Time for a break....: Day 51 – 29/05/2013

Ponferrada – Sarria

89.83km, 7hrs 26mins, 2246m total climb

Was a bit of as later start as I had control of the alarm clock this morning and turned it off after the first ring. We had the usual breakfast and packed up the tent in some light rain. Today was going to be another hilly one, or rather had one large hill in the middle of the ride. We were going up to just over 1300m from a start of 450m.

The weather was OK in the beginning, just a strong headwind again (top tip – if you cycle through Europe, do it in the opposite direction to us just for this reason). The first part of the cycle was ok, passing alongside a lot of other pilgrims setting off from various Auberges in various villages along the route. There were a couple of characters like an old guy wearing 3 pairs of glasses and sporting a multicoloured backpack adorned with various tat he had picked up. He was going well though. Shouted “Forza, forza!!” and “Patatas, Patatas!!” at us to spur us on (Patatas = Potatoes = Cojones = Balls). We also passed a few other touring cyclists in groups again, and one was the original Spanish bunch from the top of the mountain! They were laughing when they saw us and I think the full team had regained the strength to carry on. Bon Camino Senors.

We started climbing as we left the main road, and the pilgrims got more plentiful also. We were cycling up through a pretty forested gorge, where the Autovia passed overhead on great spans of concrete. It was a tough old slog, and the weather was a bit on and off, but a very enjoyable push.

As we got closer to the top, the weather also closed in around us. We got colder. The pilgrims wore more clothes now. We passed one old American guy and then he re-passed us as we stopped to take a picture and have some drinks and breakfast biscuits (great for cyclist energy food), and he said that he was ready for the day to finish already, and that he was looking forward to the hot bath!

At the top it was bad weather. We stopped seeing cyclists and pilgrims (how do they only appear when the road and weather is so good?) apart from one committed Spanish guy. The mist/cloud was so deep you couldn’t see to far at all. I was struggling today. Felt empty and for once in my life actually felt cold. Johanna was much better, didn’t seem so cold.

We stopped for a lunch (at my suggestion as I was struggling) at a small restaurant/hostel almost at the top of the climb, the road had already flattened out though. It had by then started pouring down, and it felt like single figure temperatures. My gloves were already soaked and I still had no energy.

We stuck the bikes in their garage/stockroom and took a seat near an old iron radiator. The options for the menu del dia were in two courses. The primero would probably have been enough in retrospect. A huge platter of macaroni cooked with pork and lots of oil, a loaf of bread sliced, and a bottle of red wine. We had opted for the full whammy though and also got served some great meat main course for the 'secundo'. Johanna had chicken (a leg and a breast on the bone), I had two pork chops. Both were served with real chips and nothing else. Cyclists dream food. We also had a dessert. 18 Euros for the lot.

Leaving that restaurant was tough. We had to put cold wet gloves and hats back on, then step out into the freezing rain. I forgot to restart the GPS so we also missed 12km of signal, it looks like a plateau on the elevation plot. We had to use Johanna's bike computer for the total distance. First mistake in over 3000km cycling is not too bad!

Immediately I started to suffer on the downhill. My gloves are not really waterproof and they were so wet I could wring them out by making a fist. My hands were painfully cold. Johanna also had cold hands but was not complaining as much. Also, my rear brake pads were on their last legs, grinding away on the metal, so I did all the braking with the front brake from about half way down.

The downhill went on and on. No pedalling at all for km's. I found that the best way to fend off the hypothermia was to swear loudly and repeatedly whilst bouncing on the pedals. Sometimes stopping to clap my numb hands whilst waiting for Johanna and continuing to swear helped also.

I suggested we should stop before our destination when I was tempted by a cheap and nice hotel in a place called Samos, which had a lot of pelerins roaming around so must have been popular, but by then there were a few flat and uphill sections appearing which helped get some heat in. Still a struggle though.

We arrived in Sarria just as my rear brakes started to bind on just as I was demonstrating the bad noise to Johanna, signalling the end of the pads completely.

We didn’t have a campsite routed due to the weather, so went looking for a hotel. The first one was the big town posh one and at 80 Euros we decided not to bother. No other ideas of where to go we set off for another one on the GPS, still soaked, still raining. Then Johanna spotted a huge yellow on black sign for 'PENSION' down a side road that we missed on the way in and was obviously there to grab your attention from the road. It was a 5 storey building standing alone in a sandy car park. We rung the bell and phoned the phone number and found that they would do a room for 30 Euros. Perfect. Bikes stored in the car park on the bottom floor too. Water wasn’t hot at first but the girl who lived on the top floor and was looking after our booking was available to sort it out by turning it on!

After warming up in the shower and hanging everything out to dry, we went into the town and shopped a bit and then had a dinner of a delicious chorizio with two fried eggs and more home-cooked chips in the pelerin quarter. Nice town but we have seen this all before. Prices were good though, there chorizo and eggs was not on the menu, but they just added 50 cents each for the chorizo. Delicious 4 Euro 50 meal each.

We shopped for the next days cycling food and watched a film. The towns are still actually quiet, despite the weather getting better and some of the more interesting places are even still closed.

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/1363697