UHY Peacheys' Blog

DAY 11 - CLIMBING TO THE TOP IN THE VALLEY OF THE DOURO

We are in Porto! 650 miles at least from Pau in France (due to computer failure we will have to work out the exact distance later). We have crossed the Pyrenees and the Sierras of central Spain and climbed in and out of the Douro Valley more times than I care to think about right now. Our hotel has even been upgraded free of charge to a 4 star hotel which is great news except that the bike bags were posted to the old hotel and haven't been sent on. We're not even sure if they've got them yet.

The day started well at our hotel in Regua, which overlooks the beautiful River Douro, with a chance to stuff ourselves with food at the breakfast buffet. This made up partly by the lack of food on the route and allowed us to "carb-up" for the final to the coast. Martin's tally was 2 bowls of cereals, 2 bowls of fruit, 3 cakes, a yoghurt and an couple of croissants and I put away much the same. The Goat spilt much of his on his T-shirt but this is now so dirty that it made no difference. 

We then went for a 10k training ride courtesy of the Portuguese habit of closing perfectly good roads for no apparent reason. We left the hotel and crossed over to the south bank of the river to pick up the road which the map shows as running alongside the river most of the way to Porto. When we got there, there was a barrier across the road and a barbed wire fence. To get around this would have involved a massive trek over the mountains so we had to cross back onto the northern bank of the river and take the more up and down route that this appeared to offer. About 30 minutes after leaving our hotel we passed it again heading in the opposite direction waving in a deranged fashion at the bewildered reception staff. Still 125k to go! The scenery was stunning with most of it viewed from the steep climbs that rise up through the vineyards that line the river. We sweated and toiled upwards for most of the day, the descents being fast and furious but over in minutes and finally we were in Porto.

A SMALL SAGA WITH THE BIKE BAGS
They weren't there of course, or at least that's what they told us to start with. I explained that without them we couldn't put our bikes on the plane without them and that we would have to spend Friday morning trying to buy new bike bags. At this point the Goat was thinking that he wouldn't bother and he would leave his bike at the airport. And then just as we were about to leave the bags were mysteriously found.

And now we are in the bars in the old town of Porto where the Goat has been thrown out of a bar for smoking a cigarette by a barman smoking a spliff! Next to us a man is setting fire to one of the plastic tables. The tour is over for another year.

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DAY 9 - VASCA DE GAMA IN NAVIGATION ERROR SHOCK

Another symptom of road fatigue is not working out the distances on the map correctly. I have to put my hands up and say I discovered this morning we had an extra 50k to go. Add that to the extra 25 courtesy of the boys from Zamora and that's almost 3 day's cycling to do in 2 days! The Goat is now quietly gloating over his beer and calling me Vasco, after the famous Portuguese discoverer,

The answer to this new problem was to put in a massive 175k from Miranda to Regua which meant leaving early and the Goat not dithering with his panniers as he usually does. He failed there straight away by putting them on the bike the wrong way round and catching his feet on the as we set off so that he almost crashed in the first 5 metres.

We also had to cut down on the stops by taking most of them on the roadside and carrying extra water bottles in the panniers.

We still managed lunch in a café in downtown Mogadougo where the waiter, who appeared to be a retired shepherd, made whistling noises and growling sounds at all the village down and outs who made up most of the clientele. And in Carvivais we stumbled on the home of the Sporting Lisboa Benfica fan club where Martin made the mistake of mentioning that he was an Arsenal fan which immediately prompted a guided inspection of all of the barman's Benfica memorabilia. We made a break for it only to be held up behind rolling roadworks until we were allowed to jump our bikes onto the newly laid but empty carriageway and race past all of the cars and trucks that were in the ever growing queue. Alas we came to a complete stop at Pocinho due to major works to repair the road and the only diversion, short of a 150k detour, was to jump onto a train to the next town along the Douro. We had an hour to kill before the train arrived and chose to spend it in the company of Dirty Boy at the Café of Death by the railroad yard. I would say this was a 3 Fleas Eatery with Dirty Boy taking the biscuit with a T-shirt which indicated he had recently been lying flat on his face in an unclean pigsty for some considerable length of time.

THE ROAD
The road is more dangerous here in Portugal. Drivers drive as they do in Britain and we have been cut up already by a couple of truck drivers on blind bends. The only good thing about the traffic here is that there is not much of it.

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Goat goes for peasant look

DAY 8 - MIRANDA DO DOURO, PORTUGAL

In a superb day of riding to the border the Goat has gone for the peasant look after spotting an old Zamoran cap lying discarded at the roadside. Having knocked the dust out of it he put it on and then wondered why I was riding at some distance in front of him. Shortly afterwards an old farmer stopped his tractor to talk to us, obviously mistaking the Goat for one of his drinking mates. He offered us a drink from the bottle of wine he was swigging as he tractored along and he was probably responsible for at least some of the squashed wildlife on offer on the road in the morning which included 2 barn owls, a fox, a lynx and a snake.

One thing that the Zamorans seem to be very proud of is their displays of junk. A smallholding or garden without neat collections of rusting metalwork, piles of sand or other sundry building materials simply would not be allowed. One imagines that they must enter these collections in local shows from time to time to see who can win, for example, best arrangement of old hammers.

Now we are in a rather pleasant hotel in Miranda after a dramatic descent into the Douro Valley followed, of course, by the traditional monumental climb up to the town.

ROAD FATIGUE

Road fatigue has now set in caused by the efforts of the day (fuelled on a lunch of peanuts and olives), the heat, which is now repressive, and by the practical difficulties of checking into a Portuguese hotel with bicycles and pannier bags and wearing shoes that are not conducive to the act of walking. The landlady barks contradictory instructions at us in a language that neither of us understand and doesn't like the look of the Goat's passport for some reason. And all we want to do is to wash away the grime of the day and get a cold beer.

As a result simple tasks have taken on a magnitude that would have tested NASA. I open a pannier and stare into it vacantly - not sure what to do next. Then for some reason Martin asks me how big Porto is. "It's exactly the same size as Reading," I say and that's life on the road.

NEVER EVER LISTEN TO THE LOCALS

It was a last minute decision to come to Miranda, based mainly on the recommendations of a number of inebriated Spaniards who said that Martin absolutely had to try the bacalao and french fries. So we changed our route to cross the border further north and were assured that the run into Porto from Miranda would be flat. Of course it turns out that we have come 25 kilometres out of our way so that the Goat can have a plate of cod and chips! Added to that a barman's description of the road to the coast seems to be at odds with that of our Zamoran friends. "No it's not flat," he says in very good English, "There is a big, big mountain."

We should have known better. Ever since an Irishman sent us to a hotel that was closed in 1929 back in Donegal, and his fellow countrymen directed halfway across Ireland in search of bike shops that didn't exist, the locals have been giving us duff information ranging from a little exaggeration to downright lies. This year's prize goes to the proprietor of the bar in Arnedillo who told us that the next 15 kilometres would be flat before reaching the mountain. About 400 metres around a bend the road soared into the Riojan sky like a startled owl and continued soaring more or less continuously for the whole of the 15kms!

DAY 7 - FUENTESAUCO, ZAMORA

Fuentesauco is a beautiful place to stop. There are no tourists but the place has a vacation feel to it. The streets are hot and sleepy and, from the rooftops of a magnificent church, sixteen storks look down on life in the plaza and clack to each other about the day's events. In the bars there is the usual mix of locals, mostly Zamorans with a couple of Catalonians and a bloke from Argentina as well. 

One of the Catalonians hawks around a plastic bag containing a splendid collection of CDs that he has obtained free from the Sunday papers. He's not selling them, he just displays them to anyone who is interested. Nobody is.

The Argentinian, Carlos, who was born in Cordoba (the birthplace of Che Guevara), owns a bar in the square and a couple of the Zamorans take us there in the mistaken belief that we want to reminisce about the "hand of God" incident when Argentina knocked England out of the World Cup. As it happens we had already been there a bit earlier.

"It's our local," explains the Goat as he does an impersonation of Peter Shilton and Diego Maradona and Carlos waves around his Boca Juniors flag. 

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Goat stopped by Guardia Civil

It had to happen. The only surprise is that it has taken Spain's supercops so long. But the Goat has finally been stopped by the Guardia Civil and ticked off for not wearing his crash hat, which is compulsory in Spain. In a scene reminiscent of Basil Fawlty excusing his waiter by saying, "He's from Barcelona," I had to plead with the Guardia not to ticket him by saying, "I'm sorry Officer. He's from near Hitchin." The baffled cop seemed to accept that this was indeed a reasonable excuse or perhaps he felt that anyone from near Hitchin had enough on his plate and could do without losing thirty euros for not wearing a hat. Either way he let him off. Had he known that the Goat had previous for riding on Spanish motorways, not only without a hat but also wearing a diving mask and flippers, then I think that a night in the can would have been more appropriate.

So now it's Monday, Day 7, and we have reached Fuentesauco in Zamora province. Tomorrow we should reach the Portuguese border.

What do vegetarians eat in Spain I hear you ask? Tuna fish of course. Now matter how many times I say I don't want meat or fish I always get a generous dollop of tuna on my food. I hadn't realised that the tuna fish was a vegetable - but I am going to ask for a packet of seeds in the next restaurant and I'll see if I can grow one in the garden.

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The Science of the Goat

Cuellar, Segovia - lunch 3.15pm. For 20kms we have followed the same route as we did last year on the road from Bilbao to Sevilla. In Campaspero several of the locals who were enjoying their Sunday cervezas outside the bars and cafés clearly recognised us.

"Mire! Es El Cabron!"

"Si Senior, and he have brought with him all the same old kit he brought last year! His chain iss muy knackered!"

"Si. At least Monty Panesar bring with him a new bike and gel shorts."

Pedrazas de San Esteban, 7pm. Another 100 kilometres and we are in a one street town in the middle of nowhere that is a whole lot busier than anyone would imagine it should be. The plan was to stop in Iscar, 5kms to the east, but when we got there a storm was brewing and the two hotels in town were shut on Sundays so I got the space blankets ready for a night in the open and we moved on.

A lot of people ask what we do all day on a bike. One of the things we do is hallucinate, probably due to the lack of food. Today I spotted a statue of Winston Churchill smoking a fat cigar but it turned out to be the funnel of a chemical plant. Later on the Goat had similar problems identifying a pair of grain silos, claiming that he could see the Everly Brothers.

All the talk in the bars here is of Alberto Contador and his forthcoming battle against Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France. Before we left Blighty there was a documentary on Channel 4 called The Science of Lance Armstrong which showed the level of microscopic analysis undertaken by Armstrong's team in their search for the perfect ride. Mostly the said research was conducted in an aviation wind tunnel. A £5,000 bike was set up with Lance in his streamlined kit on board with an engine off a Boeing 747 blowing wind past him at a thousand kph. None of this would make a blind bit of difference to us of course but, for a moment, I have this vision of the Goat in the tunnel with his panniers flapping shabbily at the back of his bike and his ridiculous headband disturbing the airflow over his head when one of Lance's technicians walks in and says, "Who's left this bag of burro crap in the wind tunnel?" Meantime the computers are registering a drag coefficient so far off the scale that red lights start flashing and bleeps start bleeping all of which is a precursor to the inevitable smoke that will indicate that the whole shooting match is about to blow - that is The Science of The Goat and, believe me, the Tour de France has nothing to fear.

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El Cabron strikes again

Aranda del Duero - about 100 kms due north of Madrid.

I knew it was too good to be true. It's Day 5 and the Goat's bike has started to disintegrate. Yesterday we discovered that his pannier rack had broken and today his chain snapped in the Canyon del Rio Lobos (it appears he hasn't had it changed in 8,000 miles!). We were 5 kilometres out of San Leonardo when it happened and we decided that I would ditch my panniers and time-trial back to town with the chain to get a tool to fix it. That was a big mistake - within minutes of me leaving, the first of a queue of Spanish cyclists (who all seem to carry small workshops with them) stopped to offer to repair it on the spot.

"Where is the chain?" asked the first and the second and the third.

"My mate's taken it to town," must have seemed like a pathetic answer.

Meanwhile, in San Leonardo, establishing that bike shops were in short supply proved a painful process. The first old man said there were none. The second old man agreed, but then a kid driving a Toyota pickup told me there was one and that he would lead me to it. I showed him the broken chain just to make sure he had understood. The kid said, "Si, vamos a reparar la cadena," and then zoomed off with me in tow on the bike, having to jump red lights to keep up with him, and screeched to a halt outside a bookshop, gesticulating that I should go in. He clearly meant well so I went in to humour him, hoping that he would drive off but, of course, he waited.

"I don't suppose you fix bikes as well as sell books?" I said to the bewildered bookseller. Fearing that she was about to call the Guardia Civil I pretended to be interested in a book on Trout Fishing until the kid eventually roared off, satisfied no doubt, that I was a raving lunatic. I decided that the only way out was to get a taxi to take us to the next big town and a man with a dog took me to see a woman whose husband ran a taxi service in Soria - he would be about 45 minutes. Meanwhile the Goat was on the phone demanding to know what was happening.

"I've got a waiting list of people here waiting to fix the chain and you're looking round a bookshop with it!"

The taxi didn't turn up anyway of course and eventually Martin called to say that a family of bikers from Zamora had offered to fix it and that they would wait 20 minutes for me to get back. I time-trialled back to the canyon again to find the Goat having a picnic with the said family and looking relaxed and rested after lying around for the best part of two hours under the shade of a Spanish oak tree. The last laugh was on the Goat however because, although the Spaniard fixed the chain, the links were not quite the right size with the result that for the rest of the day Martin's chain slipped once every revolution making a horrible grinding sound every time it did so.

"This is driving me nuts," he complained after 6 kilometres.

"Yes, but I find if I drop a hundred metres behind you I can't hear it," I said to console him.

And the day had started so well - apart from being woken up by a mini-bus full of Matadors arriving at our hotel for the festival in Soria and unloading all their kit into the reception below our room. The scenery is stunning in Spain and the traffic almost non- existent. Added to that, the Goat imparted some useful information to me concerning Tommy Steele's dad - it appears that he acted as a double for Winston Churchill in WW2. Armed with this knowledge and a plethora of other useless information that was similarly imparted, I will surely return to the UK a more rounded individual.

Meanwhile in a little village called Casanova one of the locals in the bar, where we had stopped for coffee and olives, had cobwebs on his head. Life is incredibly slow in central Spain in the summer but this was a first!

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Pilgrim's progress

The pilgrim situation is getting worse. They were splashing out serious dough on food and drink in St Jean Pied de Port as they gathered for the 800k trek to Santiago. They were there too in Pamplona pushing up the prices on all and sundry. And last night a barman in Calahorra asked us if WE were pilgrims. The Goat nearly hit the roof. "Do I look like a pilgrim?" he exploded.

I have to say that with his turquoise cycling socks he did not. Nevertheless it was a trifle unpleasant to be associated with a bunch of nutters who carry sticks, wear khaki shorts and arrive on air conditioned coaches for the short walk into town from the car park.

Enciso, the Valley of the Dinosaurs 12.30. We are getting our fix of coffee and olives in a fly-blown village café and I have just broken the news to Martin that there is a 1450 metre Col about three kilometres up the road. He is now busy shoving dextrosol tablets down his neck.

Rio Duero nr Soria 6pm. We breezed up over the Punto de Oncala at 1454 metres and blew away the kilometres on the long descent to Soria. Now we are crossing the river that goes all the way to Porto.

Abejar on the N234 10pm. A massive day - 120 kms and a major climb. We finished on the road at 8.30 and are knocking back our first beers. The Goat, for some reason, is vexed by the possibility that there might be rat's droppings on his bottle of Mahou cerveza. This concern will disappear rapidly once he has had a few more of them but now we are back in real Spain. There are no pilgrims here. Beer is just a euro and the bars are full of characters who would not be out of place as extras in the film One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

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Panesar cracks with third day blues

Last night's sojourn into the parallel world of Three-Thirty Land resulted in me getting lost on the way back to the hotel and taking the shortest taxi ride in world history (left at the roundabout and stop!). Amazingly the Goat had got back under his own steam leaving me to beg a duplicate key to the room from the night porter.

Berbinzana, Rio Arga - midday. The Goat is gloating because he thinks I have cracked on the 3rd day. OK so I fell off the bike on the cobbles in Artajona, lost half a bottle of water and then took the wrong road out of town. And I may have lost half my clothes - socks and vest left in the hotel room and pants inexplicably somewhere along the road. But apart from that everything is fine and at least the panniers weigh less now.

Calahorra, Rioja Country 6pm finish. We have got the Third Day Blues. In a tour of 10 days energy levels seem to be at their lowest at the end of the 3rd day. All the miles and the blistering heat result in a cumulative drain on the body's reserves which seem to build up again from Day 4 onwards. It is an effort to think straight. We have conversations that we cannot complete due to intense lethargy. The Goat rummages around in a pannier for a poorly washed sock and forgets why he is looking for it. Reaching for that bottle of San Miguel is almost a problem. There is nothing more to say today and if there was I would be too tired to say it. Adios amigos.

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Monty Panesar and the Goat ride into Spain

"Promise little, deliver less." That's the Basque marketing slogan. An alternative would be, "Just say Non," which we heard on numerous occasions last night when asking for food and drink. As a result we find ourselves in the unusual position of waking up early without hangovers (only 5 beers and bed by midnight!).

Pannier management is much more than just knowing what to put where, it's about knowing how to look after your kit. It's about remembering to ring out your clothes when you've washed them so that they are dry by the following morning. You can probably guess where this is going and right now Martin is busy fixing his smalls to his panniers to dry them out in the sun.

Valcarlos, Spain 10.30. First café con leche of the day just over the Spanish border. There was no sign to reward us for our efforts but the tarmac suddenly deteriorated and a Repsol garage appeared - Bienvenido a Espana.

Today I am sporting a bandana tied on top which apparently makes me look like Monty Panesar so that we now make a frightening combination on the road especially as the Goat has taken to wearing a pair of turquoise cycling socks which don't match anything in the known universe never mind the other kit he is sporting.

Roncesvalles 1059m, 1.30pm. The major climb of the day is over and as we recuperate on top of the world the pain caused by having to cope with a brand new saddle on a major tour has prompted me to start thinking up a new jingle for Ryanair to play on landing. Something along the following lines will probably suffice.

"Congratulations! Yet another Ryanair flight has landed on time. Unfortunately, due to the need to achieve a 20 minute turnaround for our aircraft some of your luggage may have been damaged. If you have checked in a pedal cycle this will almost certainly be the case."

I will then be writing to Ryanair boss, Michael O'Leary suggesting that he sets up a cycling concession at every airport so that he can make a killing flogging saddles and other bike kit to his hapless passengers.

And here's a new advert for Michael along the lines of the MasterCard one.

"Checking your bike onto a Ryanair flight - €30.
Buying a new saddle - €11.
Having sore arse for 7 hours a day because you're not used to the new saddle - priceless!"

Everywhere is overun with pilgrims on the camino trail and as a result everything is double the price that it should be. We have to avoid the pilgrims at all costs and fortunately you can always spot them as they have walking sticks and cargo pants. A serious pilgrim will have 2 walking sticks whereas a less experienced specimen carries just one. If they don't have any at all they are not proper pilgrims.

Pamplona, 6.30pm. We had lunch at a bar in Espinal where I asked for a sandwich with no fish or meat and got egg and tuna and Martin asked for ham and tomato and got just ham. I dropped some of the egg on the floor and, after a construction worker trod in it, I scraped it up and put it on the table. The Goat thought that this was a kind gesture on my part and promptly ate it complaining it was a bit gritty.

A bar somewhere in Pamplona. At last we have had some real food. In a little bar off the Plaza I inadvertently ordered a year's supply of chilli peppers with a bit of Spanish omlette. But at least the Goat has finally mastered the Spanish language - he keeps going up to the barman saying, "Dos mas por favor."

Xani Bar, Pamplona. 12.20am. We are in the 3.30 parallel world of Pamplona where the bars don't shut till, surprisingly, 3.30. The Goat has been trying to order a cigar all evening and we have just discovered that due to a pronounciation error I have been asking everyone for marijuana. We have almost been run out of town on several occasions and now we know why!

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The goat comes up with the new paperless expenses system

Pau, Pyrenees, Tuesday 7.30am. The waiting is over. The Goat has overslept and still has his shoes on. This time however he is complaining that he has got the worst hangover he has ever had before the start of a ride. Clearly this is down to poor training methods as I feel fine in spite of a fine tally last night of international beers including 3 Pelforths, 4 Amstels, 4 Superbocks, 2 glasses of red wine and 4 Murphys.

Naverrenx, Lunchtime. We are in a café that advertises Le Sandwich but doesn't have any. In fact it doesn't have any food at all and le Patron simply advises everyone to eat somewhere else which seems to be in keeping with how they do things round here - last night a bloke who looked like D'Artignan insisted on buying us beers from the bar opposite the one we were in resulting in the rather strange experience of drinking from two bars at once.

But we are on the road again. Predictably, the Goat's indoor training regime has left him short of a few of the basic bike handling skills and techniques like braking properly and cycling on the correct side of the road. This latter defect was evidenced when I had to restrain him from verballing some unfortunate French motorist who had just done an emergency stop to avoid him. I pointed out to him that the Europeans tend to drive on the right hand side of the road as the Fenchman threw up his hands and shouted, "Zut alors! Vous est une imbecile!"

Now call me stupid but I have allowed Martin to look after the expenses to give him something to do and he has come up with a new paperless system that would make most MPs proud. He keeps the figures in his head and redacts them at will. I have suggested that he stands in the next election as the Redaction Party candidate for Hitchin South. Meanwhile an audit is required on the euros I am having to fork out.

Naverrenx, Lunchtime - another café. This one serves food which seems to be something of a novelty in the Basque Country.

Col d'Osquich 507 metres, Café Bista. The Goat was in turbo mode on this climb as we burned out a pannierless French cyclist who thought he was going to take us out close to the summit. The Turbo Goat even took me by surprise and I am ashamed to say that I was dropped temporarily as he went for the polka-dot jersey.

St Jean Pied de Port, 8pm 110km. Avid Goat followers will be pleased to know that he cracked big time on the second climb of the day, the Col de Galima and only just managed to limp into St Jean Pied de Port.

I have come up with a cunning method of getting the Goat to speed up over short distances. Earlier in the day a barking hound gave chase to us along the road causing a burst of speed from the Goat that would have taken Mark Cavendish by surprise. An hour or so later whilst I was sitting on his back wheel I delivered a quick "Woof-woof!" and watched as he switched into overdrive and disappeared over the next hill.

A few of you have said you are fed up with me having a go at the Goat all the time.

"Anyone who can cycle across Spain has got to be pretty fit," says Mrs Brown from Northampton though I suspect this is Martin's mum!

Mrs Brown is quite right, of course, and it is true that he has come a long way since our Lejog (Land's End / John O'Groats) days where he was floored on day two by the collection of molehills that makes up Dartmoor. He is much stronger than he was then. Unfortunately his bike isn't and it is this, coupled with the fact that he lives in a geographical vacuum that let's him down. To be fair he says I have a lot of faults and in particular he is fond of complaining that I haven't cleaned the cleats on my bike shoes since I stepped in a pile of dog turd, coincidentally also on day two of Lejog, and that is the reason that he doesn't hold onto my back wheel too close. This is a crap excuse (if you'll pardon the pun) as I bought new shoes last year.

Someone I haven't had a pop at yet is Gareth Francis, our Audit & Assurance partner (must ask him what that means one day). This is possibly because, like me he is a bit of an athlete. OK, he plays golf, but at least he goes for a long walk before he has a drink - Byett and Sulley just head straight for the bar! Speaking of which, I am in need of some further rehydration myself.

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That's two pairs of pants that won't see England again

Within three hours of landing in France Martin's poor command of the language has resulted in him placing an order for a microwave oven. It's a long story and it starts with the unsurprising news that a one a half hour flight with Ryanair has resulted in an immediate visit to the bike shop where an unusually helpful Frenchman tried to fix my saddle.

"Ah, Ryanair!" he said knowingly, thus confirming that to be "Ryanaired" has become so common that the word has entered the English (and the French) language.

Ironically, Martin's crap-heap of a bike has come out seemingly unscathed and he has even put the thing together himself, ie without my assistance, and is at this very moment crowing about it over a glass of Kronenberg. I will reserve comment until I have seen the knackered old contraption in action (the brakes are sure to fail at the very least).

After that it was down to the post office to send the bike bags onto Portugal. This necessitated a visit to a supermarket to acquire a couple of cardboard boxes where the Goat's inability to communicate in the local lingo turned a simple task into a farce. "Avez-vous une box like this one?" he asked pointing to a box containing a microwave oven on special offer. There was much excitement followed by a tannoy announcement and the manager of the store rushing to greet us in the mistaken belief that she had at long last flogged the last of last year's duff models to two English idiots. It was, of course, left to me to gently lower the manager's expectations and explain that we only wanted the cardboard surrounding the appliance and not the appliance itself. Nevertheless, it was difficult to come to terms with the obvious disappointment that she felt as she watched us walk away with our free booty.

Back in the hotel the Goat summed it all up by tipping out the contents of his panniers, examining his smalls and declaring, "That's two pairs of pants that won't see England again." I have to say that that is something that the folks back home should be celebrating.

Don't let anyone fool you about the gastronomic delights of France - it is 4.15 in the afternoon and after searching for something to eat all over town we have finally secured a small bowl of peanuts. I can see where this is going - another tour with nothing much to eat and plenty to drink. But at least I don't have to worry about looking after the expenses this year. The Goat has taken this over as he has long suspected that I have used my accounting skills to fiddle the books.

"Either you let me do it or you will see yourself in the Daily Telegraph next week," he said.

"Please yourself," said I hiding the receipt for the duck island.

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I have received quite a few emails from blog readers and most of them are apparently written in the mistaken belief that I am in some way exaggerating about Martin and his antics. I can assure you that this is not the case but it might be instructive if I answer some of the more recent questions that have been posed.

"Where is Lowestoft?" asks one, which almost certainly comes from the Goat himself and sort of proves my point. "Does Martin speak French or Spanish?" asks another. Sadly, he can hardly converse in English after 7.30 in the evening.

A lot of emails ask about the route that we are proposing to take across the Iberian Peninsula. Again I suspect that some of these come from the Goat as they say things like, "Where are we going Hombre?"

Incidentally, there is only one other person in the western world who is as geographically challenged as the Goat and that is our managing partner Paul Byett, who thinks that Lincolnshire is not far from the Isle of Wight (that well known tax haven).

Anyway, for those of you with a genuine appreciation of how certain parts of Europe fit together, the daily itinerary should go somthing like this:

Today - Open up the bike bags in the hotel room in Pau and are if anything resembling a bike comes out while Martin raids the mini-bar and attempts to order flan from room service. If successful a trip to a French Post Office will follow where we will try to post the empty bags onto Portugal. The rest of the day will be spent sampling Dernier Beers and conversing with the locals on a variety of interesting subjects lifted directly from French for Idiots.

Day 1 - On the road to St Jean Pied de Port in the French Pyrenees. Here we will be mixing it with the pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago

Day 2 - We should summit the Pyrenees at Roncesvalles and descend into Pamplona at a frightening speed in search of the home of five times Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain (or rather his fan club which is a bar with a couple of his yellow jerseys on the wall)

Day 3 - Soria in Rioja country

Day 4 to 8 - We head due east (north of Madrid but south of Valladolid) to the Portuguese border at Miranda do Douro. This section of the tour is where Martin will be attacked by snakes, deranged owls and meeekats etc

Day 9 - We follow the River Douro into Portugal

Day 10 - Relax with a tour of Taylor's Port Bodega in PORTO and attempt to locate that parcel that we left in the hands of the French postal system.

Day 11 - Comatose at the airport waiting for the boys from Ryanair

Of course it won't go like that - it never does.

The French

Steve Sulley, our marketing director, keeps asking me what I've got against France.

"Combien de temps avez-vous?" I ask him before explaining that after 7.30 in the evening the only sustenance available is a small piece of flan and a dernier beer.

Of course I love the French really, otherwise why would I be going there? But I am just a little intrigued by the problems we have with communication everytime we walk into a MiserableBar.

"The trouble with the French is that they don't have a word for Bonjour," says the Goat as he attempts to parlez with the man he refers to as the MiserableBarSteward.

Generally it goes something like this.

"Nous sommes tres fatigue. Avez-vous beaucoup de Flan?"
"Non. Seulement un petit portion pathetique."
"Y les dernier beer?"
"Vous avez le fat chance."
And it's no better on the bike front either.
"Est-ce-qu'il-ya une shop de biciclette ici?"
"Oui, mais il est shut en ce moment big time."

I used to think it was just the English that they had a problem with, until we staggered into a little café on the border between France and Spain at Col d'Ares the other year. Suspecting they would have selected multilinguals for this international border post we were surprised to find that the sole employee (from the MiserableService chain) could not speak a single word of Spanish.

It is at times like these that I feel obliged to leave them with something to ponder on and for a parting shot I quip something along the lines of, "Votre chien smells." They instinctively seem to understand this, probably because there is always some mangy old mongrel lying around that stinks more than rancid Camembert itself.

And the Goat just says, "I'll have another dernier beer s'il vous plait," and tuts at the incongruity of it all.

Training and some thoughts on Ryanair

The training is almost over. Well at least mine is. On Sunday I climbed the Blorenge for the last time before we go. This 5k climb is as tough as anything we will get in the Pyrenees though it is much shorter. I went up at 8 to 9 kph and then came down at around 70 so it was a good ride. It won't be as easy with panniers on the back after 6 hours in the saddle!

I have my usual doubts about Martin's preparation of course. He is reporting a very impressive training schedule including hours spent climbing Alp d'Huez on a virtual reality simulator in his front room somewhere in Bedfordshire. I don't think he's been out on the road since last year's trip and will have forgotten what its like to ride a real bike with gears and brakes, on roads full of potholes and Spanish truck drivers - so his first encounter with real tarmac will probably be eating it!

Now it is time to whip out the old checklist and start getting all the kit together. I don't mean to be critical but here again the Goat falls short. He has no list of his own to tick off preferring instead to have a quick shifty at my comprehensive inventory schedule when I arrive to pick him up for the airport. Clearly this is no way to prepare for a major tour and I have decided to teach him a lesson this year by putting something spurious and completely inappropriate on my checklist just to see if he blindly follows suit - like gardening gloves or a copy of Get By In Danish.

Meanwhile, I am at Bristol Airport where I have had an inside look at the baggage boys from Ryanair whilst waiting to board an EasyJet flight to Newcastle. I had a SpeedyBoarding card in my hand (I must try TardyBoarding next time to see of it can possibly take any longer!) and this seemed to guarantee that I could stand out on the tarmac for a considerable amount of time and thus observe the antics of the Ryanair boys. As it happens I have just read Paul Kilduff's excellent book on this cut-price airline which he calls RuinAir (cost 1p plus fees and taxes of £7.98). I don't like to swipe other people's ideas so I will refer to the said transportation companies from now on as DifficultJet and WeDon'tCare. So anyway, the baggage boys from WeDon'tCare were in action with a luggage trolley with the inevitable result that one of the bags fell off onto the runway. They seemed to take this personally and gave the bag a good pasting whilst wagging their fingers at it as if they were giving it a good lesson. I have no doubt that the bag contained a pedal cycle of sorts and that its hapless owner is right now in some French bicycle shop called MiserableService, pleading with an unresponsive man smelling of garlic and wearing a berry, to straighten out his bent pedals (by the way I hate stereotypes but all French bike shops are the same!). I suspect that WeDon'tCare have some sort of despicable commission arrangement with bike shop owners at all their destinations and I have decided to make it my life's ambition to prove it, even if I have to collude with DifficultJet to do so.

Less than a week to go...

Sponsorship and tax relief

A lot of people are asking me about sponsorship and tax relief etc in connection with this year’s adventure. I don’t normally give free advice to MPs but here goes.

UHY Peacheys have kindly agreed to be my main sponsor this year, largely I suspect, thanks to their rather excellent senior partner. And as UHY Peacheys is also now the main sponsor of the M4 Business Network, I will again be sporting the M4 Cycling Team jersey on the road. I have to say that this excellent garment is very professional looking and, had it not been for the fact that I had the Goat in tow last year when we got caught up in that bike race (see previous blog), I would easily have been assimilated into one of the teams and would in all probability now be the current National Champion of Spain. Regrettably, this is unlikely ever to happen and I might as well wear one of those shirts that points to the left and says, “I’m with this idiot.”

The whole trip is, of course, entirely business related with the main purpose being to research into the different methods of amortising goodwill in France, Spain and Portugal. Therefore I will be claiming tax relief on the bike and all associated kit, including spares and essential lubricants like cycle oil and San Miguel. Clearly a base will be needed each night from which to hold discussions on the said goodwill – so that’s the accommodation sorted. And finally there will be the odd plate of olives and a wedge of cash to sort out sundries from time to time. HM Revenue & Customs have already sent me a Good Luck card and have promised a large tax repayment at my convenience for coming up with such a wheeze.

I am, of course, jesting slightly but it never ceases to amaze me what people (even some who are not MPs) think they can claim tax relief on. Torfaen County Council have written in asking if there is anyway we can persuade residents in Cwmbran to stop digging moats around their homes and Mr Ponsonby-Hedgefund has asked how many moats one can have and can they be flipped? Clearly this sort of nonsense has to be stopped and I will be running a seminar on something or other when I return. In the meantime, sales of duck islands are soaring at the local B&Q which is great news for the duck island industry in this part of Wales.

Me and my mate Martin Rowe (the Goat) are ready to roll again on the annual bike tour across Spain. This year, to be more accurate, we are cycling from Pau in France to Porto in Portugal with the Pyrenees, Pamplona and half of Spain inbetween. It's a tall order in anybody's book, especially mine, and with the Goat in tow it will be even taller.

"Have you had your bike serviced?" I asked him hopefully a few days ago. "What do you mean?" came the hopeless reply. "I mean have you had that back wheel fixed for a start? Or are you once again opting for an almost round one that makes a drr-thwk sound 12 times a minute?"

That is why it is entirely apt that I continue to refer to him as the Goat, a derogatory nickname handed to him last year when we accidentally wound up sharing the same route as the Spanish National Cycling Championships and some of the onlookers thought he was attempting to look like a pro-cyclist (or perhaps just any sort of cyclist!). The saddest thing about that incident is that he mistook the jeering for cheering and doffed his cap several times at the bemused Spanish crowd as if they were, somewhat inexplicably, complimenting him on his bike handling skills. Surprisingly, it appears that the Goat has some sort of following out there who will be tuning into this blog to check on his antics. He is raising money for the Garden House Hospice in Letchworth and money can be donated to his site on www.justgiving.com/mjrowe

Anyway, even before the Goat has a chance to knacker things up on the road we have to get to the start in France and I have grave misgivings about handing over my brand new Trek racing bike to the boys from Ryanair. I suspect that the Goat, on the other hand, is quietly confident that a trip in the custody of Europe's most prolific bicycle mashers could actually result in improvements to his knackered old machine. A couple of overweight baggage handlers dancing up and down on his back wheel could conceivably resolve the shape issue.

As if that isn't enough, I also have misgivings about starting in France in the first place - especially in a region which has previous for greeting long-distance cyclists, who have dragged themselves for 90 miles through suffocating heat, with a small piece of flan and news that the bar has just shut. Clearly this sort of behaviour is contrary to European law but the French don't seem to care about such trifles and mutter things like, "C'est la vie!" "C'est la bollocks," I will be muttering if they try that caper again.

So the scene is set and we are once again ready to take on everything that Europe can throw at us as we follow the San Miguel lorry on its ragged delivery route across the Iberian Peninsula.

This year we are cycling from Pau (France) to Porto (Portugal) via Pamplona and a few hundred miles of mainland Spain. The total distance will be between 650 and 700 miles depending on how good we are at ignoring any directions given by locals.

This is our 6th major tour and if the other 5 are anything to go by it will be littered with incidents ranging from bicycle snorkelling through Zaragoza to snake killing in Catalonia. The inevitable incompetence and bufoonery will be captured on the daily blog which will start soon (address to be announced). This year I am very pleased to be raising money for Children's Cancer Charity LATCH so please do give generously!

Donating through Justgiving is quick, easy and totally secure. It’s also the most efficient way to sponsor me: LATCH Welsh Children's Cancer Charity gets your money faster and, if you’re a UK taxpayer, Justgiving makes sure 25% in Gift Aid, plus a 3% supplement, are added to your donation.

http://www.justgiving.com/stevetheaker

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