walked. Because it’s a bloody holiday and I don’t need to wreck my tendons trying to prove that I can get a heavily laden bike up there. My rules, people, my rules…

The town itself was amiable but rather basic: narrow streets in the increasing gloom. I set out for a circuit of the town, rather late as the sun was nearly set. Feeling exhausted after nearly 1400 metres of climbing, but glad to have done it. A world away from the hubbub of Cordoba. Magic.

Thursday 14 October: Zuheros – Jaén: 74 km

A day spent following the Vias Verdes, the green bike path routes following abandoned railway lines. First the Subbetica and then the Aceite or olive.

For all that, quite hard work, with the bike path often rutted or sandy, meaning that one had to keep one’s eyes on the path ahead. Old railway bridges had been left with their wooden buffers intact, giving one the option of either cycling carefully along the narrow side of the buffers or taking them head on, a jolting, buffeting ride. In some places, I had no choice with the sides taken up with metal girders with rusted nails sticking out, forcing me into that horrible ride over the buffers.

Yet a beautiful ride, downhill for an eternity, gently losing the height that I had so painfully acquired the day before. Mostly olive groves stretching out in the distance but the geology was constantly changing: changes of hue and rock every few kilometres and at one point a vast arid basin stretching to my right. I wish that I had the knowledge to make sense of it.

Hardly a soul out there, hardly a breeze as again the temperature cranked remorselessly up into the low thirties.

I had it almost all to myself, seeing more rabbits scurrying from their hiding places at the sound of me than other people. Starlings all around, a stray cat, lizards.

And loads and loads of startled rabbits.

And my bike certainly gave them advance warning. Whilst my friend at JR Whelee had cured the randomly switching gears and I was no longer worried about another tire explosion, my seat had been making an annoying creaking noise as I laboured up hills or pushed hard on the pedals. 

Ordinarily with noises, you find the right place and squirt a little oil or grease, but with this, where to squirt? So I put up with it, wondering how in hell I could explain it to a bike

On the outskirts of the ugly town of Martos, I stopped for a late sandwich lunch, only to notice that my seat post had begun to slip. The bolt to tighten it was almost impossible to turn, having been worn away. So I did my best, happy that at least I only had an hour to ride.

While removing the seat post, another bolt dropped off. I looked and I looked but could not find where it had come from. Everything looked in place.

So I pocketed the bolt and made a mental note to ask the bike mechanic whose help I would need on my seat post.

After a slightly nervous trip into Jaén, I found a bike shop: Ciclos de Luna and manoeuvred my laden bike inside. A kind guy took a look and removed the bolt, tailoring a new bolt to replace it, clamping, filing, banging, tweaking… and refusing any payment, happily sending me on my way, saved yet again. (And by the way, with a strong command of the English language, much better than my basic Spanish.)

And checking into my hotel in the centre of town, I realised that I had forgotten to ask him about the mystery bolt. Oh well, no harm done… I’m sure I’ll come across a bike mechanic sooner or later…

My hotel was one of those old corporate town centre hotels: rather soulless but just fine. Decent A /C, shower, breakfast, the lot… I took time out to wander around the city and in particular its magnificent cathedral, before having a rather lacklustre dinner of oversalted tuna and tomatoes in the old town.

Friday 15 October: Jaén – Úbeda: 58 km

Fuelled by yet another colossal hotel breakfast, back on the road again and quickly out of Jaén and mile upon mile of olive groves, but so peaceful and splendid and above it all.

I spent the morning up in the hills, almost plateauing along a lonely but mostly well-paved farm road. Despite its apparent emptiness, there were regular snatches of Spanish and – more common – Arabic from the olive trees and the warm greetings of farm workers rather than the supercilious contempt of their bosses in tractors.

There was a wonderful serenity to it all as I continued to release myself emotionally after the stresses of the previous months. The hills gave me not just a break from the petty squabbles and emotional confrontations, but a slow deflation of them. To be away on holiday is a marvellous luxury at any time, but in October when you have the satisfaction of knowing that your co-workers are slogging away, even greater.

But as ever, there was a price in the afternoon, a long slow climb along the hard shoulder of a dual carriageway to Baeza: 420 metres of climbing at 5% and often 7-8%, with the temperature again pushing thirty degrees, sweat pouring out of my eyebrows. I dared not look up because then the sweat would start pouring in a worse way. And as ever, the goading presence of those black flies, taunting my slowness.

And to make things worse, my stomach started to act up. After days of splendid overindulgence in the evening, working my way through the Spanish and Andalusian repertoire and shoving cheese and salami in a bread roll into myself on the road with reckless disregard, my stomach had lost its patience.

By the time I reached Baeza in the thick of the afternoon, I had reached a decision. I spotted a lonely but posh hotel on the outskirts, dismounted from my bike, put my face mask on, wheeled my fully loaded bike through the doors and approached the front desk.

“¿Es posible utilisar sus aseos?”…

“Si, claro”.

So leaving my bike and bags in reception, sweating profusely and gripping my stomach, I headed for the toilets…

The rest, my friends, is history…

A little later, I struggled into the nearby town of Ubeda, ready for another day off and into an apartment with an owner who I never meet but who bestows me with the mysterious codes needed. A nice place but lacking in… decent WiFi, and… condiments… A bath mat… Table mats… coffee… clothes wash… head space. But at least there is space to store my bike safely… With its strangely squeaky seat and unexplained bolt…

So how best to treat a bruised stomach? With a stupendous dinner of apple salmorejo – a revelation – and flamenquin: rolled steak in ham and cheese sauce, all washed down with a few tasteful glasses of vino tinto… for purely medicinal purposes.

Though oddly, I feel strangely queasy afterwards… Must be the cycling…

And where are Samantha and Paco? They should have arrived a long time ago.