Having a nice holiday?

I am sitting in a beach bar on a sunny terrace in Lekeitio, drinking a
strong morning coffee and eating tortilla. Below me on the beach the
holidaymakers are already settled with their sunshades and beach blankets,
many of them having a dip in the sea despite its chilly temperature. As
usual there is a crowd around our bikes, pointing out milometer, altimeter
and mirror and examining the kiddie cranks and buggies. A baby grabs at the
multicoloured kite tails that flap behind the trailer and another child
beeps the horn.

"Are you having a nice holiday?" I ask my daughter, who is watching two
Spanish toddlers try to master a diabolo between them. Pink sunglasses on,
dolly in her lap, Hannah shakes her head. "No, Mummy, this is not nice
holiday," she replies politely. "My have nice holiday soon." She grabs dolly's
dummy, stuffs it into her own mouth and runs off to chase the pigeons.
Wherever Hannah thinks Spain is, she is sure she hasn't found it yet. But
this is definitely Spain; in fact it's the very heart of it; Basque country,
where slow progress has been slowed further by the alien dialect,
unfathomable street signs, and steep mountainous terrain.

But in many ways I share my daughter's view. It's another world which we
view through a lens. From under my shady umbrella I enjoy this enduring
vista of old men gathering to pace up and down in the shade while supping
wine and sharing stories; of tourists trying to stay ahead of melting ice
creams, and of barely dressed teenagers batting volleyballs over nets. I
share their sun and their sunny leisure time. I dip my feet into their waves
and bury my toes into their warm sand. But then we move on. To another
place; of smoking hot rims and tyres, of pumping pedals gradually up 300
metres of climb; pushing over a scorched mountain and dropping down into yet
another paradise.

And I like it this way; entering and leaving this world, sometimes two and
three times in a day. Hannah is right; this isn't just a nice holiday. It
can be punishingly hard work, an endurance test and sometimes a slog. But it
is undoubtedly Spain, in all its sunny glory. The sky is blue, the tortilla
is warm and the bikes wait patiently for the start of another day's riding.
Meanwhile three Scandanavian tourists arrive at the next table and order a
round of drinks.

"My God, touring bikes," one exclaims. "On these hills?" says another. They
shake their heads and laugh.

Coming up trumps

We've reached Lekeitoi after a long and hilly 37km topped off with a totally unnecessary 150m climb to a campsite. And then the kids wanted to play Top Trumps. You have to admire their stamina! The grown ups were already trumped.

Pilgrim's Progress

Well no one said it would be easy. We're busy acclimatising, learning how to cope with the heat, the hills and the hoons. If a Pilgrim's progress is slow, deliberate and full of challenge, then we are certainly on track. Reached Mundaka about 75km from Bilbao along a VERY hilly coastal route. Sunny. slow and scenic

Without a car

We were busy abandoning our car to head off to the ferry on bikes when my
phone bleeped to warn me of incoming email; an enquiry from someone
developing ideas for "a new, iconic British road movie," a film exploring
the way the car has shaped our lives, landscapes and way of living. I
thought she'd got the wrong person since I'm not exactly an advocate for
motoring. But turns out she was after an alternative view of life on the
road, without a car. Now that's something I can talk about.

As a car user, cyclist and pedestrian I sometimes find myself comparing what
I get from these different ways of traveling, what I notice and what I
become when I get into the car, climb onto my bike or head off on foot. No
doubt we live in times when the car is king and so undeniably convenient but
how much do we know about what we lose by driving compared to cycling or
walking, or what we have lost to accommodate the car in our cities, towns,
villages, countryside, lives. Many of us know only the car and have no other
positive personal, first hand reference point to compare it to.

For me cycling is a positive alternative to travelling by car. It brings me
back into contact with the elements, terrain, natural world, my physical
being and other people. There is no insulation, no tin box, no protection
from the sun, rain, storm, wind. You feel the weather and know what it is.
You know the terrain more intimately too; feeling the rise and fall of the
road, noticing the slow drag, that gentle run down, that hill you never
sense in the car. You feel your legs working, your heart pumping, the cold
air in your lungs on a winter's morning, you growing stronger as you make it
up that hill you struggled with for weeks and how that illness makes you
sluggish, saps your energy, slows you down. On a bike you are part once more
of the social world of pedestrians and that special club of other cyclists
amongst which there is a camaraderie you don't get amongst drivers - the
passing nod, wave or hello, a recognition of someone else who is willing to
make an effort to get where they want to go.

And when we ride as a family, we're doing something together, as a unit,
getting to amazing places under our own steam and realising we can do that
without resort to a car. We slow down, stop more, see more, experience more,
feel more. Right now as we head off to Spain to tackle the Pyrenees and the
ancient Pilgrims route to Santiago de Compostela, we're off on a journey
that is part family holiday, part physical challenge, part adventure, and
part complete change of scene and lifestyle. We leave behind the car, the
house, the routine for an itinerant existence where we'll stay where we
stay, stop where we stop and let the journey unfold; campsites, hostels,
hotels, wild camp spots, there'll be a bit of everything I'm sure. Sunshine,
rain, wind, hilld, mountaind, flat, on-road, off-road, inland and coastal
riding. The variety, freedom and unpredictability is quite intoxicating...
at least in prospect. The reality is much more mixed - of course there'll be
different routines, boredom, hard bits, arguments - all the things there are
at home. Our life on the road is family life transported to a different
setting, played out to a different rhythm, against changing backdrops, with
the added daily stimulus of encounters with new people, places and
experiences. And then there's the daily satisfaction of knowing you got
there under your own steam and that extraordinary things are possible if you
can just pursue them in little chunks one day at a time. Now who can say
that about travelling by car?

On the road

We started in a fitting way for a pilgrimage; in a church car park in Portsmouth. God answered our prayers and provided bus lanes all the way to the ferry.

Worlds apart

I'm sitting in a café in Manchester, waiting to go to a meeting to discuss a piece of work that consumed me for a month but failed to please the client. I feel ready for a break.

When we're on the road, away from 'normal' life, people often stop and ask us why do we do it; why push bikes over mountain passes, sleep out in scrubland, pedal around the world on 'pointless' family challenges. Sometimes I wonder myself.

But sitting waiting for my verbal clobbering, downing a quick coffee and croissant outside a dirty café on a fume filled city street, watching everyone rushing around their worlds of work, I'm more inclined to wonder why we do that.

Why do we spend so much of our lives getting up, going to work, putting up with pointless jobs and stupid bosses; downplaying stress, ignoring pollution, excusing rudeness; telling ourselves we need the money, the car, the clothes, the phone, the nights out; kidding ourselves we've got a good job, we're going places, we're going to make a difference, that it will all be worth it in the end; living on autopilot and thinking that is how life is, who we are, what we are. Why do we spend so much time living a life of habit?

You see it's not a pointless challenge to take time out, push bikes uphill and sleep in the scrub. Taking to the road challenges the mindless routines that have a habit of creeping back into everyday living. When you live a life of habit, life loses its edge and you lose yours. Our 'pointless'
journeys take us back to basics, remind us of the easily forgotten, underlying simplicity of life; what we need is food, water, shelter, health, family and friends; everything else is fluff.

But I'm not in that world, not yet. Not this week. Coffee and croissant finished. Got to get on. Meeting to get to. People to see. Things to do. Lots of things. Important things. Naturally. Busy. Busy. Busy me. Simplicity will have to wait. Until next week.

Looking forward to the after (normal) life

Hannah tries out her new buggy, home for six weeks

Just a couple of weeks to go and we're in that strange transition phase; trying to maintain our 'normal' life while getting everything and everyone ready for this summer's adventure. There's so much to organise - finances, bikes, equipment, clothes, camping gear, children - that just occassionally I wonder if it will all be worth it.

But experience tells me that beyond the logistical nightmares of preparation, life on the road ultimately has an elegant simplicity that is hard to find in everyday living. We don't know what this journey will hold, you never do. But in the midst of all the madness of preparation I sure am looking forward to the after (normal) life.

Pedalling Pilgrims

Every year thousands of people leave behind their material possessions, pack a few things into a small rucksack and head to Northern Spain to follow one of the ancient Pilgrim Routes to Santiago de Compostela.

From what I've read, a pilgrim's journey can be a potent combination of physical challenge, solitude, companionship, contemplation and spiritual enlightenment. But I'm not sure how it will be for us.

I get the physical challenge bit. And with two tandems, two trailers, three children and the Pyrenees to cross in the first week I'm sure we'll all get that pretty quickly. But with three kids age seven and under, I just can't imagine where there'll be time for solitude, contemplation or spiritual enlightenment.

Still, it's sure to be a cycling celebration of family life and like all our adventures together, a journey that will feed and nurture our family spirit.