In my latest book, High Spain Drifter, my wife Roz and I set off on another fascinating
journey, this time around Spain and Portugal’s Iberian
Peninsula. Below is the first few paragraphs of the book. I hope you enjoy the read. Mark
“Travelling
– it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller”.
Ibn Battutah
I happened upon the
idea of cycling around Spain after reading a book called The Man Who Cycled the World. Written by a Scottish adventurer
named Mark Beaumont, it described his whirlwind circumnavigation of the globe
on a bicycle in 2008.
But it wasn’t the time
he took to complete his journey of nearly 30,000 kilometres that impressed me
the most. It was more the places he visited along the way and the experiences
that came with them; sometimes daunting, sometimes curious, and sometimes
moving, but in all cases unforgettable.
Virtually from the moment it was introduced to the
Vuelta in 1999, Alto del Angliru, in the heart of the Asturias, became Spain’s mythical equivalent of France’s Mont Ventoux and Italy’s Mortirolo. It is 12.5 kilometres in length and has
an average gradient of above 10%. While a formidable enough challenge itself,
it’s the climb’s last 5 kilometres, which include lengthy stretches of grades
above 21% and 23%, that make it so tough. Unequivocally, it’s the
hardest mountain road I’ve ever climbed – and in all likelihood, it’s the
hardest I ever will.
If you’re game enough to
try it, chances are that when you exhaustedly roll over its barren summit,
there’ll be nothing to greet you save the shivering cold, the incessant mist
and the clanking of cow bells. Your only reward might be the satisfaction of
having cycled up a mountain that is so damn difficult.
* *
*
While having seen and
learned almost as much about France as about my own country, not to mention a
fervent interest in French history that had begun long before my first turn of
a pedal in Europe, I was something of an inexpert when it came to its Pyrenean
neighbour. For me, even a Grand Cycling Tour like the Vuelta a España seemed to
pale into insignificance compared to its charismatic rival, the Tour de France.
I guess it still does! Then again, doesn’t every other bicycle race?
Other than the
captivating beauty of Penelope Cruz, a very lifeless Charlton Heston on the
back of a horse in the movie El Cid,
a few Year 8 student projects on Isabella of Spain, and above all, George
Orwell’s fascinating novel Homage to
Catalonia, I was pretty hopeless when it came to recalling information on
Spanish history, politics, culture ... and even cycling.
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