The Actual Plan!

January 25, 2024

After I booked the flights last week (and shovelled the snow before it got too wet and heavy), I started on booking the accommodations. On my previous trip to the Pyrenees, the only places I booked in advance were for my arrival in Barcelona and my departure from Bilbao (so I had a place to send my bike case). I was also carrying camping gear, making the lack of a roof not so bad.

On this trip, however, we won't be camping. We know booking everything in advance makes it difficult to modify things as we go along, but for us it's a good trade. We don't have to worry about finding a place to stay tonight or tomorrow or the next day (or spend precious trip time looking) and we can usually find better prices too. And discovering that the town/village you had planned to stay in actually has no available accommodation and/or no place to eat is much easier to deal with while sitting at your laptop just a couple of metres from a full fridge.

So, after making adjustments to the plan and updating the routes to start and end at the accommodation I've booked (routes I created from scratch and not copied from TA as I did for this segment a couple of years ago), here it is. The actual plan!

The map includes a few options (different ways of getting from A to B) and some possible unloaded day rides (DRs). For example, I have 3 different routes for exiting Bilbao; my preferred way is to take the train to Durango and ride south from there.

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Keith AdamsThe colors make that route look like a string of holiday lights. :)

Have a great trip!
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3 months ago

Jacquie GaudetWe will, as long as I'm in shape. I just calculated the average vertical gain on moving (loaded) days--maybe I shouldn't have done that!

As for the colours, no control over that. I wonder why most of the routes are shown in red...
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3 months ago

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Kelly IniguezWe are also plan in advance people who leave the tent and sleeping bags home. I find it a pleasant winter activity to look for lodging. There was a time when that would have been stressful, but I'm an old hand now and consider a lodging puzzle a fun conundrum!

I look forward to reading about your tour.
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3 months ago

Jacquie GaudetTo Kelly IniguezYes, I enjoy it too. This was the first time, though, that I came across "NO GUARDEM BICICLETES" in a message from a B&B. Like that, in caps, at the end of their automatic reply through Booking. Not a nice way to put it.
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3 months ago

Mike AylingTo Jacquie GaudetWell at least they are making it clear up front!
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3 months ago

Scott AndersonWow does this look great. I’m envious, but will love following along. Pack light!
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3 months ago

Suzanne GibsonLooks like that is going to be a stunning tour!
I agree, booking in advance commits you more or less to a set route that you might want to change while on the road, but it also means less stress while touring and makes it possible to find better prices. We never used to book anything in advance but in the meantime we book everything. I sleep better with that.
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3 months ago

Jacquie GaudetTo Mike AylingThere are polite ways of doing it. I always mention our need for a secure place to put our bikes and there have been several versions of "sorry, but we just don't have room". I also found it interesting that that place, in Ripoll, about 90 km by bike from Girona, found it necessary to include such a statement in their standard reply.
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3 months ago

Anne MathersLooks fantastic, Jacquie. We rode the Pyrenees from Girona to Bilbao in 2016. One of the highlights of that tour was seeing the Balenciaga Museum in Getaria. We both enjoyed it immensely (and I can assure you, I am no fashionista). It tells the story of our time through fashion. Amazing. You can take an escalator from the sea level up to the museum.
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2 months ago

Jacquie GaudetTo Anne MathersI didn’t stop long in Getaria when I passed through in 2016 and didn’t notice a museum. I think it was mid-morning as, according to my journal, I had lunch in a town further along.

This time, I’ve booked accommodation in Zarautz, as I couldn’t find anything in Getaria. Perhaps it will be a morning stop!
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2 months ago

Lyle McLeodHi Jacquie, great looking route. Looking forward to following along …. and we’ll likely copy a lot of your French days in reverse on our next tour.
As a heads-up, on your Torla Ordesa to Ainsa day, your route follows the Rio Bellós all the way to Escalona. This is the route that we had planned last year, and was the same route shown in the TA 2017 Bilbao to Sete tour (no coincidence at all 😎). However, about 10 km past the Col at Fanlo this road was barricaded and we had to divert to the unnamed / unmarked road to the west with an additional 250 m climb through the village of Buerba (very cool). Scott commented in our blog for this day that this was the route that they took too (and they’ve got pictures of Buerba) so the road was probably barricaded as far back as then (2017). On their 2017 tour I think TA put their ‘planned route’ in the blog, not what they actually rode on the day.

Even with our unplanned detour and additional climbing, it was a fantastic ride!

https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/gorges/day-48-torla-ordesa-to-ainsa/#46823_bv9kvf0ws6avjjrgrf7x57xfaiz
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2 weeks ago

Jacquie GaudetTo Lyle McLeodHi Lyle! Thanks for the comment. I referred to various cycleblazers' posted maps (including yours) in my planning, but as we know, anything can happen between planning and making it happen.

I did some googling and HU-631 *might* actually be open this year. Whether it's one-way for all traffic, in the other direction of course, is another question. In any case, I'll prepare an alternate route just in case. It's not like we'd miss any turns, but it's always good to be prepared when possible.
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2 weeks ago