Winter gets long in the Northeast. As I sat in my apartment looking out the window at a gloomy, chilly April 1st, it seems like flying to the Costa Blanca, Spain’s premier winter cycling destination for World Tour Riders, would be an idea I’d be congratulating my past self on agreeing to. And yet….read on for what happened next!

A few teammates / friends and I had lunch on December 26th. I was grumpy because it was freezing, and windy, and generally revolting, and the weather across North America prevented me from visiting my family in Colorado for a magical White Christmas. So we said hey let’s go to Spain, and within a couple hours, our trips were booked and we had influenced Leah to come along.

A note: maybe don’t book a weeklong trip for cycling with 30 minutes of research.

The universe had other plans as the forecast deteriorated steadily as we got closer to departure. Highs were now in the low 50’s, with rain forecast for 5 of the 7 days we’d be in Calpe, our chosen destination. Sadly, upon our arrival we had one great weather day, but two bikes didn’t make it to Calpe. Shane and Diane rented bikes for a day which allowed us to ride for about four hours total in glorious sun. That was the only ride I enjoyed as every other ride I attempted ended with me riding the last 5-10 miles back to our rental house in pouring, driving rain, having an internal or external snit.

Many interesting and weird things happened on this trip. Our AirBnB came with one roll of toilet paper, per bathroom, for a week. The bright side of this - lots of exploring exotic grocery stores, which is a thing I think everyone secretly loves. You can get sick of jamon sandwiches if you eat too many. We realized we all crack in different ways, and at different times. We have different thresholds for when to call it and go home early (spoiler: I came home two days early and I’d probably do it again). Even in my very spare number of rides, I saw multiple pro teams, which was extremely cool.

Would I do it again? Eh, probably not? I don’t know. I had a nice time with my friends. Shane and I went on an extremely fast train to Madrid and I loved exploring a new city, drinking good coffee, and running in Madrid’s gorgeous parks. I think if I did go to Spain again, I’d wait till late March, when the weather is a bit more predictable, and New York can still be cruddy.

Maybe next year I’ll go to Australia!

(Edit note: This is Shane. I had a great time despite the rain and would 100% go back and do it again—look at these photos!!! But I’m weird.)