Good cop, bad cop

I really like Beck’s blogging style. It reminds me of a more innocent time. An internet before social media. Most of the more snarky aspects of her posts are things I have added when reviewing what Beck has written, and even then she will sometimes change them to a milder version of my cutting (and deftly witty) remarks. What I think is occasionally missing though is an insight into the vulnerabilities and sometimes icky details of life on the road. So, I have chosen to write this post as a bit of a counterpoint to Beck’s recent post on Spain. Maybe this will become a theme. A sort of good cop, bad cop routine. My Hutch to her Starsky. My Boris Johnson to her John Major…let’s see. For now, I’m just going to fill in some of the gory details from our first few days in Spain because although we are loving life on the road it poses many novel and interesting challenges too.

Day 1 - Beck mentioned the need for a stamp in her passport. What she didn’t mention was the fact that we decided we should get one in mine to corroborate our travel together, only we forgot this plan until after we’d passed through passport control. We then had a stressful couple of minutes while we plucked up the courage to go back. On doing so, we went to the wrong kiosk (doh!), against the flow of traffic, and asked for a stamp that the chap insisted I didn’t need. I tried to explain why we needed it and we got it, but as I find passport control stressful enough as it is, this was an unwelcome mess up.

Day 2 - Beck covered a fair bit of the bad sides to Day 2 but I wanted to add a bit of gory detail. For example, the guy with the dog and the shotgun seemed agitated with us initially. He also remembered that he should probably unload his shotgun partway through our conversation, breaking it and taking out the live cartridges as we spoke. This was the first time I was confident that we’d won him over. The hike-a-bike climb from there featured some crazy sections, lowering the bike down banks and pushing through gaps that were too narrow for bike and person side by side. I was wearing my sandals and shorts and got really cut up by brambles. I also thought I saw a snake at the top and on taking remedial action, I got loads of grass in my belt which lifted it off the sprocket. We stopped at the top to get it back on and away we went. Unusually for us, we were on a bit of a schedule for this section, as we needed to get to my brother’s place on time, and even by this stage on Day 2 we were behind, and the deeply rutted and waterlogged section was yet to come! That section needs no further bad cop explanation really. It was hard graft with two fully loaded tourers and the whole thing set us so far back for the day that we just had to camp somewhere without thinking about it too much. This was our first night wild camping in Spain and we weren’t happy, worrying about being found, by human or another mammal…or in my case by snakes. The wind was also pretty strong and stuff kept falling out if the trees around us. It was a very unrestful night.

Day 3 - Again, Beck covered some of the negative stuff that happened at the start of Day 3 but let me just add how this sort of thing makes us feel. Firstly, losing my sandal was an arse. We didn’t realise until it was too late and my efforts to find it were in vain. Your gear all has a purpose when touring as we do, so I had lost part of my system as well as just a sandal. Moreover, this was littering. Albeit unintentional. That’s the bit that gets to us the most if ever we lose something. We have a strong sense that we must leave no trace and with this error we’d left a bloomin’ sandal somewhere on the hill. This was closely followed by Beck’s stand mount starting to sheer off, which made me very anxious as I was worried it might weaken the fork and put paid to our trip. I think, having chatted with Ben who made our bikes, that we should be fine but these stresses are very raw in the moment. It was an upsetting morning after a poor sleep. Never an ideal combination.

As Beck alluded to, the sleep we had at the end of this day wasn’t much better. Soon enough this stuff starts to compound. The season helps a little as we can at least get twelve hours of broken sleep in between dusk and dawn.

Day 4 - We had a nice breakfast in a layby partway up the climb before setting off up some steep and technical sections. In fact, as Beck mentioned, the morning was really, really UP at times and the wind and rain were kicking our arse too. I also had my belt ratchet a couple of times on the really steep stuff, when injecting some extra power. We realised it had loosened a little, so we stopped to tighten it together, by adjusting the eccentric bottom bracket. All good, but just more stress on a morning that had already made me a little grumpy. When I am grumpy I can be a bit mean. This can come out as snarks or worse, with Beck bearing the brunt of it. Beck can be grumpy too. I guess people are going to get grumpy with each other under these conditions but it’s not something I’m proud of. Must try harder…

Beck also failed to mention that we’d decided to treat ourselves to our first meal out in Villarcayo but we were famished long before the Spanish even start serving food in bars, so it was back to the hostel for sandwiches and cake.

Day 5 - The day to Herrán was good but we were also pretty tired by the end and there was a fair bit of climbing in the final section. The camp spot we ended up choosing was stressing me out a little, as it was the most public spot we’d ever sought to camp. That led us to wander about looking for less conspicuous spots, when we could’ve just been relaxing.

Day 6 - Beck failed to mention that this day started with an Emergency Poo. More on that below. It is however rather a change for us to have next to no access to public toilets in Spain. And those that we have found have all been locked. This has made us uncomfortable—or worse—on a number of occasions. As Beck mentioned, we made it to a campsite near Pobes. We did so in good time and I was pleased to have some time to clean and check over the bikes. I like to do this regularly to try to catch any issues before they get worse. This was a little background stress I had running since Day 2, as I could never find the time to clean the bikes (given how horribly messy they were), let alone do any checking over etc.

This brings me on to a general list of background stresses that apply at all times…in list form (Good Cop [GC] has decided to add her comments into this section too):

// Bike maintenance issues - What do we do if X happens? / Where’s the next bike shop? / Are we carrying everything we need? / Should I even be doing this trip if I don’t know how to cope with X, Y, Z?

GC - This is particularly stressful for Sam as we have our “roles” and the maintenance falls under Sam’s general care which I rely on greatly. Even so, we know of tourers who set off not knowing anything and they survive. We have had some really helpful maintenance training, we learn on the job, bike shops exist and people are generally willing to help you out.

// Charging gear - Mainly a question of will we lose our ability to navigate. We are always a little obsessed with finding charging opportunities but haven’t got anywhere near having an issue yet.

GC - Our Igaros have been fantastic and this relieves a lot of the stress of charging, unless we’re going too slowly up hill for anything meaningful to happen through the dynamo. A worry that is subsiding.

// Routing issues - Is the chosen route too hard? Too remote? What happened to Type One Fun? Beck and I differ in where we draw our lines on this. Hopefully she at least enjoys the rewards of the slog some days ;)

GC - Sam is a far more confident and skillful rider than me, plus he has a head that doesn’t tell him to give up easily. I still get frustrated when I think I can’t do something and my head fails first. We are relaxing into doing things at our own pace as we’re not the same type of rider (I am not a thrill seeker by any stretch of the imagination). I do love being in nature and the outdoors which makes these tricky bits worth it and the sense of achievement of getting to the top (however you did it) is addictive.

// Language barrier - This mostly causes an issue when people are trying to chat with us but it also gives us the fear if anyone were to have an issue with something we were doing. For example, with where we had camped or chosen to ride. We’d struggle to explain ourselves and that makes us feel vulnerable.

GC - I find this particularly hard. In the UK we both have a smile and can usually disarm any kind of conflict (although it is something we both avoid). Not having the gift of the gab, we find ourselves practicing what we might say if faced with a challenge. We’ve barely seen a soul through in the wilderness of Spain, just heard lots of dogs. When we did feel a bit uncomfortable wild camping in an area, we decided to book into a nearby hostel instead. It’s our trip and our rules so when budget allows, we can make ourselves more comfortable every now and then.

// Food and water - Beck worries for both of us about these issues…despite the abundance of water spouts across our travels in Spain so far. On balance, I think we get this about right because adding hunger or thirst to ‘tired’ is a sure fire way to make more ‘grumpy’.

GC - this one falls under my role, particularly because I’m the one who becomes most difficult when tired and hungry. I *think* that this is improving and I’m now better at handling it. I just want to be prepared and found this particular line in this article about women in the wilderness especially poignant “I think a lot of women tend to underestimate what they can do, and feel like we have to be overly prepared”. I’m constantly assessing every situation and running through my outcomes and options but it does get easier over time.

// Not finding time for other stuff - Both of us are aware that we mostly just have time for touring, touring and more touring. We’ve addressed some of our previous inability to visit sites and take time off by reducing our daily distance but, aside from a bit of blog post writing, we aren’t managing to make much time for stuff like my art projects etc. We will though! In fact, I’ve been doing a lot more field recording lately, which is a start.

GC - thanks to a great chat with another Tourer, Isa, I discovered that her time disappeared too so we’re not alone in this one.

// Budgets - Money is always there as a consideration. In fact, Spain has eased this issue a little. So far, in Norway we were over budget, in the UK we were on budget and in Spain we have been about 1/3 under budget so far. Nice!

GC - loving the fresh bread and cakes at good value, thanks Spain!

Oh and that Emergency Poo. Poor Beck has had a bad tummy a fair bit on our trip so far. We’re not really sure what’s causing it but it has resulted in three minor ‘accidents’ so far and some rather uncomfortable moments. Sorry to mention this Beck but any Bad Cop worth their salt would have to…

GC - yeah, this has been an ongoing annoyance. It happened in Norway and has happened again in Spain. I cannot whittle it down to anything specific, as so much has changed (diet, water, routine, big hills, greater mileage, general stress of a new country). So, at the moment I’m putting it down to overall stress/change which seems to be the biggest player - see the content of this blog and hopefully it settles down, like it did in Norway. We did not foresee this one in our planning…

———————

It’s worth mentioning that these issues are small and manageable, compared even to things like a boiler breaking or, worse still, issues your children may be facing etc. These concerns are also part of the minute-to-minute way Beck and I now live. A modern term for being in the moment this way might be mindfulness. It makes us feel alive, so I am in no way complaining about our lot…I just wanted to alter the filter settings on Beck’s post a little, like the Bad Cop I am.

GC - agreed, it’s not all sunshine and roses but it’s a pretty fantastic way to be spending our time for which we are very grateful.

This is also set against how cycling makes us feel, how we like exploring different places, experiencing nature and meeting people. Deep down, cycling makes Beck especially feel good.