Augie and I slept like babies last night and woke up fully charged for our first day biking. We loaded our bikes with our bags and hit the road. We had some troubles with finding the particular gas for the stove we had so we found another cheep alternative stove. Our maps took us off the road to a dirt path that wound through open fields with wild flowers, horses, and mountains in the distance. This area was beautiful and clean of trash. I am positive that I will have severe saddle soreness in the future due to all the juggling and bumping of that path. Eventually we were spit out onto a small backroad that took us winding up and down hills. Our destination for the night was in a national park so the ride slowly turned from vast open fields to being surrounded by huge trees. The landscape in the trees looked like something out of the Twilight series (big dark pine trees). That road was also cyclers galore. We were constantly seeeing cyclers fly by, a few even spoke with us asking about
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Weekly reflection 3 The final week! At the beginning of the week, I felt a bit tired and stressed from dealing with our second unfortunately accident that through another twist our way. We were tested many times throughout the weekend which caused a tad bit of insecurity. Once we got everything straightened out, we once again were determined to finish the last week strong. Once we got back on route, we grinded. The problems from our past two weeks only gave us more experience in the long run. Everyday, we were efficient and consistent in our cycling and our lifestyle. We were great at setting up and packing the tent, searching for last minute cheap hostels, and communicating with locals when we needed a helping hand. There were times where we reached our destination and went above and beyond to set ourselves up for the next day or fit into our local area. We were honestly pros. We knew what we were doing and it showed. Times where I would imagine myself being stressed where dealt w
Blog 17 Our day started out with a hunt. We needed to find proper packaging for our bikes so we could fly with them. Augie and I hustled down the main strip of stores searching for bike shops to ask for boxes. There were plenty of people riding by us on rental bikes so we knew we were in the right area. About 15 minutes down the road, we found a very nice bike shop. They had it all! I asked if they had boxes we could use and the lady told me they sold bodes specifically for that! We bought to and ran back to our hostel where my bike was. Now I had to take apart the whole bike and for it into the box. With the help of other people in the hostel, we took it apart and everything fit properly. Next order of business was Augie’s bike. Augie ran off to the storage unti to pick up his bike and start to take it apart. Augie’s pedals were on super tight so we could not get them off. We did still manage to shove it in the box though with the pedals on. We than were off to the airport with tw
Blog 16 Augie and I finished our cycling today! We woke up and only needed to bike for about thirty minutes until we got to the area the airport is in. We took the extra time in the to buy Augie a computer charger, get some lotions for our burns, return Augie’s bike and pick up some trash. It was a really windy day but we managed to pick up a bag of trash each on the road by the shopping center. We are sad that this project is wrapping up. Many memories were made. Our last order of business is finding packaging to put our bikes in when we fly. It may be an adventure to do so tomorrow but we are currently doing research to find the appropriate way to fly with our bikes. Tomorrow is a day that could be stressful. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly!
Blog 15 Today we woke up in Porto Colom. Our plan was to finish up our biking and end up in Palma where we would have Augie’s bike returned and collect his original one from the storage unit. We were looking at about three and a half hours of biking for the day. When I got out of bed, I decided it was time to do my laundry properly. Ringing our my clothes in the shower had lasted me the entire project but I thought I should give my clothes a proper clean before I headed back home. I asked around and was directed to a local laundromat. In there, I put my clothes in and began to hang out with the other couple waiting for their clothes. At first we waited in silence but the lady soon opened up and commented on how clumsy I was for dropping all my clothes. I took it light heartedly and agreed. Soon after I left to use a bathroom at a nearby restaurant and when I returned it was just the man. He was looking through a magazine of cars for sale. I picked one up and looked through as wel
Blog 14 We woke up today in our quaint little campsite. We did well to get everything packed and leave before the sun was too hot in the sky. We knew we would be facing a hard morning because of all the down hills we had on not so great road conditions. Augie estimated it would take us three hours to get out of the park. I guessed two hours and fifty nine minutes. Most of the road was not disable uphill. The bike could not handle the amount of bumps and it was far too steep. There were parts that were so steep that we could barely push our bikes up the hill. The gravel kept slipping under our feet and the heavy bikes struggled to stay upright. Although it was difficult, we did manage to get out of the park and we did so way faster than expected. It only took us about an hour. Once we got our tech charged up in the nearest town, we got our directions and headed for the southeast corner of the island. The biking was smooth and easy. We ran into zero problems on the path. Although, once
Blog 13 We woke up in a hostel in Port de Pollença. I woke up before Augie did which gave me time to walk around the port and explore. It was a neat area although it was pretty dominated by tourism and old British people. I was excited to get back into the wild. Once I returned back to the hostel, Augie awakened and we packed up and hit the road. We biked across the entire north end of the island but it was pretty flat for the most part so it wasn’t too hard. About halfway through our journey, screws on Augie’s bike fell of making it so he couldn’t hold his bags. We needed to put our brains together again to get around this obstacle in the road. We decided that I would take the bags to the nearest restaurant that could hold the bags and provide WiFi so we could stay connected. Augie would bike to the nearest bike shop to get screws. With the exception of Augie almost having his stuff stolen from some folk on ATVs, our plan worked pretty smoothly and we reunited at the restaurant.
Blog 12 Another twist in the road was straitened our today. We woke up in Palma because we needed to get Augie’s bike fixed after his accident on the Sa Calobra. Because Mallorca is such a popular place for cyclers, we didn’t have much trouble finding a place where Augie could rent a new trekking bike. Today, in order to achieve efficient and complete success we decided it was best to split up to fully solve the pickle we were in. Basically, our situation was that we had a broken bike on our hands, needed to get a new one, and didn’t know what to do with the broken one because we still needed to fly back to Madrid with it. We decided splitting up was best because I could take Augie’s bike to a storage place and rent out a unit while Augie took my bike to the rental place where he would rent a bike and wait for me. When we met up, Augie would have his new bike, I would have line, and Augie’s broken one would be stored away until we fly out this weekend. It turned out, finding the sto
Weekly Blog 2 This week we finished a large chapter of our project and began a new one. This first couple days this week consisted of banging through the rest of the Spanish mainland, stopping in small towns, and cleaning trash in appropriate areas. We found many locations that had cans and plastic all around with a dumpster right down the block which made for an efficient clean. While cycling on the small towns of the mainland, I feel like we made many more connections than we did in the bigger areas. Around the cities, people are in a hurry and are trying to keep their day moving along. In the small towns, people take the time to ask us where we are from and we get to learn more about them too. It seems like the travelers we meet in the small towns also are more open and willing to meet new people. Perhaps that is because there is more stress and people need to be more sharp around cities. Throughout the week, we have met many cool people on journeys similar to ours. Over time, w
Blog 11 Holy moly what a day! Augie and I woke up in Banyalbufar and hit the road. We immediately were joined by many other cyclists on the road who were from all over the world! We met some Americans on one uphill who I talked about the Celtics with. Cool dude! We continued the beautiful coastal route with our original goal being Port de Soller. This was about a three and a half hour ride but the beautiful scenery made it fly by. Once we reached Port de Soller, we both agreed we were good to keep going. Little did we know we were about to climb 15K up a curvey hill! That was not easy! I had a hard time feeling my groove again on the saddle after our break by the beach. I suppose my muscles thought I was done for the day. Although the climb seemed to never end, the view we had got increasingly better. Something that I did find extremely annoying though was the motorcyclists that would just whip up and down the road. They were not even going anywhere. I saw the same five people on the
Blog 10 Our day started in Palmanova where we found everything to be super touristy. Once we got water for the day and a new supply of sun scream, we hit the road for our first strong ride on Mallorca. The ride was not easy we hit a pretty large uphill pretty early on which seemed to never end. After climbing that uphill for a good 30 minutes, we were spit out onto a more developed curvey road that continued to take us up a mountain. Although we were slightly struggling, other cyclers started passing us and encouraging us on. Eventually we reached the top of the mountain and enjoyed the beautiful view. At the view point, there was one of the men who encouraged us on as he passed. He congratulated me for reaching the top and recognized the difficulty of cycling with all the weight we were carrying. This man was bout 60 years old but still cycled strongly. He told me he came to Mallorca from Germany every year to cycle where he cover about 200K everyday! Although he was a German tank o
Blog 9 Our day started on the ferry we fell asleep on yesterday. I woke up as the ferry was pulling into the harbor in Palma de Mallorca. Once all was unloaded, the employees of the ferry said we did not need to take the shuttle bus to the terminal because we had our bikes so we were just free to go. We were tired and still recovering from the 107K day before so we agreed that it was going to be a light day today. We hiked into the city to explore a little and get whatever last minute fix ups we needed before beginning our circulation Mallorca. First on our list was a good pot to go with our stove. We bikes to an outdoors store where we easily found a perfect pot to cook our more proper meals. Next on the list, we headed to the nearest “Orange” store (a phone service company) so augie could get another SIM card with more gigabytes. Augue took a while in the store but I enjoyed waiting outside protecting the bikes because I got to observe the bustling street we were on. It was busy wi
Blog 8 I woke up before Augue this morning in our campsite. The Dutch people next to us were doing peaceful yoga which was pleasant. I decided to go for a walk. I walked into town thinking I could get us more peanut butter for we ran out. Unfortunately the market was closed but I wasn’t too sad. I noticed up the road there was a bakery which I thought was awesome at the moment. I strolled in and of course the baker lady knew I wasn’t from the area. She continued on to ask the usual questions were faced with. She was impressed with our project and said she herself was just in the US last year and loved it. I bought a delicious chocolate treat and a cream one for Augie and headed back to the campground. I really enjoy those interactions because they are great for practicing Spanish and people like what we’re doing so it is always fun telling them. Our ride was the longest one yet (107K) but it was mostly downhill so it was smooth sailing (with the acception of the rocks we faced for an
Blog 7 Our day started with the beautiful people who took us in to their cabin park. They gave us coffee and cake for breakfast and we left on our way. We knew the ride was going to be on many dirt roads but we were unaware of the huge climb we were going to face. As we were about 30 mins in our ride, a park ranger drove up to us and asked the usual questions we’ve been faced with “where are you from”, “where are you going”, “how did you get so good at Spanish” just the usual stuff. As we continued to talk with him he warned us of the huge rocky climb we were about to face about a kilometer down the road. We convinced him that we were both strong young men that were capable of doing such a climb and he looked us up and down and agreed. We talked about our project which he liked. He also told us how beautiful the parks in the US look on his TV. After we said our goodbyes, we headed to the start of the climb. It was one of those hills that had lots of turns so when you would think you
Blog 6 Woke up at a nice campground in Cuenca. We slept over ten hours last night after we finished some of the longest days of this project. I am feeling good today. Augie and I were just cranking out kilometers on our bikes and took some time to clean up a trashy area by the entrance of a bigger paved road. Picking up trash is always a good feeling so that just got me more pumped to keep biking. We arrived st our destination around 3:30 which was early for us and after munching on some PB&Js decided to just crank out some more distance. We bikes for another hour and a half on some pretty rugged terrain up and down back country hills. It was beautiful as a we passed through olive farms and vineyards. Eventually we arrived at a good place to spent the night where we devoured some bread products and guzzled some water. We need to look for the shade more in the future because we both look a little red but besides that we’re in great spirits and enjoying this project. Today Augie cal
Weekly Reflection 1 The first week of me and Augie’s senior project was busy, exciting, and filled with twists. The business came more early on in the week. On day one we were frantically running around doing last minute errands to make sure we had everything we needed. We made it to our flight on time and before we knew it, we had landed in Madrid and bussed to Segovia. Although all our bodies wanted us to do was sleep, we forced ourselves to remain awake in Segovia all day so we could quickly adjust to the time change. To stay awake, we needed to keep ourselves busy. We strolled around the city and went to some parks to begin the trash pickup aspect of our project. We also spent a fair amount of the day with the Proctor Segovia crew and took classes with them. Although there were not many official plans for the day besides get our bikes, all the activities we partook in made the day a busy one. The next day was where the unexpected twists began. It started when we needed to fin
Blog 5 Augie and I planned on heading out at 8am for our 90K ride from Madrid to Tarancón. Due to us laying awake late into the night because of the enhebriated chit chat from the people in the campground, we decided to sleep leave around 10. The directions said about 5 hours and 9 minutes for the ride but the condition of some the roads were iffy. The route was on and off dirt roads which happened did indeed slow us down but made for a beautiful ride! About halfway through the ride, we were on a super hilly rocky road parallel to the highway and I had the determination to never walk my bike. We got to one uphill that was particularly steep and I needed to hit it with speed if I ever wanted to summit it. I hit the hill hard and began to climb. It was a hard but doable so I kept going. About halfway up the hill I heard that dreadful sound of a tire popping. Luckily we had spare tires on us so we eventually got back on the road with all our problems fixed. Of course, fixing the tire req
Blog 4 We had a rest day today because boy oh boy will the next few days be fun or what?! By fun, I mean a lot of biking. We wanted to rest but we didn’t want to do nothing. We had a nice sleep in and decided to clean some trash. We packed some trash bags in a day bag and headed out to a dirt road we biked in on the day before. We saw that there was a lot of trash here so we knew this was a good place to do some damage. The area we were in was surrounded by factories and the litter around the area was fitting for that. With a few exceptions, most of the trash was juice boxed, water bottles, and cigarettes. I used the skills I learned in a Kyle Connolly’s AP Human Geography class and made the connection that this trash makes sense for the area it is in. That trash pick-up got me curious to observe the main types of trash we’ll be picking up in the future, and to see if I can connect the trash to the area that I’m in. We filled up six trash bags and disposed of them properly in a nearby
Today was a day where Augie and I had to put our brains together. Because of Augie’s crash, we were a day behind schedule and Augie had a knee that needed to be rested. We went around bike shops in Segovia until one said they had the parts to fix it. We went for a stroll around the city while they fixed the broken derailleur. When we picked it up, it worked perfectly and we found out that insurance would pay for it all. I was honestly a little stressed during the morning because I was unsure if we could get it fixed and if we could get back on schedule. We discussed our situation and decided a 4 euro bus to Madrid would be our best option. The bus would be cheap, catch us up on our schedule, and let augie rest his knee for the day. Once we got to Madrid, we took a beautiful ride out of the city through parks and bike lanes. Along the way, I felt a huge splat on my head. It almost felt like I was pelted with a water balloon. I soon discovered that it was a massive bird poop that covered