Cycling & walking from Huelva to Mertola, Portugal

Thursday, February 22nd

Well, the walking part was due to mechanical failure, first time in several years of cycle touring 🙁

I started off from Huelva early, stopping at the ham shop to get a quick cheese sandwich, with the firm intention of getting the rear derailleur sorted out, but the shop didn’t open till 10 am and didn’t look too good anyway, although with hindsight I should have stayed!

The first part was crossing the estuary by a lovely bike path, I’m sure the twitchers would have loved it, a quick stop for a second breakfast in Aljarque foolishly taking a ‘shortcut’ over what turned out to be a sand dune – when will I learn 🙁  Later it was interesting pedalling alongside the water channels similar to the Maderian Lavadas especially their gigantic syphons to get across the many valleys

Just after ‎⁨El Granado⁩ my little mechanical failure occurred as I was dropping down on the front derailleur the rear derailleur cable snapped in the brake housing (so that’s why it hadn’t been working so well) causing the chain to leap up and wedge itself in the mechanism and I mean wedged! In the end i resorted to violence by kicking the pedal backwards thus freeing the chain & twisting the changer:-(   I sort of twisted it back with my pedal spanner, cut the wire and wrapped it around one of the luggage rack screws suitably tensioned for the middle gear 🙁

Of cause I ended up walking the big hills especially the huge one after crossing the border where I had met the most miserable cafe owner to date. Cheered me up no end, not.

I eventually arrived at the Beira Rio hotel in Mertola to meet more miserable faces 🙁  The lady suggested a bike repair place in Mertola so I shot off there, only to find they now fix rotavators etc 🙁

Looking on Google I could see there was a bike shop in Beja a much bigger city and only 30 miles away so I booked a hotel, for tomorrow, near to the shop and hoped it wasn’t just an agricultural or kiddies bike place.

The days Strava is here:

and Flickr here: