the backwards caministas

OBEY

these people are looking for the pirate ship from "The Goonies". Chunk is in the middle.

here is "the riddle of steel" pondering the riddle of where the hell is the campground. crom's beard!

We are back to the hellhole vampire city after two fabulous weeks of vacation. And the best part is that we still have two weeks of vacation in Italy coming up next month. The northwest is my new favorite part of Spain, although the cities are underwhelming (hard to beat Barcelona), the general attitude of people and the rural surroundings really take the cake.

I am sort of running a half-assed cycling blog here, with the hopes that it will one day be useful to touring cyclists. So far none have ever left a comment....but just in case they are out there I should go into a little advice about getting around with your bike on the train. This ain't Amsterdam, ace. Spain is lagging behind Europe in making its trains bike-compatible

Do to outlandish luck, and a successful hapless dumb foreigner act (we are good at this because we are in fact hapless dumb foreigners) we arrived in Santiago de Compostela from Madrid with our bikes, on an overnight sleeper train. I really made an effort to find out under which circumstances you can bring a bike, and under which you cannot. The information is not made available easily and when you get the information it is totally ambiguous. so its a crap shoot. Generally speaking you cannot bring a bike on a national train (meaning a long distance train usually with only a few stops). The exception seems to be if you have paid the high price for a family sleeper cabin. Even then you are limited to 4 bikes per cabin, though even as a bike enthusiast i have trouble seeing where the bikes would be stowed. They are supposed to be dismanteled, although really they only require removal of wheels and pedals, and supposed to be bagged but apparently wrapping in plastic is sufficient. We had bought tourist class beds which are 4 to a cabin, unisex and with strangers. So at the platform with 10 minutes to spare we had to rip the bikes and gear apart, squeeze through cavernous hallways to our separate cabins and appease our roomies about our bikes taking up the whole cabin. We had only 10 minutes to spare because despite arriving 45 minutes early, we had to wait for the platform number to come up onto the board only 15 minutes before departure. Then a horde of people who had actually arrived later than us beat us to the line to the escalator, then we got turned away from the escalator and told to use the very slow and busy elevator. I had it easier than becky, because her cabin was full of old women who brought such large bags that they could not lift them into the overhead storage and thus consumed the only logical place for a bike frame (on end, fork stuffed into the closet), So we actually put the bike frame precariously overhead. Most of the ladies were satisfied, but one kept bitching that it was dangerous. it was really her fault that there was no place else for the bike to go....but we were totally bending the rules to the breaking point, so we had to try and make everyone happy. My cabin had one guy, so i had time to help becky, and stow my stuff without creating a major ruckus although i felt like i was creating a major ruckus. However, even after finishing I was so stressed I couldn't sleep for hours.THIS IS THE WRONG WAY. HERE'S WHAT TO DO INSTEAD: If you want to travel on a nice efficient national train you must do so on one with sleeper cars like ours, these are called trenhotel. But shell out the bucks to buy the cama familial. Otherwise you need to string together multiple regional trains or media distancia trains which are much better able to accommodate bikes. When you search the RENFE (spanish national train company) website, many regional trains will not come up. So you have to be clever, and chop your trip into segments, and search based on these until some regional train options pop up. On our way home yesterday we took a regional train from Oviedo to Leon. This was exactly like the commuter trains in the cities. With a little bungee magic I was able to secure my bike vertically to some rails so that it did not block any exits and i could be free to take a comfortable seat and read. The stretch from Leon to Madrid was a regional express, which had an entire care empty in the back with d-rings for securing bikes and wheelchairs. We also saw a media-distancia train with a specila handicap/bicycle car. it took 9 hours mind you, but it was so much better than the stress from the trip to Galicia, and it only cost 35 euros each, and no bike disassembly.

Ok, heres what we did: We stayed a night in Santiago de Compostela. So heres the deal about this town. A long long time ago, someone found some bones in the future site of the cathedral. Due to some miracle revelation and the stamp of approval by some bishop, these bones were somehow pronounced the remains of St. James the apostle of Jesus, a man who was excuted in Jerusalem. How did he get to Galicia, well that link involves a holy unmanned boat, and the miraculous enclosing of the remains in stone. No flying spaghetti monster, however. Why noone questions the obvious truth...that someone elses bones were found...is a matter of religion. My god has meatballs and thousands of noodley tentacles. Why James? I don't know, there were 11 other apostles after all. I guess you've got to rule out Judas, and Peter was already taken in Rome, and Thomas was a doubter of Jesus's zombie skills, and John was kind of an asskisser. Whos left...Sneezy, Dopey, and oh yeah St. James. So anyway, since the pope bought all this it became truth, and for centuries religious pilgrims have poured to the cathedral site from all over Europe.There are numerous pilgrimage routes culminating on the cathedral. Anyways, its a nice city and a nice cathedral well worth visiting. It is third in importance only to Jerusalem and Rome for catholics, though I reckon most American catholics don't know much about this.

We rode out of there on a hilly inland route towards a Coruna. It was really confusing because 70% of the towns are so small they don't appear on the map, towns have multiple names (Spanish and Gallego, yep Galicia has its own language) and the road numbering system appeared to be different from our map. But we made it. The really small roads are nice for their lack of traffic, but if you tend to worry about where the hell you are I'd suggest sticking to the secondary highways. A Coruna really pissed us off because it turned out to be a a big city we could not escape. Our escape route spontaneosly turned into a full-bore freeway, and we decided to get the F out on the train to Ferrol. I will say that the beaches at A Coruna were very nice, otherwise we didn't give this place a second look.

The short train ride went around the bay through awesome little houses and farms. In Ferrol, we stayed with John, an affable former roomate of Becky's. He is some form of naval engineer who works at the ship yard, and gets a monthly stipend (in addition ot his salary) for living expenses. His stipend is 50% more than my salary. He gave us a bar tour of Ferrol and showed us a couple absolutely perfect and almost empty beaches. All of the Medditerranean is currently writhing with human flesh, but these far superior beaches are empty! Somehow, despite barely speaking Spanish, he knows how to get every barman to bring out a secret stash of liquor concoction for free. One guy had replicated Bailey's perfectly, and another guy had found a way to recreate the gummy coke bottle candies as a drink. I also managed to learn what a kite suit is and actually witness kite surfing, and get shitfaced which is one of John's specialties.

Aftre this break, we started our ride for real, taking the western coastal highway, then an overland route to the north coast. Up to this point we were having trouble finding places to camp. But as of the town of Viveiro the character of our tour changed a bit. Here is is possible to go on a beach bum bike tour. You can ride in the morning, early afternoon, and arrive to ste up camp with plenty of time to go to the beach and have a swim. The water is cold usually, but it only takes a few minutes to get used to. My favorite was in between Foz and Ribideo, where awesome waves were crashing into a tiny beautiful beach around sunset. Although I previously had an aversion to developed campgrounds, a hot shower is key in this circumstance. If you had warm weather you could repeat this cycle for at least a week...ride a bit, hang out at the beach, ride a bit, hang out at the beach. Shortly to the south was As Catedrais, which at low tide features all sorts of water sculpted arches, passage ways in the rocks. As with a lot of places that are cool, its popular, so you have to put up with hordes of humanity. But definitely worth a stop.

Shortly after Ribideo, we entered Asturias, and the first thing we saw was an Asturian bagpipe and drum band. This is also where we started following the northernmost pilgrimage route backwards. it was funny watching the look on pilgrim faces wondering who was going the wrong way, us or them? Luarca is a notable town along here, a it sits in a canyon with a small harbor with a light house. The view from the light house featured the distant green hills so typical of Asturias (and the labels of Asturian dairy products, this is happy cow country), a nice beach, and efficiently stacked town built on the canyon walls which reminded me of an old world Bisbee, except for the aforementioned oceanic business. We camped on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, unfortunately there was no super easy beach access that night, but it was awesome. Finally we made our way to Cudillero, a foggy harbor town, also incredibly steeply built on cliffs. Then we spent one night in Oviedo. We decided we wanted to finally go get shithoused at a sidreria on our last night in Asturias. We passed up an expensive looking one in the tourist district, and then literally the next 5 or so were closed. Considering that we were in the biggest town of Asturias which is famous for its cider throwing bars, this is absurd.... and I guess I already said how we got home. Luckily it won't be long before I get out of this city again.

Crossing Communidad de Madrid, Spain by bike

The travel books will tell you Spain is not a popular destination for bike touring. This might lead you to the conclusion that it’s a bad place for touring which is wrong. Secondary roads often make for good riding in my experience. Just steer clear of autopistas. Since I live in the largest city, I think this probably applies to the whole country. If bike touring is doable here, it’s probably doable elsewhere. So after a long hiatus…here is an entry about cycling. When I first got here, everybody I asked about cycling told me about mountain bike rides, but the almost unanimous opinion of cycling on roads was that it’s too dangerous and they wouldn't do something like that. When I was directed to the "hardcore cyclist" guy of the department, and he found out I was bike commuting in Mostoles, he actually told me to ride on the sidewalk. For the record, except for a couple trouble spots, commuting in Mostoles was no problem. A few people tipped me off to what I would call “urban trails “like the green ring around Madrid, and other people told me about vias verdes which are basically the same as “rails to trails”. But nobody really thinks about, or was able to provide information about, the kind of riding I love…not particularly fast long rides that last all day. And I'm not looking for rides where you drive you bike somewhere and then ride, I mostly just want to either walk out my door or take the available public transport if its REALLY far, and ride. So I’m going to be the guy to help the next person looking for this information. The following is a description of how to cross the majority of Communidad de Madrid with little interaction with cars, either for recreational riders in the Madrid area or tourist cyclists that are crossing the interior of Spain (the communidad is like a small state, or big county). One of the worst things on a multi-day (or multi-week, or multi-month, or multi-year) tour is getting across the big cities without taking a really dumb indirect route. So that is the piece that I hope this provides to someone who wanders across this on the web. Basically this is a link-up of urban trails, vias verdes and roads. There are plenty of small roads with low traffic that are perfectly safe to ride on, but I think any cyclist would enjoy and almost car-free day from time to time. Day riders might enjoy this route in pieces.

The description is from North to Southeast, but there’s no reason not to reverse the direction.

Section 1: Soto de Real to north Madrid city: ~35 km
If you are cycle touring and have wound up in Soto de Real, you have just crossed the Sierra Guadarrama not so long ago. You may have come over Pto. Navacerrada, Morcuera, Canencia, Somosierra or somewhere else in Castilla y Leon (I’ve done all but Somosierra and all are nice rides and it should be a fairly easy spin down to Soto in less than 25km, depending on which pass you came over). This trail makes use of a city funded-project to safely get road riders out of the city to the nice roads in the foothills where they want to ride. It’s a two way- paved bike road that is separated from and parallel to M-40. I don’t have a high quality map, but since it parallels M-40 the whole way (usually west side) it ain’t hard to find or follow. It’s not as picturesque as the mountain country you passed through earlier, but it’s a nice rural landscape, greener than you probably suspected with lots of cow pastures. The best thing is that there is few road crossings, so it’s like a freeway for bikes. The worst thing is that there is zero shade, so if riding in summer make sure you’ve got the water you need, and be aware of heatstroke and dehydration symptoms. South of Colmenar Viejo you can pull into the back of a gas station-convenience store right of the trail for a sliver of shade and my favorite cycling food-ice cream bars. Unlike the Anillo Verde, below, this trail does not have water stops.

So far the website with the most complete compilation of all the bicycle routes in the Communidad is http://www.pedalibre.org/vias_ciclistas_madrid.htm
They are an advocacy group and have some description of all routes in espanol.
In the map below the Soto de Real to Madrid trail is the one running N-S near the top. The trails described below in sections 3 and 4 are also shown.

Section 2: Anillo Verde: ~ 20 km
The Anillo verde is a circular paved path around Madrid, it connects all the burbs with their monotone red brick apartment buildings (boring) , and quite a few parks (pretty nice). It’s biggest failing is that its got quite a few crossings of roads, and it can juke you if you go where you think it should go instead of where it actually goes. But it’s a great connector, especially when passing through an unfamiliar city of 5 million. To avoid getting lost, and avoid wrong turns at intersections with other urban trails, always follow the poles with an orange top. When riding the path from Soto de Real into the city, there will be a fork, one direction leading over a pedestrian path, the other direction marked by a spray painted arrow on the path. Follow the arrow, don't cross the bridge. In a few more km the path will terminate at another pedestrian-cycle bridge. You will hopefully know the terminus because the trail markings gradually disappear, and although there is room to continue riding, you would be travelling the wrong direction on the side of a freeway with no traffic barrier. I did this once, it was lame, avoid it. The real route does not put you in such a situation without a barrier. Once you’ve crossed the ped bridge look for the orange post and the anillo verde. You want to travel west. If you are confused, you were riding south on the path from Soto, so you want to basically make a convoluted right turn via the ped bridge.

The most error proof thing you can do is stay on the anillo verde, but between the 2nd rest area and a couple km beyond the 4th (Fuentelareina on the map) the road crossings might become maddening. So you could just ride the road for a few km, just keep one eye on the trail so you can catch it when it leaves the road and enters a part after the 4th rest stop. Eventually you will make it into Casa de Campo, the biggest park. It’s confusing in there, just always look out for the orange top poles. If it’s late in the day there is a youth hostel (here they are called alburgues, although FYI a hostal is a cheap hotel with shared bathrooms that can be just as cheap as an alburgue) inside the park. I’ve never stayed there, so I don’t have anything to say about it. But this park is where you can find zombie hookers, ride a cable car, go to a roller coaster park, or go to a zoo (whichever you prefer). You might also need to roll into Madrid for parts or something. The easiest thing to do is hit up Otero on Calle Segovia. This is a decent shop, although they seem to be really paranoid about theft and everything is locked up. From Lago (an artificial lake in casa de campo), exit using Puerta del Angel, turn left on Paseo de Extremadura, cross the Rio Manzanares using Puente de Segovia and then climb the hill of Calle Segovia. You’ll pass right by the domed cathedral on your left and under the viaduct (a cool looking bridge). Shortly after the viaduct watch for the bike shop on your left. If you head up to the cathedral, you are close to the major sights of Madrid: the palace, Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol, Templo de Debod, Sabatini Gardens, Plaza de Espana, Etc. You can find Madrid walking tour signs which direct you to all this city center business.

If you ain’t sleeping, sightseeing or fixing your bike….just keep riding through casa de campo to Parque Manzanares. You’ll know it because there is a big hill with a crazy scrap metal-like sculpture on it. It is near the southernmost point of the Anillo Verde.

Heres a map…click for a larger version. You’ll notice the route has connections to some additional routes in the city too, and it has the metro stops which could be important.



Part 3. Parque Manzanares to Via Verde de Tajuna ~47 km
To change trails, the simplest thing to do is follow the anillo verde left upon entering the park. Eventually you come to a roundabout, go 25% around and turn right on a pedestrian path that has segments of pavement interspersed with segments of grass. Cross the bridge at the end of this and then turn left on the paved path which parallels the river. It, the more southerly N-S trial on the map up top, and its junction with the Anillo Verde is also shown.

This one has a tricky spot. Take the path along Rio Manzanares. Despite the general disdain for this skanky river among Madrilenos, this is a nice idyllic shady trail, especially welcome in summer. When passing under bridges, the path is rough cobblestone which you will fail to see because you’ll be wearing sunglasses when you suddenly plunge into the shade, so don’t freak out if your horse gets a little spooked without warning. Ride it out buckaroo. There seems to be perpetual construction nearby, so parts of the paved river path may be closed, but there is a dirt path on the other side that works if you have this problem. You have to find the intersection with a trail that spurs off to the right after maybe 3-4 km. The problem is this trail is not constructed yet, its just a rather rough dirt path, but strangely it’s got at least one bench and lights which you will see. Take this, walking if need be (its short) and pass through the tunnel under the freeway. Right after crossing there’s sort of a broad sidewalk to the left, take it. Before long the broad sidewalk is parallel with a road, and within a few hundred meters, dumps you out there. Turn left on this road. In another 100-200 m there is a T intersection, turn R, then take the first L. Follow the present road to a roundabout and use it to turn left (under a road bridge). Watch for the via ciclista (it’s red asphalt on your right. Apparently these two trails are slated to be connected soon, and this clusterfuck won’t exist. If you get lost just ask someone where the via ciclista a San Martin de la Vega is.

Almost immediately a bridge takes you to the other side of the highway and there is a gas station here with a convenience store…if you are out of food and water deal with it here because opportunities are scarce for 18km or so. So… just follow the trail south. At one point there is a fork, this doesn’t matter much as they converge again later, but the simplest option is to take the left fork. Soon you will pass through Perales and you’ll notice it’s kind of a shanty town and there might be a family of gypsies having a barbecue actually on the bike path. I've seen it, and had to ride around it. Don’t let this scene of urban decay get you down…press on and you start passing through a relaxing series of Kansas-esque wheat fields, then you start climbing. The climb is nothing major, and you are rewarded with a sweet downhill and a plantation forest on the right after the crest of the hill (nice spot for a shade stop). This is probably a good bet for ninja camping if desired. If continuing keep on paralleling M-301, and you want to keep an eye out for M-506 a little ways before entering San Martin de la Vega (the turn is where the train station is). Day riders who are running late will want to remember this train station might be a good way back to the city.

This portion of the route on M-506 and M-302 is shared with cars, but is a great road for riding. There is also a bike path connection planned, but it doesn't exist yet and I gotta say it's not really needed....I'd rather see new paths going in new directions. M-506 is flat, has low traffic, and passes through the river valley which is all agricultural fields. After ~ 5 km, you will need to get on M-302 at a roundabout and begin the minor climb out of the valley in the direction of Morata de Tajuna. These hilly uplands are a beautiful typical Mediterranean landscape of shrubby sprawling oaks and bunch grasses. These are hunting areas, and provided you don’t run across hunters are also probably good ninja camping. After about 6 km on M-302 you will start rolling down into the town of Morata de Tajuna, where you can catch a via verde.

Part 4 Via Verde de Tajuna: 36km
Vias verdes are the same as rails to trails in the states, they vary in their surface condition, length and connectivity to other vias verdes, but they are all abandoned rail routes. This via verde is going to be on the right when you are beginning to enter town. There’s a sign for it, you’ll have to make a hairpin left up a steep hill, then you come to a parking lot at the trail. This was the trail terminus but they just built a new 11km extension from here to Arganda del Rey, a town closer to and connected to Madrid via metro. People day riding rather than through riding might want to keep this option in mind for returning to Madrid or as a bailout if you are out riding too late and its getting dark on you. For the record this new section is really nice, and passes through some of the aforementioned oak savannah landscape found on the uplands in between the vegas (the fertile river bottoms- not “meadows” as it is often mistranslated in Las Vegas). In fact, if you want you could hop on the metro (weekends, and weekdays early AM and late PM only) somewhere in Madrid, ride it all the way down to Arganda del Rey, and get on this path. This alternate route would skip over most of section 2 and all of section 3. Anyways, the Via Verde…Take the right turn, which will drop down and pass though town. Go straight unless a marker tells you otherwise, and if at any point you are making a steep climb, you’ve gone the wrong way. This via verde is a really pleasant ride, and it is reasonably diverse: theres some pine plantation, some towns, some crops. You never really climb much, but you also never score any long downhills. The via verde is a “Y”, at km 35 (about 23km after you entered at Morata) you have the option of going right on the via verde de los 40 dias (it goes 14 km to Carabana, or left to Ambite (14 km). I’ve only been left. Both ways will dump you out near the border of Guadalahara and should be sufficiently distant from Madrid that secondary roads will be a decent ride. In the case of the left hand route, if you are on a mountain bike there is an additional 21 km of additional unsurfaced riding all the way to Yebra in Guadalahara.

Heres an OK Map…once you get on the thing you don’t really need it.


Check out http://www.viasverdes.com/ViasVerdes for the lowdown on this and the entire via verde system. There are printed books that you can find in the bike shop, but: 1) they are less up to date than the website, 2) they cost 20 euro each, 3) they are not organized by region, so to learn about all the trails in an area you need both books. So most people will probably want to just use the website and print out what’s relevant to your tour.