Fair Weather Bikers

My air bed had gone down during the night so I woke up on the floor, and I wasn't in the best of moods. Nig also wasn't in a terribly good mood - but that was more to do with the copious amounts of alcohol he had consumed the previous evening! Packing was very hard work.

It was another cloudy start to the day, but it was very warm and the sun soon started to burn through. Unfortunately Nig's bike was out of petrol - so our first priority was finding a petrol station. This turned out to be very easy indeed – I simply asked the GPS and it directed us to one just over a mile away.

As soon as we set off my mood improved as the scenery was stunning. The road to the petrol station snaked down between two very green mountains scatted with pine trees. I was a very happy man knowing I was very lucky to be able to ride my bike in such a fantastic place.

Our plan for this day was to head over the mountains into France - travel east a way in France then head south back into Spain to our camp-site. We filled up and then headed back up the hill. It wasn't long before we joined the road that took us over the mountain.

The road was fantastic, switchback after switchback separated by nice twisties with awesome views. As usual there was very little traffic - the majority of it being cyclists.

As we reached the top we saw that the French side was covered in cloud. As soon as we got to the other side a wall of fog descended upon us with a fine mist of rain. At first this was quite nice and refreshing, but I soon got very tired of it as visibility was very bad and the hairpin bends seemed to leap out on us.

Eventually we descended below the cloud layer - and luckily it wasn't raining, so we stopped at a nice cafe for a coffee and baguette. We carried on into France but the weather was very hit and miss and the roads were not as good as on the Spanish side, so we decided to continue heading east until the next road south back to Spain.

Nig had been experiencing a wobble on his bike - so we pulled over in a small French town to check his luggage. He took all his luggage off, but his wobble remained. He said it wasn't too bad and he could live with it so we re-loaded his bike and carried on.

By this time the sun was starting to burn through the cloud, and the scenery was getting a lot better. We were on a nice winding road heading south back to Spain. The road was following a river and was lined by large rock cliffs. On top of one of these cliffs was a castle that looked like it had been built into the rock itself - it looked stunning - but unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of it.

The road we were on, rather than going over the mountains, went through a tunnel back into Spain. Inside the tunnel was very cold - but as soon as we emerged on the other side we were hit with a blast of hot air as the heat hit us. The weather was a lot better in Spain!

We stopped for petrol - where Nig checked his tyre pressures, they were a little high - so he took some air out. When we continued on his wobble had gone!

We then turned off the southbound road to head east towards our planned camp-site in Ainsa. Before we turned off we were on a plain with mountains surrounding us, as soon as we turned east we entered a region which would not look out of place in a wild west film. The road, as we'd come to expect by now in Spain, was fantastic. The surface was brilliant, it twisted and turned it's way around and over the mountains, had virtually no other traffic on it and the views were stunning.

At one point we came around a mountain and were looking over a magnificent landscape where you could visibly see where the tectonic plates had butted up against one other and raised up to become massive mountains.

After 30 very satisfying but also very tiring miles we joined the main road heading south into Ainsa. We were about 8 miles from the camp-site going through a town. I glanced in my mirror and Nig was there, I overtook a car, then glanced again and Nig was nowhere to be seen.

I stopped and looked behind me - no Nig. So I turned round and started heading back. It was a great relief when I saw Nig parked at the side of the road - but he was looking very shook up. I pulled over and asked what was up.

It turned out a bird had flown by and actually entered his helmet through his visor. It was flapping like a mad thing against Nig's face as he desperately tried to stop his bike unable to see a thing. Luckily he had a Caberg flip-up helmet on, so as soon as he stopped he was able to flip the front and get the bird out of his lid, but not before it pooped all over him first! It was a little while before Nig had settled down enough to carry on again!

The camp-site (Camping Peña Montañesa) was very well equipped, but we noticed it was water-logged in places. We figured they must have had a heavy shower just before we arrived. We didn't camp up in the place allocated to us as it was like a swamp but chose a dryer pitch instead.

We had a pizza on the site which was very nice. One thing we realised was that we were not eating very well and were spending most of our time hungry. We vowed we would improve this, and try to ensure we always had a good breakfast early in the day.

Getting into the Spanish thing, we bought some sangria from the on-site supermarket, and chilled out by the tents, in our shorts and t-shirts as it was still very warm. It turned out neither me or Nig particularly like sangria, but we battled our way through it anyway!

We turned in for the night at some time between 11pm and 12pm. As soon as I got in my tent I heard a pitter-patter as rain gently started to fall...