Another week closer...

Five weeks to go now. I didn't get out on my bike during the week, mainly because it's been busy at work, but I did manage to get out with Paul and Steve last night. The weather was a bit iffy, so we decided to go for a shorter route (20 miles) than we had originally planned (30 miles), and it was a good job we did because it poured down half way along. We put on our wet weather gear and carried on, stopping at the Quart Pot just before home, for some post-ride refreshments.

During the week I phoned three of the remaining four hostels to book rooms, and it seemed quite funny chatting away in Spanish. The fourth hostel just won't answer the phone. Fortunately this is in Ávila, which is quite a big town and there are a few other hostels, so I'll stay in one of those instead.

I'm getting a bit worried about maps. I know that if I get stuck on my ride, I have GPS and Google Maps on my phone, so I'm not too worried about getting lost, but I would like decent maps to follow as I'm cycling along. I'd prefer to get hold of a digital map of Spain, so I can plot my route and print these out, but I'm having trouble finding one. The Spanish equivalent of our Ordnance Survey maps are prohibitively expensive to buy online (about £10 each) - ideally I'd like the 1:25,000 maps but I'd need about 12 of these to cover the entire route, or I could go buy three of the 1:200,000 maps. I'll keep looking out for something on the web, but if it comes to it I'll buy the three maps.

My bike had become a bit noisy on the front mech when cycling along, but it didn't make any noise when on the stand, so I took it into Grips and Matt gave it a little tweak and it's now fine. I also bought some spare spokes to take with me... I'd hate to get stuck up a mountain with a broken spoke!