8. Pigs on the Wheel.

12.11.23 – 17.11.23 : Montpellier – Barcelona

PSA: This is my final blog post of Phase 1. As a result, it’s a little longer. It’s also the piece of writing I feel most connected with so far. I hope you find the time to give it a read. From this point on, thanks to the feedback of some readers better acquainted with the maze of marketing – thanks, Hannah! – I’ll be releasing blog posts on Sundays. Consistency is, apparently, key. So there you go: expect to receive some of my ramblings on some, if not all, Sundays in the coming year!

After two days of romantic solitude (duolitude?) with your lover, it feels hard to don Lycra once more and hit the road. Ellie I had two happy days together in Montpellier once Soph and Joe had hopped on the TGV and begun the mammoth task of traveling back overland to Oxford with a bike box in tow. Before Montpellier, it’d been less than a month since Ellie and I parted ways in London. The distance had been tough, and reconvening oh so sweet. But we felt the looming presence of greater challenges ahead. Two consecutive four-month stints apart would pose a real challenge in the new year. Despite knowing we’d reunite in four days in Barcelona – Ellie’s new home – the context of future loneliness weighed heavy. It was a tearful goodbye.

If Madonna was pleased to have me straddling her once more, she didn’t let on. Not much of a substitute for a flesh-and-blood partner, eh? I set off at dusk to pedal the few kilometres out of Montpellier and find a suitable spot to pitch camp. Unfortunately, these few kilometres happened to be on the hard-shoulder of a motorway. Cars and lorries tore past full of people excited to get home to a comfortable bed. Sunday evenings are typically known for their cosiness (and for reading blog posts, right?). Not for pitching a tent as stealthily as possible, 20 metres from a motorway, in the shadow of an abandoned power station. I crawled into my sleeping bag and watched half an hour of a film I’ve seen a dozen times before my phone ran out. In the night, I heard a helicopter circling and convinced myself a whole special ops team had been assigned to turf me out of this particular neck of the woods. It was surely a matter of national security. 

I was up at the crack of dawn and did The Régime (my morning stretching routine) on the same patch of concrete where I’d pitched my tent. The Régime had come about on the advice of Alistair Humphreys (the father of reckless pragmatism I told you about) after we’d met for coffee in London a few weeks before setting off. Make sure you stretch, he’d said, I cycled around the world for four years and didn’t stretch once. That was the only bit of cycling advice he’d given. We’d spent the rest of the time talking about writing and adjusting to life after a big bike trip. It had been a few days since I’d last Régime-d so, even in the 6am chill, I was sweating within minutes. This attracted a swarm of hungry mosquitos. I broke off my Régime-ing to lunge for one after the other of these evil creatures. Still stretching of some sort, I thought. I have a hunch mornings like these will become all the more frequent, come Africa. 

Now ridin’ solo, it felt important to begin crafting my daily routine. I believe some sort of routine is important, at least for me. As someone who’s often tempted by the abundance of exciting options life presents, without routine I’d be too easily pulled away from all the crucial but boring tasks like stretching, brushing my teeth, eating breakfast and killing blood-sucking insects. Just because my life has moved from domestic to nomadic, it doesn’t mean my routine has to slip into similar unpredictability. If anything, it becomes even more important to ground you amidst the constant change. 

So, three of four boring tasks ticked, I set off to find breakfast. Another routine I aimed to adopt was the 40km / 2-hour rule. When riding any meaningful distance, I find it helpful to block the day into 40km / 2-hour stints, whichever comes first. So, for example, on a 120km day, I know I have three riding blocks and I can choose how I split those. I find it most satisfying when I can dispatch a block pre-breakfast. That was the plan today. 

Pre-breakfast is possible, but pre-coffee is ambitious. I stopped at the first sign of life in Sête, one of the small towns flanking the motorway that, somehow, remained  Komoot’s best suggestion for a bike-friendly route out of Montpellier. Sête is a town where people know one another. I sat outside drinking my French coffee (the type that’s unpalatable without at least half the accompanying sugar sachet) and listened as cars honked their way through town, waving at the various friends they saw. It put my own loneliness into focus. My first real day of riding without company lay ahead. Before I could let my brooding get the better of me, I heard a honk – the loudest yet – and looked around to identify its intended recipient. Seeing no one, I looked back and saw the honker – a rotund bus driver with a bushy moustache and rosy cheeks – beaming at me and waving his arms. Must be the skin-suit. Either way, I felt grateful to be included in the convivial honk-fest and took to Madonna happier than I’d set off. 

My feeling of belonging continued when, 20km further down the road, I waited in a line of traffic for a Hogwarts-esque boat-bridge to let some sailing yachts through. One of the drivers nodded at me and beckoned through an open window. Tu vas très vite! he congratulated. Apparently he’d spotted me earlier having coffee. Hypothesis confirmed: everyone knows everyone in Sête, even me. They don’t seem like much, but when you’re faced with the prospect of four days (or four months, before long) of your own company, these little interactions really make a difference. So this goes to say: if you see a lonely Lycra-clad tourer laden with luggage, say hello. 

After my weeks touring with Top Ecologist Joe, some of his naturalism had rubbed off. Cycling along the isthmus towards the naturist hotspot (not to be confused) of Cap d’Agde, I spotted Little Egrets, Herons, and even an Otter. Given the coastal proximity, I wondered if it might be a Sea Otter; I guessed the A & B varieties resided further inland. For those of you still reading, I apologise. Still, it was a pretty special encounter. Spotting the highly elusive Eurasian Otter – whose return to the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France in 2015, after its disappearance in 1987, was only confirmed via its footprints – sparked immediate jealousy in my mum. She’s known in our family as The Otter due, in equal parts, to her love of cold water swimming and her Otter-like shyness, but she’s never seen one. A year or two back, on the Scottish Island Iona, she thought she might have spotted one and was practically levitating with excitement only to be brought back down to earth with a bump when Top Ecologist Joe identified it as a Mink. She hasn’t quite been the same since. 

But despite the incredible sights of Cap d’Agde – both naturalist and naturist – before long I found myself far from civilisation, cycling through arid scrubland. Gloomy loneliness returned as my route weaved beside multi-lane highways; great ribbons of asphalt carrying people to places they knew and people they loved. It felt like a stark reminder that, at that moment, I had neither.

[Yes I know, at this point I’ve spent a grand total of one day solo, and I’ve signed myself up to a potential 8 months in my own company. I’ll pull myself together and stop complaining. Allow, if you will, just a moment more of languid lament.]

It was hot. Choosy grey-white rock was strewn across the rolling hills. Every inch of arable land was corrugated with shriveled grapevines. I got a puncture and, for the first time this trip, sought shade to repair it. Another first: I began to think about how much water I had. Until this point, I’d been so saturated by the unending rain that I’d barely thought about consuming more liquid (unless it was of the fermented grape/hop variety). I’m known to be a bit of a camel on the bike. Cycling in Georgia with Tom and Mike last year, they’d get through 4 litres each for every 1 I managed. But now, despite stripping down to the skin on my top half, I was roasting and thirsty. I remembered a time not too long back when Joe and I would argue over the privilege of pumping up a repaired tire. 150 pumps goes a long way in generating precious body heat. Somehow it didn’t feel too precious anymore. 

Narbonne felt like a town sizable enough to have a Glacier (no, not a large, perennial accumulation of crystalline ice, snow, rock and sediment… an ice-cream parlour). Luckily, it was. It was a trois boule sort of day, the most on offer. I sent various jealousy-inducing pictures to friends, grasping at a feeling of connection. Yeah baby, this is life now! I wrote. Shit, this is life now. I thought. I dragged out the stop in Narbonne to include another acrid coffee at a bar solely occupied by men playing dice and seeking their fortunes in scratch cards. It wasn’t sensible to delay too much though. I still had a fair distance to cover before the sun set. 

A combination of the Holiday-Riding-adjustments Joe and I had made, and a few days of gastronomic indulgence in Montpellier meant I’d caved to my extremist tendencies. You know about those by now. Rather than taking the obvious route to Barecelona, hugging the coastline all the way, I’d planned a punishing Pyrenean epic, chasing big daily numbers. So I wasn’t helping future me when delays (some unavoidable, some most certainly avoidable) meant the sun was looking dangerously low in the sky with 40km still to ride. Luckily the heat was easing. I’d begun climbing into the hills of the Corbières-Fenouillèdes National Park and the elevation meant a measurable drop in temperature. Succulents were replaced by evergreens and my worry about water began to fade away as streams bubbled beside the road. 135km into what should have been a 160km day, the sun dipped behind the horizon and I, conceding defeat, dipped off the winding mountain road to camp.

Days wild camping are almost wholly dictated by the sun. It’s possible to pitch up after dark, but it’s harder to tell if you’re inadvertently incroaching on, for example, the mouth of a bear’s lair. If only Joe could reassure me that the Brown Bear population of the Pyrenees sits at a meagre 70, and that their home is not an ominously-named lair, but rather a playful-sounding den. It’s not often you land on a perfect spot first time round, but tonight I managed it. A flat grassy square, a stones thrown from the road, beside a dead-end track. No bears/lairs in sight. And little risk of being disturbed. Just in the nick of time, too. By the time I’d pitched, it was pitch black. At this time of year, pitch black arrives at about 6pm. That leaves a lot of evening to kill; enough thumb-twiddling to burn a measurable number of calories. 

Luckily, I had some tent admin to do. Despite all my attempts to live a totally wild, off-grid life on the bike, the real world has a near gravitational pull that keeps dragging you back. So tonight I had to tackle two titillating tasks: 

(i) (Excitingly) Plead Guilty! 

Whilst living it up in MP (my very cool Montpellier abbreviation that makes me feel like Mr. Worldwide), I’d been informed that something had gone awry with a speeding ticket I’d picked up earlier in the year. Despite paying the fine – and assuring the Metropolitan County of West Yorkshire that I’d certainly not be speeding in the near future… Madonna doesn’t go that fast, you see – I’d omitted to submit my license details. This meant I was now, officially, a Criminal, and had to plead guilty or accept my new identity as a fugitive. Given Madonna is useless as a getaway vehicle, I chose the former. 

(ii) (Less excitingly) Transfer Wifi Ownership!

I’ll save you an explanation of this. It’s just plain boring admin. 

However exciting the first task seemed, it was easy, if a little laborious. Waves of guilt washed over me, I promise. Task (ii), by comparison, was a painful process. It took two hours of deep online discussion with Kaanchanadhwaja – that involved him asking 12 consecutive security questions about as many times – to emerge triumphant. Still, it had felt good having someone to talk to. I’d made a Big Plan to cover the distance I’d slacked on today by waking at 4am and hitting the road to knock off two blocks before breakfast. However, the Fort Knox security of Vodafone had pushed bedtime to 11pm. The Big Plan evaporated as quickly as it had formed and I found myself setting off at a little past 9am the next morning. 

Despite this, the day took a wonderful form. I have another arbitrary rule when riding – as I’m writing this, I’m realising just how many of these I have – which is that I only allow myself the comfort of headphones after ticking off at least half the day’s distance. Given yesterday I’d done a full day unplugged, so to speak, I adjusted my rule, carried my half-day forward and put my headphones in. This was a good decision. As I rode, I listened to most of Pink Floyd’s discography. Perhaps it was my involved conversation with Kaanchanadhwaja, or the relief of Pleading Guilty, or just a good night’s sleep – who knows? – but today I felt much more integrated; far happier in my own company; downright grateful that I had the chance to travel like this, under my own steam, for the foreseeable future. It felt like the right choice. 

The comforting acoustic of Pigs on the Wing carried me up the final stretch of climbing I’d abandoned the day before and I cruised down into Couiza for coffee. There, I sat outside and watched as a dreadlocked local, head encased in enormous headphones, danced in the sun. A mother and daughter greeted him like an old friend and the three of them sat on a bench next to me, the daughter nestling into the bed of dreadlocks in the man’s lap. I had a brief but warm back and forth with the mother who wished me bon courage. I dived inside for a final espresso. From the bar, I could see the man, alone again, standing in a patch of sunlight and dancing carefree. Pure joy. 

I finished Animals and moved on to The Division Bell. In that moment, I decided Coming Back to Life was perhaps the most beautiful song I’d heard. Lost in thought and lost in time, I cycled, staring straight into the shining sun. I made a mental note: when in doubt – Floyd. 

Clearly I didn’t get that lost in time though as I’d only managed 50km when my GPS indicated that I was about to start the final climb of the day. Given I was cycling directly towards the Pyrenees at this point, I was confused. The rest of the day couldn’t possibly be flat. As it happens, I was right. It wasn’t. My GPS was warning me that I was about to start a 50 – five zero – kilometre climb, with 2000m of elevation. Remember, if you will, that Madonna weighs 45kg wet (i.e., carrying water). That’s about 5x as heavy as a regular bike. I prepared to sweat. 

About halfway in, I reached the mountain town of Espezel and stopped at bar Le 100 Unique. I later found out this name is a French idiom meaning there’s only one way from here. I guessed: up. A Coke, a beer and a coffee were ordered and then drunk in sequence. While I drank, I enjoyed an exchange with a labourer on his lunch break. He asked what route I was taking out of town. Since Joe had left, I’d stopped pretending to be at all geographical and let the GPS do all the heavy lifting. I shrugged in perfect French. My geographical laziness was, as usual, a mistake. There were, in fact, two ways from here. Not so unique after all. The first was a continuation of the steady gradient climb, winding up the mountain on asphalt. The second marched perpendicular to the mountain’s contours on a gravel track. Predictably, I found myself on the second. It was so steep that, for the second time this trip, I dismounted and resorted to dragging Madonna. After some sweaty, sweary struggling, the gradient slacked off just enough for me to remount. We were both battling: me for oxygen, Madonna for traction. I feel I pulled more of the weight: Madonna slipped far more often than I suffocated.

Coffee, Beer and VALLON gogs – the Coke had already been dispatched.

Then came the only descent of the overall climb – Komoot graciously allowing me to surrender some of the hard fought elevation – on a gravel track that carved sharply back down to the steadily climbing road beside us. It was short and sharp but stunningly beautiful. Madonna’s brakes squealed – with delight, or fear – and my face contorted – in a grin, or a grimace. We went as slow as gravity would allow given the slightly alarming way the ground fell away beside the track. I wondered who actually used this shortcut, beside the occasional wayward cyclist. My answer came as I raced round the final corner – of gravity’s volition, rather than my own – and came face to face with a van. I chose a direction at random and luckily the van chose the opposite. The adrenaline of the near miss was enough to power me a good way up the remainder of the climb. 

At the top I sat to admire the view. A stunning Pyrenean panorama lay before me that begged for something more than an iPhone picture. I went to retrieve my camera – a Panasonic LUMIX LX100 I’d picked up on eBay for the trip, in an attempt to add a little visual context to my endless prose – only to find that at some point between Le 100 Unique and Le Summit, it had escaped. This put a bit of a dampener on my post-climb glow. Fitter folk than me might’ve decided to retrace their steps and brave the grinding climb a second time. But I was officially spent and decided to make peace with the loss and soak up the view. At that moment, another cyclist crested the hill from the opposite direction. Djamal was out for a day ride that was about to turn into a night ride. Given he was heading down to Espezel and passing Le 100 Unique, the last known location of my camera, he kindly agreed to keep an eye out (he also kindly gave me the translation of the idiom). I’d love to say this spot of serendipity resulted in the reunion of camera and owner, but sadly the little LUMIX was lost to the mountains.

Setting off, Djamal pointed over to a small cabin nestled next to a patch of forest. If I fancied finishing up for the night, he said, I could stay there – it’s a mountain refuge. Like Scotland’s bothies, these refuges are dotted across the Pyrenees at various inaccessible locations and are free to use. They’re basic huts, equipped only with woodburners and blankets, that you can use to shelter from storms, or on multi-day adventures. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky this evening, so the storm excuse felt a little far-fetched, but I was, technically, on a multi-day adventure. Plus, I’d never stayed in a bothy before and I was curious. Excuse enough to cut the day’s riding short (again) and settle in for the night. 

Mountain Refuge with a glimpse of the Pyrenean panorama in the background.

It was still light outside but entering the cabin I was plunged into darkness, the storm-hardy shutters doing an excellent job of replicating an evening at Dans le Noir. I switched on my head torch, regretting it almost immediately. The artificial light stirred the cabin’s incumbents: a swarm of bulbus black flies that crawled out of cracks in the ceiling, and in the space between the windows and shutters. They buzzed around, lazily bouncing off various surfaces (which included my face and body). I recoiled and assessed my options away from their drone, outside the cabin. I could camp here… but I’d be exposed to the full force of the gales sweeping across the saddle overnight. I could descend… but we were swiftly losing light, and I’d soon find myself snaking down an unknown mountain pass in the dark. In the end, I landed on putting my tent up inside the cabin to act as a barrier between me and the flies. I also seemed to remember that insects aren’t too fond of smoke, so, not wishing to spend another whole evening confined to the tent, I swiftly lit a fire and smoked the buggers out. This worked a treat and I enjoyed an evening eating through a pack of honey roasted cashews by an open fire, reading my book. 

My uncle Andrew – the same uncle who accompanied Joe and I on that charming stretch of A12 on our way to Harwich – had sent a book, via my sister, to me in Montpellier. I wouldn’t usually endorse a tome as an appropriate present for someone attempting lightweight bike touring. But then again, I’d already sandbagged myself with Highway Cello, which I’d since offloaded with another Andrew in Grenoble, so I suppose I had a vacancy. Coasting is a fantastic book and one I’m glad I made space for. It’s the story of Elise Downing’s 5000-mile journey to run a lap of the UK. I’d highly recommend it as an antidote to the grandiose, testosterone-fuelled tales so often told of epic adventures like this. It made for comforting fireside reading, and a good distraction from my aerial adversaries. I slept well in the cabin, cocooned in the insect-proof mesh of my tent. I only woke once, suddenly remembering that, among the precious pictures from various holidays this Summer, my lost camera also contained some all too revealing images of me and Ellie from a happy day’s skinny dipping on a deserted stretch of Welsh coastline. I just hope we don’t end up on a provincial page trois.

Wednesday morning arrived and I woke a little colder than when I’d drifted off. The fire had died out and I heard the ominous buzzing and thudding of fat, dipterous creatures ricocheting around the cabin. I strained to look out of the window. Overnight, the clouds had descended leaving the col engulfed in a milky fog. I’d planned to meet Ellie in Barcelona on Thursday evening. This left me more than 250km of riding to tackle over two days, even via the most direct route. Oh, and the small task of crossing a mountain range. These were hard facts that no amount of avoiding would soften. So I was surprised to find myself searching for any excuse under the sun to delay my start. Descending in the mist would surely be a foolish endeavour. Plus, I’d be soaked through and have to spend the day in wet clothes. Besides, I really didn’t mind setting up camp in the dark tonight. Honest. Before long, I was sat by another roaring fire, wrapped in a storm blanket, nose in Coasting, with a fresh packet of nuts on the go.

It was 10am by the time I set off, still amidst the mist of course. After 10km, I stopped for my ritual caustic caffeine hit in Ax-les-Thermes. 

[Not to be confused with Aix-les-Bains, as I did for a moment. I suffered a minor heart attack when my googled distance to Barcelona read an alarming 743km leaving me to think I’d taken a wrong turn. As it turned out, there were still a lot of Les-Bains in this area. I was glad to be in a liberal corner of France.]

The barman serving me clearly wanted to be doing anything but that. He growled the price of a café allongé – at least twice the going rate – and turned an alarming shade when I asked to pay by card. Tail between my legs, I scampered off to the ATM and returned to find him drinking beer and smoking with his friends at one of the tables. He clearly had better things to do than entertain the requests of foreigners during prime socialising season. 

I left exact change beside my empty mug and pedalled off. Thanks to the misty morning, and the mountaintop chill, I’d opted for layering over the skin-suit rather than shorts. A decision I instantly regretted as I began to work my way up the first significant ascent of the day: a 20km grind, climbing the length of a valley. Before long, I’d stripped off my top layers leaving me in just the skin-suit. This is no different from a gymnast’s leotard: a one piece combining leggings and a skin-tight tank top with a suggestively swooping neckline. I’d include a picture, but thankfully I’ve lost my camera. This particular look is a Tom Osborne special (my friend who tackled the UK to China epic last year) and attracts attention wherever you are in the world. No wonder, then, that I received more than the usual level of honking encouragement as I struggled up the climb. 

With my GPS showing a tantalising 0.5km remaining of the climb, I stood, unimpressed, at the mouth of an enourmous tunnel. Staring me in the face was a very clear NO BIKES sign. I saw the blue vein of my digital route snaking through the belly of the mountain. Cheers, Komoot. At least Barcelona was, at last, signposted. Frustratingly, I read: Barcelone par tunel – 178km; Barcelone par col – 220km. I was attracting enough vehicular attention as it was, without intruding on their sacred tunnel. It’d have to be the col. 

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment the Crazy Idea first crept into my mind; perhaps it was a parrying reaction to the punishment of another 25km of climbing, or the fact that Barcelona had finally appeared on the roadsigns, or simply the altitude going to my head (this particular Col – de Puymorens – tops out a little over 2000m). But at some point on that bonus climb, I started to fantasise about the idea of completing the ride to Barcelona in one push. It was already early afternoon by the time I topped out Puymorens and I only had a little over 50km under my belt. That left a touch over 200km to go. Regardless of how I tackled it, I had some serious riding to do to make my Thursday evening deadline.

I stopped at the summit to do some people-watching and gorge myself on an almond croissant that had been crushed to little more than a few millimetres thick in my pannier. Wa-fer thin. A serious cyclist lounged over his handlebars, having ascended from the other direction far quicker than his riding companion. Said companion wheezed into view, hauling his bike labouriously from side to side, expending effort more commensurate with a lead frame than a carbon one. The serious cyclist yawned, clipped in lazily – his companion still a hundred metres off – and began to descend. I gave the companion a nod of gentle encouragement before clipping in myself.

It was a rip-roaring, hair-raising, ear-popping, eye-watering, heart-thumping belter of a descent. At one point, I blinked through my tears to see Madonna clocking 80km/h. No wonder then that I was practically prickling with energy by the time I reached the valley floor. There, my GPS encouraged me to take a turn on to a suspiciously loose looking surface. I politely declined and charged on ahead. We weren’t getting along today. Anyway, I’d spotted something far more enticing on the horizon. 

What had caught my eye was the unmistakable outline of a pair of bike tourers. One was riding a very pink bike. The other was dragging behind him a mammoth trailer. As I pulled alongside, I saw they were young – not dissimilar in age to me – and we exchanged a friendly phrase or two in French. Moments later, we passed a roadside bar and made the snap decision to share a beer together. A beer turned into two, which turned into a three-course meal complete with complimentary coffee and liqueur de noisette as a digestif. 

[At this stage, the Crazy Idea was far from crystallised. I absolutely do not recommend fuelling a 13-hour, 250km ride through the night on beer and liqueur. Oops. I guess this disclaimer should have come with a spoiler alert. Never mind, you’d have found out soon enough.]

Florence and Quentin were, as it turned out, also headed to Barcelona. They’d come from Lyon and were aiming to hail a boat to take them over to South America, where they planned to tour for 2-3 years. Hence the heavy duty luggage. Madonna looked like a racy thoroughbred by comparison. We immediately clicked. They are two more examples of life’s Good People. By the time we’d spent close to two hours together trading stories, laughing, eating, drinking and philosophising, we already had a group chat (Riders on the Sun) and plans to reconvene in Barcelona. Also in that space of time – perhaps due to the excitement of such festive company, or the liqueur-induced Dutch courage – the Crazy Idea had taken shape. So, that’s how I found myself riding out of Puigcerdà – having waved off my fellow sun-riders – into one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve seen. 

I couldn’t savour the moment for long, though, for soon, I found myself at a literal crossroads, with a feeling of definite déjà vu. One sign read: Barcelone par tunel – 165km; the other: Barcelone par col – 180km. Fantastic. I re-checked my GPS that suspiciously, but predictably, led me gaily in the direction of par tunel. As belt and braces, I took this moment to replan the entire route to Barcelona, checking that the GPS wasn’t planning any more devious diversions. I made sure to divert my immediate path up onto the nearby mountain road, to avoid a trip into the jaws of death. What’s another 500m climb in the grand scheme of a day that would total close to 4000m of elevation? Frustratingly, as I inched my way up and over my chosen col, the road in the valley below remained in view and, crucially, above ground. The old double bluff… touché GPS. 

After decending the pointless col, I came to realise that the Spanish approach to mountain-pass-design differs significantly from the French. Puigcerdà had marked the border. The French enjoy a meandering ribbon of asphalt resembling the cascading subscript of Elizabethan calligraphy, always with a friendly gradient; the Spanish take a more utilitarian approach: go straight up. So, climbing my final Pyrenean peak, I found myself hauling Madonna up double-digit gradients, frequently glancing down to dodge potholes, only to see figures of 20% or more flickering across the screen of my GPS. What’s more, on several occasions the tarmac disappeared entirely to be replaced by loose gravel. I was in half a mind to concede defeat, put up my tent, and make a French exit from Riders on the Sun. But something – perseverance, pride, masochism – spurred me on. By the time I’d stopped for my final 2D croissant, I looked at the elevation map to see, to my surprise, that I’d almost finished the majority of the ride’s elevation. The only real challenge remaining after this peak – besides 150km of riding, of course – was a 1000m climb through the Sant Llorenç del Munt i l'Oba National Park. 

Before long, I was pulling on hat, gloves, buff and down jacket to prepare for a 30km descent. I even decided to don my gogs (the VALLON shades I’d been given), remembering the chaos caused by a leaf to the eye in the Jura. No Joe to save me this time. I pushed off and began a bracing descent into Guardiola de Berguedà. On the way into town, I pulled over at a petrol station to fuel up. For those feeling the squeeze of the cost-of-living crisis, I can recommend traveling by bike. Four chocolate bars cost nearly 10x less than a tank of unleaded. 

This was my first stop in Spain and here I realised just how much I’d taken my basic French for granted. In Montpellier, Ellie had attempted to teach me a few basic phrases: cuanto cuesta? – how much is it?, con tarjeta – by card, con efectivo – with cash, and tengo novia – I have a girlfriend (in case of any skin-suit induced propositioning). I used two of the above to secure myself two Snickers and two Mars bars. The pump attendant didn’t seem too interested in my relationship status. 

At this point, I calculated that, even at my leisurely pace, I’d be arriving in Barcelona at what’s generally considered to be an unsociable hour. To avoid spending the early hours thumb-twiddling outside Ellie’s flat (by this point, I imagined, I wouldn’t be able to spare the calories), it might be an idea to touch base with her flatmates and let them in on my Crazy Idea. Liv was notably relaxed, if a little surprised, to hear she’d have an unexpected guest arriving at some point between 4 and 7am. 

Once I’d confirmed my arrival logistics, my next task was to find a hot meal. It had been several hours since my rendezvous with the sun-riders, and it felt like a stretching eternity until breakfast. I’d been assured on countless occasions that the Spanish operate on a different time scale, choosing to eat much later in the evening. It was 9:30pm – practically time for a late-lunch if my information was correct – so it was a surprise to find nowhere was open. I also discovered just how inaccurate Spanish Google Maps is. After rocking up at a third restaurant claiming wildly different opening hours to the evidence my eyes presented, I couldn’t face another shuttered greeting. In a desperate last-ditch effort, I abandoned technology and turned to sensory navigation. After some riding around in the dark – both metaphorical and literal – I picked up the unmistakable scent of pizza. Bar Pizzeria Giovanni hove into view, where I demolished a pizza, with salt; two Pepsis, with salt; and a very large, very strong coffee, also with salt. Peak endurance nutrition.

The kind waiter was very keen to convey her concern over a particular portion of my route into Barcelona. With some fellow diners acting as translators, I gathered she was warning me not to ride on the Autopistas – Spanish motorways. I assured her I’d be avoiding risking life and limb on the highways at all costs but did a cursory re-check of my route and some Googling, just to make sure. At this point, I’d lost all faith in Komoot’s ability to discern bike-path from 6-lane bypass. Perhaps due to the waiter’s warning, or the considerable caffeine hit I’d just taken, I left the pizzeria anxious. It was close to 11pm. Evening had given way to night. 

Now’s probably a good time to mention that I’m scared of the dark. It doesn’t do much for my Top Adventurer credibility, I know, but when I’m alone, I find it difficult to relax without having full vision of my surroundings. I’m fine when I’ve got company, but there’s something about dark solitude that sets my imagination on overdrive. There was only one thing for it: plug in and listen to something comforting. That’s how I ended up cycling through the Spanish night with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as my soundtrack. Stephen Fry’s pastiche of pre-pubescent Potter and pals worked wonders to calm my jangling nerves. 

By the time I’d reached the Sant Llorenç del Munt i l'Oba National Park, 60-or-so flat kilometres later, I’d had just about enough of centaurs, wizard chess and p-p-poor st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell. But it had done its job. I felt much calmer and decided to unplug, engaging myself with some armchair (saddle?) philosophy to distract from the final 20km climb. What was it I was scared of? I wondered. Crashing? I’ve got dynamo lights, grippy tires, and a fair whack of experience on the bike… plus, even if I did, I’m not in the middle of nowhere. I’ve phone signal, health insurance and a sizeable first aid kit. Not that then. Dying? Come on Jake, as much as it’s a big ride, you’re hardly likely to pop your clogs here mate. Plus, we’ve all got to go at some point. Can’t be getting too caught up worrying about exactly when. Being sick? Granted, this is much more likely given the sheer quantity of salt I’d consumed. But as much as this was a crippling, tear-inducing childhood fear, I’ve grown up. It’s hardly the end of the world these days. How about animals?

The spate of philosophising had done me well and, a little after 3am, I was nearing the top of the climb. The GPS ticked over to 2km remaining. 18km down. I was hardly feeling fresh. My legs were heavy, eyelids heavier, but this was the last big effort. It’s all downhill from here. I was feeling very self-satisfied at having just quashed all my fears when I was jolted abruptly back into the real world. The snug smog of smugness evaporated. A dark shape flashed by my periphery. Then another. Senses heightened, I tuned into the still of the night. I heard the snap of twigs in the forest beside me. The rustle of leaves. An unmistakable snuffle. Then out of the woods burst a drove of 8 Wild Boar. I let out a silent scream and put the power down, forgetting all about the weight of legs and ‘lids. The problem was, I was on one of the French-er sections of this Spanish climb. The road ahead wound in tight hairpins. As soon as I’d turned the corner, thinking I’d shaken the pack, they’d erupt from the woods beside me. So began a cat and mouse: me winding up the hairpins, pedaling for dear life; the hogs haring straight up the hillside, intersecting me. Just as my legs felt ready to give out, I crested the hill and gravity took over. I whizzed straight down the other side, putting serious distance between me and my porcine pursuers before daring to stop and layer up.

I’m very aware that, like my self-indulgent bout of lonely blues after a single day alone on the bike, having a freak-out when faced with what are basically farm animals doesn’t bode well for my time in Africa. I’m assured there live animals that fully warrant a freak-out, and aren’t so easily escaped using pedal-power. But life is all about progressive overload. You’ve got to allow yourself time to adapt. There was a time when the prospect of riding 100 kilometres invoked a certain apprehension. Now I was riding two and a half times that, alone, in the dead of night, in a foreign country. At times like these, It’s important to cut yourself some slack. I hope, come South Africa, the instance of, say, a baboon bounding through camp will have become run-of-the-mill… barely blog-worthy. 

The rest of the ride passed by uneventful, and by 6am I was tucked up in Ellie’s bed, wrapped in the warm embrace of a blanket, with pigs, pizza, and punishing Pyrenean peaks a distant memory. The next day – well, the same day actually – swimming in the fug of a ride-related hangover, I did some Googling about Wild Boar. As it turns out, my freak-out was, at least partially, justified. Wild Boar, I discovered, are often aggressive, especially when traveling in a family pack like the one I encountered. Bites and skewerings (from their tusks) have been widely documented across Spain. Most alarming was Google’s suggested image (below) which were enough to make me shrink back into the duvet, hairs standing on end. 

Reflecting a week or so on, I have no doubt that my deep dive into the Floyd archives the day before the Crazy Idea had served me up a warning of things to come. If only I’d listened closely enough to heed it…

…We would zigzag our way
Through the boredom and pain
Occasionally
Glancing up through the rain

Wondering which of the buggers to blame
And watching
For pigs on the wing. 

– Pink Floyd, Pigs on the Wing Pt. 1

I’ll leave you with my own two-minute edit:

…As we zigzag our way
Through the magical and mundane
Occasionally
Finding refuge from rain

Wondering if the deluge will come again
We’re watching
For pigs on the wheel. 

So here ends Phase 1. Phase 2 begins in January and promises to be an immersive affair. Before then, I’ll be retreating to the comfort of a family Christmas and attempting a six-week carb-load, before riding the remaining 17,000 kilometres down to South Africa. 

I hope you’ll come along for the ride.