Safety and Navigation

Once we decided to book hotels for blocks of nights to allow us to cycle somevdays without luggage, we also decided we would like to go back to Vilajoyoso for one of the stays. We have taken to the city itself and to the Hostal El Mercat.

Unfortunately, this meant tracking back through Benidorm, fully from East to West. As you would expect, Benidorm is very busy, even at this time of year. Some areas of the city are packed with pedestrians and some busy with cars. Both of these mix badly with bicycles, so we were a little wary when we set off this morning. We first headed for the beach and a stop of coffee on the sea front.

As it turned out, we never felt unsafe on the bikes. True, we are fairly experienced in traffic and ride defensively with an eye for our safety at all times. In all the years we have been cycling, we have only had one serious accident, and that was on a cycleway and involved a misjudgement in a situation with a jogger not a vehicle. Four factors contributed to our safety on this ride.

Firstly, we used a phone-based app to find and follow a bicycle-friendly route. In this case it was Google Maps and it did (generally) a good job. At one point it took us into a heavily populated and very busy pedestrian area: we got off and walked for a few hundred metres.

Secondly, Benidorm makes very good use of segregated cycle paths that keep cars, pedestrians and cyclists apart. (Perhaps those on electric scooters should also be mentioned: they are everywhere and travel faster than anyone else. Sooner or later they are going to contribute to the accident rates. Beware!)

These are typical and run up the middle of most if not all of the major routes in and out of the city. They give the cyclists a decent enough amount of space and best of all they continue at roundabouts – unlike every cycle track we have ever found in the UK. Quite a number of drivers even stopped for us on zebra lines as we crossed the minor exits on roundabouts.

AS you see the separation is pretty good in many cases.

Next to mention are our mirrors. These are a new addition for this trip, but they are very helpful in alerting us to fast approaching traffic from behind. Typically, these are the aforementioned electric scooterists. They pass far too close for comfort sometimes.

Lastly, but just as important are our Sena bluetooth connected headsets. These allow us to talk to each other with connection up to 1000 metres apart with line of sight. Our Sena kit is over 10 years old now, but still works perfectly. Battery life lasts over a full day and the audio quality is excellent. This means that we can share worries and uncertainties as we approach junctions and turns and benefit from a second pair of eyes as we approach difficulties. Of course, it also means I receive endless and constant complaints and reprimands as I go about my business.

As I say, the cycling today was stress free and took us to Vilajoyoso painlessly despite the roads and cycleways being very busy. We arrived in time for a late lunch – a shared avocado and grapefruit salad with water – no alcohol until we are off the bikes is our rule, just like car driving.

We were in great shape then to head out this evening for drinks in various cafe bars before enjoying an excellent dinner at the Zerca Restaurant in the heart of the old town. 42 euros for an excellent bread with olive oil, olives, shared salad and durado with creamed sweet potato, wine, water and coffee. Brilliant! All outside tables taken so we were forced indoors. No big deal and all rather posh.

Shedding Weight

We have been carrying extra weight since we arrived in Spain. In two senses.

We allowed ourselves to relax a bit too much when deciding what to take on this trip. I shed the camera in favour of using the phone, but took the laptop when the phone could have done the comms job too. We both took returning to Glasgow warm clothes that we are now dragging around Spain in 27 degrees heat. And so on. Our device charging arrangements will illustrate!

Weight on a bike always matters, but it really matters when you start to climb hills, and it really, really matters when you are not as fit or prepared as you ought to be and the temperatures are in the high twenties. We have been struggling this trip and we know to be cautious.

We have also been carrying a weight of worry over trip destinations and timings. The fourth of October is looming up: and it’s a big thing here in and around Alicante. People travel to celebrate and hotel rooms get to be hard to find. Once we were forced to go to a Burgos Airport hotel at an eye-watering rate because it was all that was possible. This time we wanted to pre-book something early rather than leave it to the last minute.

Timing our city-break stay in Valencia has also been a question. We want a few days there at least. We didn’t ever imagine using the bikes in the city.

Most of our bike trips have been one way tours. On these the only decision is where to book the next night’s accommodation. I have found juggling all of this trip’s decisions taxing.

But flexibility is the friend of the mentally and physically feeble, just as necessity is the mother of invention and we have found a good solution to these weighty matters. We have booked ourselves into two multiple-day stays pre-Valencia, allowing us to cycle daily without the bags on the bikes. This is always a joy.

We are currently in an apartment complex to the East of Benidorm, outwith the city limits, with a pool and situated right next to an excellent, long-established seafood restaurant. We ate dinner there on our arrival. Seafood is always a bit pricey, but this was good value and a memorable experience.

The puddings were pretty good too!

We have a log cabin to ourselves, so the bikes are right by us and as safe as can be. Better still, from Jacqui’s point of view, we have a washing line to ourselves!

Yesterday, we took a run up into the hills, stopping at a local cafe for breakfast then going on to an Aldi to shop for our evening meal.

Jacqui climbs like a mountain goat without weight on the bike.

We returned ‘home’ in time for a late salad lunch at 15.45 in the restaurant. Super value at less than 10 euros for a large tuna salad to share, and with bread and extras. Dinner was a picnic by the poolside with beers and orange juices.

Today we headed back to the coast to see the sights. From the nearby heights Benidorm and its coast look most impressive.

We even plucked up the courage to come home by the city’s beach and the buzz of the strip. The tall dark building on the left marks then end of the madness.

OK to dip into, as long as you know you can escape! We did one circuit on the bikes then headed for ‘home’. The plan was to visit a supermarket en route and buy dinner. It turns out Spain’s supermarkets close Sundays so that was a non-starter.

All we would think of was to return to our local eatery for a late lunch and stock up on calories to get us by until tomorrow. Jacqui led the way:

Just a light 60 cm veggie paella! Delicious too! With bread, garlic and tomato dips, wine, water and coffee for 35 euros. What’s not to like?

Tomorrow is our last day here. No plans have been made as yet, but something fun will emerge for sure. You’d almost think we were on holiday!