Travel day to Madrid

After a long and tiring day of travel, I’m glad to be at my hotel in Madrid.

I left Washington, DC late last night, and had a transfer today via Munich flying with Lufthansa, who does not charge extra for a bicycle if it is under the normal baggage weight (51 lbs / 23 kg) and combined dimensions (62 inches / 158 cm). Unfortunately, the seats were cramped and didn’t seem to recline to the normal degree, so I had a pretty sleepless night. Free T-Mobile data in the Munich airport helped pass the time and gave me a chance to FaceTime with Anna & Silas.

My biggest fear for the day was my bike coming out of the baggage claim completely mangled and damaged. I packed the bike bag in the most logical way I could imagine with all the bicycle parts zip tied together into three large chunks, accompanied with a photo depicting the packing order and orientation. At the moment of truth I noticed that two of the compression straps on the outside had been unbuckled, and opened it to find a TSA slip inside.

But even with their meddling in the box, it seemed that my system and the bike backpack worked in the end. Thankfully the bike appears to not have been damaged upon my inspection at the airport. (If it would have been damaged, I would have had to have an airline representative see it right away and fill out the paperwork to reimburse damages… so important to always check before leaving the airport no matter how tired you are. I believe you have seven days to make a claim.) Once I reassemble it tomorrow, I’ll find out if there’s anything I couldn’t see at the airport, and will still have time to visit a bike shop in Pamplona if necessary.

At the airport, I removed some of the heavier small pieces from the bike bag backpack to my carry on bag to lighten the load of the bike that I’d take on my back. I had packed my bike tools, chain lube, lock and other dense items in bike packing bags (feed bags, gas tank) in the bike backpack secured to the bike frame with zip ties or the velcro attachments already on the bike packing bags. Although the backpack straps on the huge square bike bike pack are really thin and hardly padded, lugging it on my back wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. The carry-on bag, however, seemed more awkward.

It looks like a lot of luggage for a three week trip, except when you remember that there’s a bike inside the bag!

I managed to catch the airport bus from Terminal 2 (#200, 5 euros) just as it was leaving, and enjoyed the rest of the 45 minute drive to the Atocha train station, where my hotel is located so I can easily make my 7:30am train tomorrow morning. I forgot how many beautiful buildings Madrid had, an was a little sad to be heading north right away tomorrow to start my Camino.

After a quick rest and shower at the hotel, I headed out to try and check out two shops before they closed at 8:30pm. The first is a bike shop just two blocks northwest from the Atocha Metro stop called Calmera Ciclismo, which is a great bike shop that is apparently one of the oldest in Madrid. If you forget anything or lose it in the flight, this place should have it and is conveniently located near the train station and city center.

The next stop is Desnivel’s “Liberia de Montaña,” a huge store with exclusively outdoor and travel guides and books filling the space. Thankfully I only had 15 minutes before closing, or I would have probably spent all day there. Most books were in Spanish, but there were a number of English-language titles mixed in. It was great to see our walking guidebook, “Hiking the Camino de Santiago,” on the shelves!

Tomorrow I have an interesting logistical day that I hope all goes well:

1. Catch an early 3 hour train to Pamplona. In Pamplona I have 4 hours to:
   1. Assemble my bike into working order
   2. Mail my bike backpack and carry on bag and a few tools to the end of the route at Santiago de Compostela using the Lista de Correos service through the Post Office where they will hold my bags for pickup for free for up to 2 weeks (then 1 euro/day afterwards). This is a great and affordable service that makes it easy for Camino pilgrims to move gear around for their journey. I’m doing it in Pamplona because it’s more complicated and expensive to do it from St. Jean in France, where I’ll begin the cycling route.
   3. Try to find time to visit the Caminoteca gear shop in Pamplona, who offers our guidebook and has been enthusiastic of our work.
   4. Ride the assembled bike to the bus station and hope I don’t need to re-disassemble it to get it under the bus.
2. Travel by bus for about 2 hours to St. Jean Pied de Port in France, where I will start my route the following day.
3. Visit the pilgrim office in St. Jean and check in to my albergue. From here on it’s all straightforward pedaling with no annoying transport logistics, just in time for a 1400m (4500′) climb to cross the Pyrenees into Spain the next day!