2016: Barcelona to Madrid (The Four Amigos Ramble): Day 16: Madrid, Spain, 18; 412 miles total

Today was pack-up, verify bicycle acceptance with the airlines, and some tourist activity for my fellow riders. For me, bike ride and Prada Museum.

My plan was an early bike ride around Madrid—Sunday morning should have minimal early morning traffic. I rolled out of the Mora Hotel to confront a car-free street, barricades, extensive police presence, and no sense of danger. A 5 mile portion of the street was blocked-off for a cyclist event La Fiesta de la Bici, from 9 am to 2 pm. The web site refers to the first 10,000 to register. No racing, all ages encouraged to join the fun. 18 miles, 2 laps, lists of fun. Then back to the hotel, shower, and more than 3 hours at the Prada Museum.

I extended my trip one day to meet with Mariano Parades, president of Shipley Spain. Unfortunately, Mariano e-mailed this morning to say that he was called away on family business, would not return until October 8, so I'll have an extra day in Madrid. Changing a flight at this late stage is expensive and not worth the trouble.

Seems that this event is conducted in most major cities in Spain.

This year's Festival Movistar Bike new format. Within the Madrid City Council plan to incorporate and standardize the use of bicycles in the city, this year the event presents many interesting news. The thousands of participants each year who take part in the race this year will enjoy a main course that occupy the axis wider Madrid (Castellana-Recoletos-Prado) and will be open for longer hours and several points "meeting" in different neighborhoods of the city so that participants can attend the respective meeting point and from there move to open traffic to the central route.
The circuit will be open from 9 in the morning. There will be two exit points located in Cuzco and Colon where you can begin the march accompanied more cyclists. The route will remain closed to traffic between now and 14 hours, turning the main artery of Madrid on a track bike up and down with an aid station in the Plaza de Neptuno.

If you want to access the bike circuit, there will be seven different outputs, at 9.30 am, from different points of the city (The Trough, Moncloa, Pyramids, Legazpi, Puente de Vallecas, Sales and Park Rodriguez de la Fuente). In these tours it is necessary to respect the rules of the road, as the traffic is open to cars.
https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&prev=search&rurl=translate.google.es&sl=es&u=https://vive.telefonica.com/la-fiesta-de-la-bici-movistar&usg=ALkJrhgNJj_0RXpfSB99rTSp5ohCW1OxgQ

—Route

—The Start. While it looks like a big time race, the mood was carefree with lots of families, riders of all ages, and all types of bikes. While this looks like and organized start, riders could and di join the route any time, from 8:30am until afternoon.

—From my crowd position, looking forward.

—From my crowd position, looking backward

—Performers Along Route #1

—Performers Along Route #2

—Event Banner with the familiar warning sign for drivers.

—Excellent Drum Group

—Traditional Spanish Band. A band member stepped away to dance with a cyclist.

—Basque/Celtic Style Band

—Tunnel. Just like the last stage of the Tour in Paris!

—A Hand for All the Riders.

—Dog of the Day #1

—Dog of the Day #2

—Living Wall is Still Alive

—Three Hams

—Don Quixote Looks On

—John Goes Shopping. Go figure!

The Art of Tapas Dining: Eavesdropping on a guided tour.

About 6:30 pm Sunday afternoon, I popped into a tapas bar and encountered a group of tourists explaining how to eat tapas in English with a clear, American accent. The guide lived in Madrid and here business seemed to be guiding. As a preamble to her rules on eating tapas, she noted that this tapas bar was so crowded the prior week that she and her partner could not get in. Here were her rules:

Select the places that are crowded. They offer the best tapas.
Look for a flat space where you can sit tapas plates down, the bar or any flat surface.
Look for any opening to get to the bar. Ideally, identify someone who is paying and about to leave, Aggressively step in their vacated place. Bad form to physically shove people aside. (Who knew?)

She then identified every tapas on the plate. The brunet with the straight hair on the right foreground of the photo glanced approvingly at her partner on the left every time she identified vegetarian or seafood items. Now I'm wondering how we survived without a guide.