Six years ago I rolled into Buenos Aires, wrote that I had been bitten by the cycling bug, and said the next ride might happen in 2021. It is now 2026. The bug, it turns out, has a long incubation period.
That ride was January 2020. Iguazú Falls to Buenos Aires, just under 1400 km, with my friend and brother Guille and his dog Rocco. Before it, I hadn’t owned a bike, or even ridden one, in more than 15 years. So my OCD monkey mind went to work. I researched every option and settled on the Kona Rove ST. A fine gravel bike. I really had no idea what I was doing.
I trained at home: 50 km four times a week, with one ride stretching longer each week until I hit 100 km, all in a civilized 15°C to 23°C. Argentina answered with 41°C and 30 kg of gear.
I came home knowing what I liked and didn’t like about that specific trip. Too fast, too hot, no time to stop and look at anything. The next one would be slower. Kinder to the body, and to the soul, weather-wise.
I also wrote that the next one would be about 1850 miles. Hold that thought.
The next one was going to be the Danube. EuroVelo 6, from the headwaters in Germany to the Black Sea, June 2026. I had maps. I had a plan. Guille and I have a running joke that the best plan is to not have a plan. The Danube agreed with us.
Enter the Norwegians.
Torger and Håkon are father and son. I met them last year on the Camino Primitivo, and they are the ones who invited me to the lunch where a waitress baptized me in Estrella Galicia. Håkon is the reason I am back in school studying philosophy. He is well read, and he has a habit of asking the one question that takes apart whatever I just said. Over the past year they have invited me to hike in Norway and to join them for a couple of weeks on the Camino Francés. School and work said no each time.
When I told them about the Danube, they asked if I had looked at the EuroVelo 3. They wanted to ride that one some day.
So I looked. The EV3 is called the Pilgrims Route. It starts at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway, and it ends in Santiago de Compostela. I have been to Spain and Portugal eight times and walked into Santiago on seven of them. Riding there from a cathedral in Norway? That is the perfect pilgrimage for me.
The numbers are a little less romantic. About 5,650 km, from 63° latitude north down to 43°. That is roughly 3,500 miles, for anyone still holding the 1850 thought. I was off by a bit. Roughly three months, starting in Trondheim in June 2027.
Then there is the climbing. Around 40,000 meters of it, which is Everest four and a half times, on a loaded bike. On the Primitivo last year the group used me as their guide, and I had one description for whatever was coming, dead flat or mountain pass: rolling hills. Norway has rolling hills at the start. Spain has them at the finish, and Spain’s are steeper per kilometer than Norway’s.
Rolling hills indeed…
As it stands, Torger and Håkon will probably not be able to join me. I still have hopes. If it ends up a solo trip, so be it. On foot I like walking alone for two or three weeks, and after that I want company. A bike will be different. I don’t know how yet.
Three months also bumps right up against the 90 days a visitor gets in the Schengen area. I will need to get creative, and France may be part of the answer. Homework pending.
And yes, I will walk in Spain again. I am positive of it.
The bike is the same one that crossed Argentina. Mostly. Six years gave me plenty of time to think about what I didn’t like about it, and all of it was in the cockpit: the handlebars, the controls, everything my hands and eyes deal with all day. Figuring out what to change took a while. Then I changed it. That story is next.
Now it’s time for a plan without a plan…
