Eight Hundred Kilometres for One Beer

The plan

Two weeks in Dénia and the road started making noises again.

The plan was a civilised one. Four days through Andalusia, a stop in Málaga, a stop in Tarifa, a night in Vila Real de Santo António, then Olhão and a flight out of Faro on day five.

Easy, right. Spoiler: the plan lasted about ninety kilometres.

The petrol station where it went wrong

I said goodbye to my hosts at Co-Co Coliving and Coworking and was on the road between nine and ten, which down here counts as beating the heat rather than being an early riser.

The route was straightforward enough: get past Alicante on the fast stuff, then take the calmer roads towards Murcia. Four days to cover it. Plenty.

Then at the first fuel stop I did the stupid thing. I looked up the distance to Fuseta.

Under a thousand kilometres. Less than I’d had in my head, which is the kind of number that starts a conversation with yourself you know you are going to lose.

The conversation went: what if I just did it today, and celebrated with a decent craft beer before the Nanobrew shuts?

And then I remembered the time zone. One hour back at the border. An extra hour, free of charge, purely for pub logistics.

So: a race against the clock for a beer, or a relaxed multi-day ride through one of the best regions in Europe?

There was a third thing sitting in the forecast, which helped me pretend the decision was rational. Severe thunderstorms for the next two days, parked directly on the Andalusian part of the route. I have no interest in meeting those on a cruiser with a screen designed for atmosphere rather than weather.

A decision made, and then unmade

So I reprogrammed the day, put Fuseta in as the destination, and settled into the motorway at whatever the signs permitted.

Just over eight hundred kilometres, starting at ten in the morning. For a beer and a dry jacket.

Three cans of Red Bull later I had established two things.

One: I could actually do it.

Two: I do not understand how time zones and sunsets work.

My reasoning had been roughly this — if the sun sets around eight in Spain, it sets around eight in the Algarve, and with the hour difference I get an extra one. I would like to blame someone else for that. There is nobody else.

The sun started going down at half seven, just short of Vila Real de Santo António, at which point the maths arrived all at once and informed me I had another hour of riding in the dark to look forward to.

So I changed the goal again. Found a room in Vila Real de Santo António, a very good seafood dinner, and a Super Bock that undid most of the good work.

Learning

Eight hundred-plus kilometres in a day is entirely possible, provided you accept a thumb that aches from the throttle and a backside that goes numb, comes back, and goes numb again.

Worth it? Depends what you are buying. Dodging the Andalusian heat and two days of thunderstorms: yes, worth it.

Skipping straight through one of the most interesting regions in Europe at motorway speed, on the basis of a beer and some arithmetic I got wrong: less so.