NOW THE WORK BEGINS!

I remember the first moment when the thought of doing a Trans-Iberian route came up.

Two years ago, my buddy Scott and I were biking along the Via Verde de la Sierra, east of Seville and north of Málaga, and we were marvelling at how great it was to use a bicycle route where there were no cars, no traffic, no noise – just the sound of the Guadalete River and the wind in the trees. And I said to Scott: Wouldn’t it be great to have a national system of routes like this one, routes where you could get across the country and be able to ride like this, not having to continually look over you shoulder to make sure you’re not going to get hit from behind or honked at, a system of routes that would allow you to spend days on end riding without a care, where you could just pedal and think about your next meal and where you were going to sleep, and not have to worry about anything else.

The idea never really went away, especially as I watched the system of different nature routes grow and develop, but never really connect. Sometimes they would incorporate different parts of other systems – the Ruta del Quijote has a chunk or two of rail trails, for example – but there didn’t seem to be any willingness or initiative to tie all of the systems together so that people could use them to take longer trips.

Well, it’s happening now. I got the call this morning from the wonderful people at Salomon Sports Spain, who told me that I’m the national winner of the Spring-Summer 2007 edition of Salomon Women Will – Live Your Dream competition. The dream is now a reality: To the best of my knowledge, this effort – called the Trans-Iberian Express – is the first effort to tie together several existing systems to create the first route that can take cycle tourists across the Iberian peninsula. At the end of the process, Spain will have its first north-south route, fully marked and documented route that will allow people who want to travel by bike to head directly from north to south. Better yet, this route doesn’t require you to use a car to get there or back: the route has been specifically designed so that you can make the most of the good public transit connections that exist throughout the country.

So stay tuned and join us on the Trans-Iberian express!