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Learning to ride in Spain
Lytchett Manor Striders, Poole – Dave’s running club.
Kayaking from Cornwall
back to Dorset, summer 2007
Cycling around Wareham Forest
– using the trailer for the first time.
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I was fortunate enough to have been brought up in a
small-whitewashed village in Andalusia, in the south of Spain in the 1970’s. From an early age I was always a keen cyclist
and I have very fond memories of learning to ride my bike, cycling down the
street with old Spanish ladies sitting on their doorsteps knitting and
chatting away. In those days the narrow streets had very few cars on them
and old men with their donkeys coming back from the fields were a common
sight. It was a very safe
environment to grow up in, where children could play on the street without
parents worrying about their whereabouts and all the doors on the street
were always open till late in the night, everybody knew everybody and
people were always friendly and would always stop for a chat.
Once I learnt to ride my bike I would spend hours on it,
cycling around the village with my friends and slowly venturing further
afield to visit friends in other villages and exploring
the beautiful surrounding areas nearby.
As I grew older I started to wonder what it would be like to go on a
cycling trip, often I would look at my Dad’s big map of Spain, the names of
all the different cities, towns and villages fascinated me and I had
visions of cycling and exploring the hidden corners of this large and
varied country.
At the age of eighteen I returned to UK to join the Royal Marines,
with whom I served for six years. During this time I carried on pursuing my
love of cycling by taking part in numerous Mountain Bike races.
Leaving the Royal Marines in 1997 I went to work on a
Raleigh International Expedition down in Chile. I also had the
opportunity to travel extensively around Patagonia and immediately fell in
love with this remote area of South America.
During 1998 and 1999 I worked in California
as an outdoor instructor taking teenagers on backpacking trips to the
beautiful wilderness areas of Northern California.
I then returned to the UK
and worked in London
doing security work at various renowned five-star hotels. Working in London was not really my idea of living and therefore
decided to get a job with Explore (www.explore.co.uk) a leading adventure travel company
and was lucky enough to lead trips for them in Spain,
Peru and Cuba.
In Peru
I met my girlfriend Kelly who was also working as a tour leader for
Explore.
The
idea of cycling around Spain
was always at the back of my mind, but due to different circumstances I had
never really thought that I would ever carry this out. However, in May 2003
Kelly and I, at last, decided to fly to Bilbao
in the north of Spain.
From there we planned to cycle into the Pyrenees and work our way along the
“Camino de Santiago” and then south along the coast of Galicia and along the Portuguese coast to Malaga. What started,
as a simple childhood dream had become a reality.
After
our trip around Spain
and Portugal
we both had become addicted to cycling and we both joked about going off to
cycle the world. After returning to the UK I began working for the RNLI
as a First Aid and Sea survival trainer. Slowly the dream of carrying on
cycling faded away. However, it was always at the back of our minds and
after having bad days at work we would often refer back to it. Five years
later we have now decided it is time to carry on following our dream, as we
have reached a point in our lives which we have decided it’s now or never.
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