Credit cards are widely accepted in most (but not all) shops, hotels and restaurants, so take some ready cash. Getting Euros from a bank or travel agent in the UK or USA – or post office in the UK – should be straightforward; some offer a cash back service if you return with unspent currency. Do expect to provide evidence of identity as part of the transaction; a passport or driving licence will often suffice.
Staying There
Hotels
There are thousands of good-value places to stay in Spain. Many are family run with a bar on the ground floor and good home cooking in the restaurant. Prices compare very favourably with elsewhere in continental Europe, and extremely favourably in terms of price and quality with accommodation in the UK. Without exception all have provided secure locations for bicycles when asked. At the bottom end you can usually find bed, breakfast and three-course evening meal with drinks totalling a mere 25 Euros per person. The evening meals can be a real experience, sometimes with a bottle of wine thrown in and virtually as much food as you can eat. Breakfast is usually coffee and toast or bread and jam. Try and avoid croissants, as they have little substance; churros, on the other hand – deep-fried ‘ropes’ of dough – are excellent and will keep you going for ages. Churros are traditionally eaten with a hot chocolate drink. Small cakes, magdalenas, often make an appearance on Sunday mornings.
Hotels are tightly regulated and must display prices of rooms and meals at reception and in bedrooms. Always check whether meals are available. Complaints’ books must be kept and are inspected by the authorities.
Although most hotels have central heating there is a reluctance to switch it on except in extreme circumstances. This can be a problem during a cold snap, and in the mountains the nights can turn chilly. Often there is only one blanket on the bed with others stored away in wardrobes or available for the asking, so make sure you have enough before turning in for the night.
In many hotels marble and polished stone is used in rooms and corridors. While very attractive and easy to clean footsteps can echo and voices boom and, allied with street noise, hotels can be noisy. Take some earplugs if you are a light sleeper.
One of the most welcome recent developments has been the growth of rural accommodation, ranging from bed and breakfast to substantial stylish hotels. The buildings vary from timber-framed medieval town houses to fincas (country house/small farm) and estancias (large farm/ranch) and stylish modern properties. There is less than national consistency about names or standards expect to see them variously named such as ‘Casas Rurales’, ‘Alojamientos Rurales’ and ‘Posadas’. The latter in particular (found in Cantabria, and known as Casas Rurales/Alojamientos Rurales elsewhere) have high standards and offer excellent value. Details can be found at national and provincial tourist offices.
The official classification of hotel-type accommodation can be confusing and there is considerable overlap between classes. Outside each establishment you will find a blue plaque with white lettering identifying the type. The ones likely to be encountered, starting with the most expensive, are in the table.
Details of hotels and guide prices are given at the end of each cycle route description. It is always a good idea to book ahead to make sure you are not left stranded at the end of a hard day. Local telephone directories are a good source of hotel, hostals and pensions often not listed elsewhere. For those able to plan with certainty booking hotel rooms online through a consolidator such as www.laterooms.com may reduce costs.
H Hoteles: hotel graded one to five stars. Restaurant, bar etc and everything you would expect of a hotel. Includes the state-run chain of ‘Paradores’
HR Hoteles Residencia: as hoteles except no dining-room facilities, with the possible exception of breakfast
HS Hostales: good-value family-owned and run hotels usually with home cooking. Graded one to three stars. Most common in rural areas
HsR Hostal Residencia: as hostales except no meals, with the possible exception of breakfast
P Pensiónes: family-run guest houses. Common in rural areas
CH Casa de Huéspedes: similar to pensiónes. Not that common
F Fonda: rooms, often above a bar, can be excellent value, coupled with good home cooking. Becoming rare
The little-visited forested gorge of the Alto Tajo
Camping
There are some 1200 campsites dotted across the country offering another good-value accommodation option. Many are well equipped with their own bar/restaurant or even swimming pool, though grassy pitches may be hard to come by. However, camspites can be too far apart to make camping-only tours feasible, and some may close down out of season. Wild camping is illegal around built-up areas and forbidden by many landowners, so check before pitching. The difference in price between Hostales and campsites may not be that great, and for a little more money a decent night’s sleep in a bed and your own en suite shower at the end of a day in the saddle may be preferable.
Youth hostels
These are often run by the regional Youth and Sports Departments (Direcciones Generales de la Juventud y el Deporte) and can be very cheap. They tend to be concentrated in cities and tourist areas.
About the Bike
There are no hard-and-fast rules about which type of bike is best to tour on, unless you are following one of the Caminos de Santiago, in which case a mountain bike is recommended. Otherwise, they are best avoided. They are heavy, and the fat, knobbly tyres make for far harder work than road tyres. The routes described in this book are mostly on road, with some forest and mountain road sections. Consider using either a dedicated touring bike or a hybrid. A hybrid is a cross between a touring and a mountain bike. It has an upright sitting position, which is great for views but poor for aerodynamics. The routes in this book were ridden on a hybrid apart from those in the Serranía de Ronda and the Sierra de Grazalema. Except where noted in the text, either of the bikes will prove more than adequate.
Gears
Having the right gears is important for getting up those hills in a state to appreciate the challenge and enjoy the view. The right gears allow you to balance height gain and forward movement. The laws of mechanics have it that it takes the same amount of work to transport a bike and rider to the top of a given pass irrespective of gear ratio or forward speed. The length of the road is also irrelevant if there is no resistance from the road surface, wind or mechanical conversion. However, each human has a maximum sustainable work output and optimum pedalling rate or cadence. This is why we have gears.
A simple comparative measure of gears is to calculate how far each full rotation of the pedals moves the bike forward. This is known as ‘development’, and the development range indicates how suitable a bike is for terrain types and gradients. To calculate the development range, find out the diameter of your wheel in metres and the number of teeth on the largest and smallest cogs on the chainwheels and on the sprocket set.
Having got the gearing right it is important to use the gears properly. On a bike with 21 gears (three on the front chainwheel x seven on the rear sprocket) only 15 of those ratios should be used. Each chainwheel should only be used to access five of the seven rear sprockets otherwise the chain is flexing too much, resulting in excess wear and adding resistance to the system. The largest chainwheel is used with the five smallest sprockets, the middle chainwheel avoiding the largest and smallest, and the small chainwheel the five largest sprockets. The same principle applies more so to those with 24 and 27 gears.
Gearing