Day 64: Amposta to Benicarlo

October 29, 2023

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Kelly IniguezWe are working slowly on our plan for 2024. The end points are Lisbon and Frankfort. Would you have any recommendations for a bike shop and lodging near the airport in Frankfort? If it isn't something you've already done yourself, please don't worry, we will continue researching.
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6 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Kelly IniguezWe have, in the past, stayed at some hotel near the Frankfurt airport but do not recall which one. Steve does all the bike work, and we box or otherwise pack the bikes as a group effort, so finding a nearby bike shop is less relevant to our tours.
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6 months ago

Dodie's tire was not flat this morning, so it looked like we had dodged the slow leak possibility, and we were ready to go. We passed near that bridge over the Ebro, which was supposed to be something special, and indeed it looked pretty nice.

Even with a nice bridge, Amposta still did not come off as very spectacular. Here is a shot of the pedestrian area:

In leaving Amposta, we did not re-enter the delta at all, but just sort of backed out, to the southwest. Almost immediately it became apparent that we were into a much different ecology from yesterday. We were on small roads, climbing, among the olives. We are much more used to the idea of being on small roads, climbing, among the vines so this was different.

The ground is kept very clear under the olives. This must be needed to allow harvesting.

Dodie had already begun commenting not only on the number of olive trees but on how old and large they seemed. I think she had me snap one of them, even before we came to the info panel.

An info panel near Freginals mentioned that they have identified and tagged 198 olives of extraordinary diameter. Later Dodie found a source claiming 6000 in the general region.

It looked at one point like our way would be blocked by a flooded road. My usual practice is to send Dodie through these things. I view it as a perk of always having to follow behind on these trips. But this time I got sent through first. It did not turn out to be as bad as it looked at first. But its how I could snap Dodie coming along.

We began to look for trees that might qualify as champions, but of course we do not really know what we are looking at.

Even so, we began to say that this ride was going to qualify as one of those "really great rides" that people should know about. We lamented that we had not established a way in the blog to identify such rides so we could find them again.

Olives seem often to be terraced with stone walls. Look at this great shot!

I took this mainly to show the many, mostly abandoned, stone houses scattered among the olives.

Ok, this has got to be a granddaddy tree!

Naturally in some places olive trees were being propagated.

Look how clustered the houses of this village are, on the slopes of the mountain.

Our idyllic ride came to an end right here, 7 km before Ulldecona. We had thought that Dodie's tire was holding air, but had found after 13 km on the road that stopping to pump it was necessary. So when the road also turned to rocks, it was time to get off and walk.

Walking through the rocks, I thought it unfair that the grounds under the olive trees were smoother than the road!

We reached Ulldecona, all right, not that it would have a bike shop, and even if so, not one open on a Sunday! But it did have a nice church, with an interesting building across the way. A mass was underway in the church, so we did not bug them.This marching

The figures on this sign on the church seem out of proportion. It says "the town of Ulldecona trusts itself to your kindness", more or less.

This marching band was just about to start up, but we didn't hang around. The tire problem was beginning to worry us about getting anywhere.

I had been looking into the matter of EV8, making a fresh download from an official looking site, after our little dust up south of Barcelona when EV8 apparently dumped us on a trackless beach. The site spoke of "developed" sections of the route, and in fact was only willing to download those bits. So I was intrigued to see that a developed section would start just past Ulldecona. And it was true. In the middle of absolutely nowhere, just past an old stone bridge, new looking EV8 signs popped up.Based

Based on our experiences, just because an EV pops up does not mean that Happy Days Are Here Again. EV 8 could cheerfully, and with full signage, dump us on a trackless beach. We checked the GPS, and could see other, shorter, ways to go. But when it came to it, we were sucked in by the seductive signage once again.

And look, now the olives had changed to oranges.

But sure enough, and true to form, we thought, once sucked in we got shafted with rocky road.

As the road got rockier, the problem with the tire grew more severe. While it seemed we had gone 13 km before first having to pump, this became 5 km, then 2 km.

Finally the tire would no longer hold pressure, and the game was up. Fortunately we were in an orange grove, and could pull behind some trees for shade. We had been thinking about what to do when it would come to this. We had one spare tube - one of those split ones than can be installed without pulling the wheel. Pulling the wheel on a internal geared bike is a bug, because it requires removing the gear changing cable. Another thought, if our original patch was leaking, then fooling with it would probably not work. But what if there was a thorn or something, that would wreck our new tube? And oh, we were running low on glue.

As it happened, we opened the tire and Dodie immediately found a new leak. It was also dead centre, but inches away from the old one. wtf?

Aha, now Dodie found a thorn, no, a wire! in the tire. We got out the tweezers, but just could not get a grip on it. We rotated the tire to the most convenient position and turned the flashlight to light the inside. We tried and tried, and yes, finally it came out. OK, nurse Dodie!