Preparation

 Planning (16 September 2016)

Bicycle tourists plan their tours and then tour in a variety of manners, including:

• Pay someone to do the planning: Choose a location and leave it up to touring company organizers. Easy and usually more expensive, perhaps costing $200-$400 per day, depending on the location and degree of luxury. Some operators include a guide(s) and support van, other plan the route, make all reservations, and then send you on your way with turn-by-turn directions.
• Plan their own tour in detail: This is enjoyable for planners, with whom the anticipation is as rewarding as the tour and they are better prepared to comprehend sights and experiences. However, pressure can build to stay on schedule, especially with reserved lodging.
• Fully loaded, self-contained touring: Ultimate flexibility, providing you like camping, can find acceptable camp locations, and are willing to carry the additional gear. 
• Credit-card touring—book as you go: My preferred approach, let me list why—Depending upon the country, it is not terribly expensive at two per room; Eliminates the weight of camp and cook gear; You can ride into a town and inquire at the first acceptable lodging without searching for a booked location; If weather is poor or someone is ill, you can stay another night or shorten that day's ride; Need to enter a major city?—Hop on a train or bus on the outskirts; Need to make a flight or ferry—Hop on a train or bus; Route planning—pretty much any road will take you somewhere; Lost—Not really, we're just not exactly sure where we are. That's part of the adventure. If uncertainty makes you nervous, avoid this approach.
• Other approaches: You name it, someone has done it, as bike touring approaches are as individual as the riders.

 More about my fellow riders later, but John and Stuart have toured together four or five times. I joined John and Stuart for a September U-shaped route from Madrid, Spain, to Lisbon, Portugal in 2014,:  http://lnewmanmadridtolisbon.blogspot.com/, and a June/July route from Copenhagen to Riga via Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 2015:  http://nordic-baltc-by-bike2015.blogspot.com/. Then John and I cycled from Mobile, Alabama, to St. Louis, Missouri, in April, 2016:  http://mobile-saint-louis2016.blogspot.com/. We seem to favor an organic approach to tour route selection, we are usually discussing potential new countries and routes during and following each tour. For 2016, we considered the Balkans, but the potential refugee issues dominating the news prompted us to return to a different region in Spain. Spain offers superb food, wine, scenery, history, low cost, wonderful people, and excellent roads. Easy choice.

As for planning, we set the dates for this tour in December, 2015, booked flights in early 2016, and reserved arrival and departure lodging in January, 2016. That's it—pretty easy.

Here's the take-away point—anyone can enjoy a bike tour providing you select an approach that is compatible with you and your traveling companions. Here is a link to a PechaKucha Night presentation in which I attempted to convey this point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zyrjIA-l8o

Training

 A key facet to our approach is to note that we have all day to mess around. Touring pace is 10-12 mph, so 50 miles per day is a reasonable average, depending upon elevation changes, weather, and accommodations. So conditioning your but to sit on a bike saddle for 5-7 hours a day might be more important than muscle conditioning.

If you simply enjoy riding, then 20-40 mile rides 3-5 days a week are enough. Of course, more is better because riding time doesn't count against your lifespan. ANYONE can bike tour, but the better your condition, the more you can enjoy the other elements. However, John summarized the daily demands well during our April 2016 tour: Most days will end in a "grind it out" phase. 

Another common approach is to train on the tour by starting with shorter days, increasing your saddle time as fitness improves. However, a sore butt is unlikely to improve as rapidly as your muscles—hence my warning on butt conditioning. Also, tour with similarly-prepared cyclists. If you have run, hiked, skied, or biked in groups, they often pause to regroup, but the tendency is to resume promptly upon the arrival of the last person, so the slowest gets the least rest and the fittest gets the most.

Packing

Renting a bike on arrival is feasible, but we prefer to ride our own bikes. If you rent, bring your familiar saddle, pedals, and shoes.

Airline shipping requirements and prices vary widely. U.S.A. carriers, departing from the U.S.A., usually require bikes to be boxed, then shipped as oversize luggage. Most cyclists secure a bike box from the local bike shop. Warning: If you ask the bike shop to pack your bike, make sure you carry the tools to assemble it upon arrival and disassemble on departure.

John's Bike Ready to Fly. When packing like this, lots of room for gear. John left early, taking his wife, daughter, and 9-year old grandson for a pre-tour week north of Barcelona. John reports that riding with his wife is a character-building opportunity, teaching him patience.

Adjusting to Spanish Cuisine. By arriving early, John has sufficient time to adjust to to local food—taking one for the team. Kind of him to e-mail this seafood paella photo from Gerona.

I tour with a Bike Friday, purchased in 1994. If you can tolerate occasionally being mistaken for a circus clown, a Bike Friday fits and rides like a standard bike. Except for the wheels and frame, component parts are standard and manufacturer's support is fantastic from this small, family-owned company in Eugene, Oregon. I have no real idea of the total miles on this bike, but I have probably averaged 4,000+ miles per year on it since 1994, with 8,000 in my peak year. Find more about Bike Friday here: https://www.bikefriday.com/folding-bikes/.

The following photos summarize my packing approach:

Pack Gear in Zip-Lock Bags. Fold with few wrinkles, stack bags, sit on the stack to expel air, zip closed, and place on edge in the duffel where everything is visible. Place heavy items around the sides, including bike/trailer parts that pass TSA carry-on rules but exceeded the airline weight limits when packed in the bike case.

Convenient Duffel Carry-On. The smaller the bag, the less you tend to take. Most airlines charge for additional bags, so this is my carry-on. It converts to a backpack, easily fits in the trailer, so I can roll the bike case with both hands free. Upon arrival, the bike comes out of the case and the backpack goes in."Hats" can be clipped to the duffel; hats are an acceptable, additional carry-on item.

Packed Bike Case, Ready to Check. Weigh at home to verify it is under the 50# limit. 

Open Bike Case with Folded Bike and Accessories. Every pack differs slightly. I often place the trailer undercarriage in my carry-on to keep the weight under 50#. I always unscrew the rear derailleur to gain space and prevent bending the derailleur hanger. Note the crush protector (made out of electrical conduit parts from the hardware store) that keeps stacked luggage from compressing the case and damaging the bike. 

Ready to Roll. Bike Friday with the bike case converted to bike trailer. For this trip, I arrive at Barcelona's El Prat airport about 8:30 am. I plan to assemble the bike in a corner of the airport, change clothes, and ride about 20 miles southwest to Stiges, a coastal city where we plan to meet. The best way I've found to reset the body clock on arrival is exposure to sun, moderate exercise, and avoid afternoon naps. 

Coastal Road to Stiges. Stuart is our Spain expert, at least far more so than any of us. He has cycled extensively in Spain and taken multiple in-residence Spanish language classes. He sent me this photo from a prior trip, describing the route as 50-percent fairly flat and 50-percent extremely steep.