2. Preparing

One of the first things we had to decide was how long we were going to take to do the ride. There were a few considerations (1) our anticipated fitness level (2) our age - I'm 72 and our youngest rider is 59 (3) the accomodation available (4) the hills/mountains (5) the weather (6) the track conditions. Also we were not out to break any records and wanted to take in the local scenery, sights and people. We were not going to sleep in any of the pilgrim hostels and wanted as much comfort as we could get off the bike. I guess our greatest concern was how we would handle being on the bike day after day.
So again we did a lot of internet research, spent a lot of time checking blogs, reading books etc etc and finally worked out a schedule. We will be riding in 18 stages with a rest day in the middle.The daily rides vary quite a bit, the longest being 60km and the shortest is 20km - our last day's triumphal rise into Santiago (well that's the theory). Most days are between 40 and 50kms with the two toughest days - big climbs - at 35kms.

Over the months since our decision to go we have all been riding regularly and have ridden together as many weekends as we could. Rhon, Pat and Jenny have also been to the gym regularly. Our bike fitnesss has improved markedly and we are all pleased with ourselves. We are pretty confident that we can comfortably handle any individual stage on its own - there's just the question still of doing 18 days in a row.

We have learned a lot about riding a bike and had great fun buying lots of bike gear. We actually look like cyclists now.We hired bikes from an outfit in Madrid. They will come fully equipped, delivered to our hotel at the start point and collected from Santiago.

We also had to consider how much luggage we would carry on the bike as we would be taking everything with us everyday. Rhon and I aimed at 10 kilos max. When we came to do our packing we managed to get everything we needed into 5 kilos each in a backpack. That's what we will be taking for the whole 5 weeks we are away.

So we think we are in pretty good shape and are all excited about our big challenge.