Steve's Cycling Blog

An early flight this morning so Adam and I had stayed over in the hotel at Heathrow to avoid an 0300 start to the day which worked out well.

We dropped our bags, then my bike at the over-sized luggage conveyer and got through security quite quickly.

Time for a coffee, a ride on the train to the far far away gates and we were on our way.

We’d used accumulated air miles to ‘pay’ for the flight so were flying business class. When it came time for drinks I asked for a glass of champagne, as did Adam. I cheekily suggested to the cabin crew that they could ‘just leave the bottle with us’, which she duly did!

An uneventful flight during which I got a few more last-minute jobs done and we were in Madrid nicely on time to change planes. A rather grey and chilly day in Madrid – had been expecting things to be somewhat warmer!

Through security, a short wait, a bus ride and we were on board what proved to be a rather small plane for the next leg to Casablanca.

Somewhat disturbed to see this in the overhead locker at the front of the plane – you’d hope that either they didn’t need it, or if they did it might be more use in the cockpit?

Arriving in Casablanca and things are somewhat warmer here (though we have had showers off and on through the afternoon which was most definitely not in the plan!)

Unfortunately while we made the connection in Madrid, none of our bags did. Even now at 2100 there’s still no sign of them, and almost as little information! We filed a report with Royal Air Maroc, the local agent for Iberia who operated the last leg.

The woman at the counter couldn’t have been less interested, and less helpful if she’d tried – “come back tomorrow same flight” was basically the beginning and the end of things as far as she was concerned.

By then the taxi driver who was there to pick us up was ringing me every 2 minutes wondering where we were – into the car, through some crazy lunchtime traffic and in to the hotel. More chaos there trying to check in, but we finally had a room just in time for the first of the rider’s briefings.

I’ll fill you in on the details of that over time, but it was the usual round of introductions, information gathering and basic procedures for daily life on a TDA tour.

I then spent a fairly frustrating hour going round in circles trying to find out more about our bags (and my bike!). Rang BA in the UK – can’t help need to call the airline you last flew with – Iberia. Tried three different numbers for them in Spain before I finally got hold of someone who said – need to ring Royal Air Maroc – rang them – it was all French to me! Found a number for Iberia in Morocco, that woman actually tried to be helpful but came back to the same conclusion as unhelpful lady at the airport – should be on the same flight tomorrow, if not call back then.

I went for a walk round the block at that point!

During that last call I did receive a text message to say that one of the three bags is scheduled to come in on the flight tomorrow – no mention of the other two, or my bike. The other thing I’m concerned about is the size of the plane we were on – it was pretty small, and the entrance to the luggage hold wasn’t very big, so I have real fears that my bike in its box won’t even fit.

Since then several beers have been consumed and we’ve wandered out to a not-very-Moroccan chicken place I’d seen earlier for what proved to be a rather tasty dinner.

Here’s the first of many whiteboard photos you’re going to see over coming weeks with the outline for operations leading up to departure on Friday morning.

On the good news front I did manage to get copies of my passport and Moroccan entry stamp, buy a SIM card for mobile data, and reserve a table for tomorrow night at a very nice looking cafe – all in French, and without too much confusion in any of those processes!

So now all I need is for you all to cross absolutely everything you have, Mum you need to dig out your lucky red socks, and anyone willing to do so please make offerings to any deity you believe in that my bike and our bags all arrive safely tomorrow morning!

View from my tent (hotel)