The roads are great, some of the best that I’ve been on for a 1200.\u00a0 There were very few rough spots, very little trash (glass etc.), not heavily trafficked.\u00a0 With the Pyrenees to the north, I guess that these are foothills. Towns were close enough together for services although from 2pm-5pm, finding something open can be a bit dicey.\u00a0 Most towns had natural springs although you have to be on the lookout for those.\u00a0 Great tasting water, i.e., no discernible taste, and safe to drink, they can be lifesavers in this hot climate.\u00a0 Unlike Bulgaria, or Italy, there are no roadside springs; only in the towns.<\/div>\n
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It’s a flatish ride, but not flat.\u00a0 I don’t remember the total climbing but probably the least in my experience save Florida.\u00a0 The terrain rolls and only once or twice did I see a grade over 5%.<\/div>\n
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Windmills are everywhere.\u00a0 What does that tell you?\u00a0 You want to be riding with the windmill, not into the headwind.\u00a0 I was lucky that days 1, 3 and 4 were in the right direction.\u00a0 Day 2 was a killer, at times having a hard time working your way downhill!<\/div>\n
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There are canals everywhere moving river water to farmland.\u00a0 See that overpass … if it’s level on both sides, it’s an aqueduct moving water, not cars.\u00a0 In some areas the farmland on-grade watering is still used but mostly that has fallen into disrepair and pressure pumps send that water over the crops with sprinklers.<\/div>\n
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During the day, many of the towns look like small concrete structures, unoccupied and unused.\u00a0 You don’t know what’s inside.\u00a0 My hotel 6 km from the start, for instance, built in the 1600s, looks like nothing outside but inside, it’s beautiful. A mixture of huge concrete blocks, brick and stucco, sometimes up to a meter thick to keep out the heat … you don’t hear your neighbors through the walls!<\/div>\n
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The gps files are setup as 350-250 (turnaround), then 250-350.\u00a0 Many riders seemed to strike for 350 the first day, to the town of Lagrono, with spouses perhaps transporting luggage.<\/div>\n
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Oh yes, there are no drop bags.\u00a0 There is no food.\u00a0 No sag.\u00a0 Your registration fee of 15 Euros gets you a cue sheet, a brevet card and a ziploc bag.\u00a0 If you complete, it also pays for the RM Homologation.\u00a0 Little hotels in little towns in Spain don’t have 24 hour desks, so you have to be careful that you book something where you’ll land during open hours … or have a spouse :).<\/div>\n
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Fancesc originally expected around 15 riders.\u00a0 There were 35.\u00a0 That “surplus” enabled him and his co-captain Alex, to follow the route and take some pictures.\u00a0 I had them top up a water bottle once, but that wasn’t what they were doing.<\/div>\n
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The controls were all open, pick any establishment, other than the 24 hour motel at the turnaround point.\u00a0 You didn’t have to stay there, just have them stamp your card.\u00a0 If you hit a town at a time with nothing open, a photo will do.\u00a0 I took two photos.\u00a0 Every establishment had a stamp.\u00a0 My brevet card looks like a well decorated passport.\u00a0 More often than not, a Repsol gas station served as a control.\u00a0 They were usually well stocked, even with small packages of meat and cheese.\u00a0 They carry some soft-ish drinks, but I mostly had one water bottle full of juice – a thick peach, pomegranate, orange – as opposed to a manufactured concoction.\u00a0 That’s how I got many of my calories.<\/div>\n
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Sorry Dick & Bob – I know that the juice has lots of carbs but I needed the liquid, not cheese melting in my pockets.<\/div>\n
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Speaking of melting, it was hotter than Bulgaria, 95F at 9:15 a.m. on the last day.\u00a0 It was cold on the morning of the 3rd day, starting back from Sagahun, but not as cold as it was in Bulgaria that one night.<\/div>\n
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My ride.<\/div>\n
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Without someone to support me, I planned to carry 3 changes of jersey, shorts and socks.\u00a0 I couldn’t carry much in the way of snacks for a four day ride, so I had to live off the land (aka gas station).\u00a0 Had I loaded any more onto my bike, I wouldn’t have been able to lift my leg over to get back on!\u00a0 Luckily I didn’t have long steep climbs to carry that weight.<\/div>\n
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I planned to stop after 300 km, not the 350 that the gps file implied.\u00a0 With an 8am start, I didn’t expect that I could make a hotel at 350 before the desk closed.\u00a0 As it turned out, I was emailing my 300 km hotel to wait, please wait … I arrived just a few minutes before 10pm, their close time. On the third night, that hotel closed at 9pm … I got there at 8:30.<\/div>\n
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I had a lot of stop time at overnights — 5.5 hours, 5.5 hours, 7 hours.\u00a0 That last one is probably a record for me.<\/div>\n
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The one thing that I found about riding another 1200 4 days later is that I wasn’t caught up with sleep.\u00a0 Early in the morning, in the pre-dawn, I was soooo sleepy.\u00a0 There are bus shelters or perhaps they are hiker shelters, mostly glass, sometimes concrete, with a good long bench.\u00a0 15 minutes of instant sleep did wonders on each of the three days.<\/div>\n
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For the first time ever, on the last day, I carried extra water, and I mean extra water.\u00a0 2 full water bottles and a huge 2 liter container of water in my center jersey pocket.\u00a0 I dumped more water on my head and shoulders and drank more juice and water than I’ve ever consumed before.\u00a0 It’s a dry heat, so they say!<\/div>\n
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Many of the riders spoke bits of English.\u00a0 Most establishments did not.\u00a0 Right on the Camino route, someone would know English, but not off route or at a gas station.<\/div>\n
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I had three flats.\u00a0 One on the first day on the only stretch of fresh chip seal on the entire route, caused by a very sharp stone.\u00a0 The rest of the route is pavement, not chipseal.<\/div>\n
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The other two flats, on the last day, were simultaneous front and back, seems that I hit a bunch of thorns on the road shoulder.<\/div>\n
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Early on the first day, I was the Lanterne Rouge.\u00a0 I caught with a bunch at a lunch spot and ate with them, leaving before.\u00a0 With my early stop on that day, I was again the Lanterne Rouge, seeing very few riders except those on the return, as I got to the turnaround motel.\u00a0 It looked like everyone had come and gone but when I was up and in the bike storage room to get rolling again, two other riders were also getting organized.<\/div>\n
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Lo and behold, as I rolled through another town, I found a large group of riders stopped at a street corner.\u00a0 I rolled on.<\/div>\n
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Although it was a push, I kept to my plan of 350 km that day stopping at Tudela, leaving 250 for the last day.\u00a0 It seemed that other riders stopped somewhere before or after because I saw many early on the fourth day.\u00a0 I finished about mid pack.\u00a0 I was nicely on track to finish around 4pm when I had to give in to the heat, stopping at every gas station and bar, topping up water, guzzling some on the spot.\u00a0 I also had the two flats … and finished at 5:10 pm.\u00a0 I had oodles of time as the 90 hour mark was 2am due to the 8am start on Day 1.\u00a0 I had squandered some of the best riding temps of the day being so sleepy and then in the heat of the afternoon, well over 100F, survival was key, not speed.<\/div>\n
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When I got to the ride end, the two organizers were there to check me in.\u00a0 Francesc La Porta, the “main man”, has apparently completed PBP 11 times?\u00a0 I’ll have to look that one up.\u00a0 Apparently it may be some record shared with a handful of others.\u00a0 He’s not done yet, will be at PBP next year.<\/div>\n
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I had two huge beers.\u00a0 I was so thirsty.\u00a0 Luckily they don’t do breathalyzer tests on cyclists but don’t ask me to walk a straight line.\u00a0 I could ride straight and I did, right to my hotel Cal Ball.\u00a0 Home away from home, I got cleaned up, had dinner and then sleep!<\/div>\n
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As usual I enjoyed myself.\u00a0 Different scenery, different food, friendly riders (but not much conversation), adapting my fueling strategy, being totally self sufficient (OK, thanks to Visa).<\/div>\n
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Is this true Randonneuring – no support?\u00a0 Some would say yes.\u00a0 That adds to the sense of accomplishment … but at times we like being pampered, so onward we go!<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ride report from Dave Thompson: During a ride, I write the most amazing blogs, all on my virtual notebook.\u00a0 Unfortunately it’s virtual.\u00a0 99% of what I think that I should write evaporates.\u00a0 A couple of days after a ride, some … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ride-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.randonneursontario.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.randonneursontario.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.randonneursontario.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.randonneursontario.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.randonneursontario.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.randonneursontario.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":829,"href":"https:\/\/blog.randonneursontario.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828\/revisions\/829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.randonneursontario.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.randonneursontario.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.randonneursontario.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}