Justin & Aubreys European Expedition

Cities have not been kind to us. Minor car accident, infected cuts, broken bicycles....the list goes on. However, the country-side offers free beachside camping and small cafes to get a cerveza and a coffee. which would you choose?

Justin: The bike rack looks like an upside down triangle. The brackets mounting the point of this triangle to my bike both broke after a week. An intalian motorcycle/chainsaw mechanic named Mario fixed me up with a marvelous plastic bracket that held better than the metal ones. 5 weeks later, the metal brackets attaching the upper lefthand corner of this triangle to my bike also broke. The bike shop in barcelona took everything apart and remounted the rack lower (thus changing the center of gravity). He said it would be better. Less than a week later it broke anyway.

LONG LIVE ZIP-TIES!!!!!!

Aubrey: My bike rack and rear wheel look like they got hit by a car. Oh wait...... Ive got an inch or two of clearance between the bent steel rack and my rear wheel spokes. My back wheel is loose as the countless hookers we see by the sides of the road as we ride by. (Sorry, bad image)

But the show must go on and we are really living up this adventure.

Other Stuff:
Stumbled upon a town, Moraira - where Lance Armstrong used to own a house and train for the tour.
Now tons of pro teams from around the world live and/or train there. One of the most beautiful and mountainous rides we´ve seen so far.

We found a little apartment to spend Christmas in, where we´ll have a kitchen!
The bread, tuna and pesto sandwich routine will have a rest.

Here´s to peace, hearing the ocean every night and to calves that could cut glass,
A & J

P.S. Splitting a box of icecream sandwiches sitting on a sidewalk after a day of riding.....
In the moment = AWESOME.
5 minutes after = BAD CHOICE

Life is better on a bike.
Even though bike seats were manufactured in hell.

Lessons Learned:

• Car doors happen quickly.

• ´Keen V´ : You tube that business ASAP. ´Prince Charmont´

• 5 Weeks without Rihanna/Nicki/Kesha = in one hour of uninterrupted repeat. Worth far more than 70 cents in the Internet Cafe.

• 500mg of yogurt for breakfast wont make you poop your pants. 125mg yogurt left in a pannier for 3 days will make you think you might.

• Spanish sunrises rival Italian sunsets. Its tough to judge such magestic beauty.

• Red lights in España also mean STOP.

• Cars are hard and will push you over. {See above}

• You can camp anywhere in España. On the board walk of a pedestrain beach way? Sure!

• Even the French can make better bread than what we´ve got going on here....

• If your bike shorts are just a little bit wet from sink washing them the night before...its not going to be OK.

• Clemantines picked from the tree are the cool/hot flavor of December.

• Happy Feet II should be viewed in Español.

• Beer and Coffee breaks halfway through the day are clutch.

• Cyclists here are dressed like they are riding through New England in December...not down the coast of southern Spain.

• Only after the bag with the untouched first aid kit has been stolen will you have several occasions it would have been more than handy.

Quote of the Day:
´Fear not when, fear not why, Fear not much while were alive. Life is for living not living up tight. ♥´ Words from a very bright little sister.

Heres to peace, hitting 1,500km and looking forward {figuaratively....well, and literally i suppose while riding..}

A & J

Wake up, get dressed, pack, eat yogurt with sh%t thrown in it, eat fresh bread, ride all day, set up camp, eat bread, pesto and tuna, sleep. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

We miss the routine. The past week of non-riding (our holiday on holiday) has been anything but relaxing. Cities, tourists, museums, bed-bugs, rowdy backpackers in hostels, twin beds, fast foods, steins of sangria, trains, metros, busses, airplanes, screaming babies, hideously dressed europeans, rain, the common cold, sleepless nights, broken bikes, going the wrong way down one way on-ramps, cities that only have one major superhighway leading in and out, old men asking for directions while his buddy swipes all your cash and important documents from your stuff....... sounds like quite a vacation, right?

Today we get back on our bikes. Rested (kinda) from our vacation.
We have much riding to do, and luckily we are already in spain, so the only agenda is basically to get the HELL out of Barcelona (bar-th-alone) and just ride around the pretty places in spain.

Riding is comforting. We have our routine, out of cities and off highways, and its so nice. The country side that most tourists never see is so beautiful. Cycle touring is where its at. Seriously. The small towns you pass through have so much character, in their own microcosmic way.

Much love to the families and friends, we are sending good vibes your way.

Justins Quote of the Day:
"And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And loves dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves" - DB

Aubreys Quote of the Day:
"M-O-O-N and that spells fairy tale" <3

Here´s to Peace, Heineken extra cold, and Cobb Salads,
A & J

Okay, so you need a new blog entry-we get it...

Internet access is harder to find than we expected, and on that note, let's discuss some of the times that fate has proved to be keeping blogs from our precious readers...

"Yes, this is internet cafe, however we just got the new stock of pastry and coffee in and the boxes are blocking the computer terminal doorway right now, please come back this afternoon"

"Yes, the hotel does have a computer with internet access, however, the wireless adapter was stolen just earlier this afternoon..."

So you see, we are not neglecting you!

Considering there was an entire country since the last entry, we better use bullet-points:

- Biked up the coast of Italy (BEAUTIFUL ocean views and winding coastal routes)

- Reached Cinque Terre (5 towns, but 3 were closed off because excessive rain caused flooding and landslides- not good news for winding switchbacks and steep dirt cliffs)...Here we camped out for a few days overlooking the ocean from a cliff, then took our first train from La Spezia to Ventimiglia (the roads were impassible because of landslide damage)

-From Ventimiglia (Vent-eh-MEAL-ya) we biked across the boarder into France (The Fransh Riviera, if you will) and were immediatly hit with a 7 mile hill....let me tell you, Western MA ain't got nothing on France when it comes to hills. After an hour of climbing, we were rewarded with a breathtaking winding switchback route descending for about 15-20 minutes. We arrived at hostel in Nice (probably one of the top 10 in the world, SO BOSS.....Aubs and I want to start our own hostel out in CO)

-Explored Nice (NEEES) a bit, it was nice, but i did not find any gneiss.

-Departed on an EPIC push to reach Spain ASAP. We had covered 90, 110, and 90 kilometers in three consecutive days. (here is where the cycling folk open up a new tab and convert that to miles just to see that its not really that impressive. but HEY, we each have extra weight (50+ lbs)!!!

-On the third night, we re-calculated the route, and realized that we would not reach Spain in time, and decided to hop on a train from Marseille (Mer-SIGH)-Perpignan (Perg-ig-nahn), a city right on the boarder.

-Rode the next day across the Spanish border (our first cloudy day the whole trip!)

-Got to Portbau (Port-BOW) and didnt like it, so hopped a train to Barcelona.

We are currently on Holiday from our Holiday...hope this fills the void for a while.

Cheers!

30 hours of being awake and 30 miles on the bikes is how we welcomed ourselves to Rome.
It seems so long ago at this point....so well go for the never fail bullet point method.

Day 1:
Assembled our bikes at baggage claim in the airport terminal.
Rode 30 miles to get out of Rome (dont even consider looking at a bicycle in the city of rome, never mind riding it through the 100+ round-a-bouts of death.) Ended up pulling into a B+B, didnt quite make it to Bracciano - but dark had long since closed in and we were beat.

Day 2 + 3:
Rode to Lago di Bracciano. The town was bustling, cobblestone streets, castles, lake shore, cafes, bliss.

Day 4: Rode into Tuscania. Finally real riding. Country roads, long stretches where we could just cruise and not have to fight with the Garmin every kilometer. 60k brought us into Casa de Caponetti - where we lived as a little community working 8 hours a day harvesting olives.
On our first day of work we were introduced to the "dildos" - not joking. These 8 foot tall, battery operating, shaking pitchfork machines were how you get the olives down from the tree. They are called "dildos" because after 8 hours you realize they have totally f-ed you and every muscle in your entire body. Then you gather the olives off the "teles" aka massive tarps - pour them into cassettees, which each hold about 45 pounds of olives. We did 30 cassettes the first day, 41 on day 2 and 30 on day 3. So much work goes into making olive oil. Its unreal. Oh and the stuff we have in the states. Crap. Pure olive crap. Olive oil here that is fresh and pure is a brilliant green and is not greasy.

On the farm we met some incredible people - including Chaz, a 22 year old graduate of the culinary institute of america, who worked in the 24th best ranked restaurant in the world in nyc.....and he took over kitchen duties on the farm for most of our meals. heavenly.

Headed out 60k to Lago di Bolsena. Stealth-ily set up sleep stuff under the stars on the shore of the lake in a tucked away little cove.....until the army of sand fleas made us retreat into the tent. It was still a beautiful night.

Pitigiliano "Cliff City" was certainly not joking around.
Huge and steady ascents. up and up and up we climbed for a few hours...with our 40+ pounds of gear. (Yeah...thats right future tri competition....my bike legs are going to chew you up) Arrived in the city, lost. Followed a nice random italian who led us to the address of the b+b. We ended up having our own 1st floor apartment owned by a really nice older couple. They had us up for homemade wine - made us garlic bread for dinner and shared coffee with us in the morning. They were super hospitible. General trend of Italy so far. (Were sure that will all change when we hit France......)

60K again to get us back along the western coast. Fonteblanda + Talamondo, the second being the land of rich popped collar, blinged out italian yuppies on vaca. While eating pb and honey from the container in our spandex.....we didnt quite fit in. SO we found ourselves a nice hotel yard to pitch in.

Marina di Grosseto / Miramare is where we are now. One of the nicest beaches in Italy - even though its pretty closed up for the winter.
We stashed our stuff in the shrubs along the beach, which is where well sleep tonight.

Tomorrow = No idea.

Heres to peace, crema gelato and Italian bike mechanics named mario,
A + J

Justins quote of the day:
"in a world where you dont speak the language, please and thank you can get you further than anything else"

Aubreys quote of the day:
"adventure-ing is like a cafe latte.....one clearly isnt enough, be sure to go back for seconds....or thirds."