May 24
The climb I'd been dreading
The Tourmalet from the west is just a number until you're on it. Four hours up, eleven minutes down, and a sandwich that tasted like victory.
Written from cafés, campsites, and the occasional ferry deck — somewhere between Lisbon and the far side of the map.
The Tourmalet from the west is just a number until you're on it. Four hours up, eleven minutes down, and a sandwich that tasted like victory.
I mailed a box of "essentials" home from Bordeaux. The bike feels like a different machine. Lesson learned, again.
Two days of grinding into the wind along the coast, rescued each evening by people who insisted I stay for dinner.
Out of Lisbon and into a quiet I wasn't ready for. Rust-red soil, stripped cork trunks, and storks nesting on every electricity pole between Évora and the border.
Three days before I left, a retired framebuilder named Joaquim re-laced my rear wheel by ear, then refused to take a cent. I think about that wheel on every descent.
The bike was packed for a week before I had the nerve to clip in. Notes on saying goodbye to a flat with a door that locks, in favour of a tent that doesn't.