Camino de Santiago de 5: Zubiri - Los Arcos

We got a late start as breakfast only started at 7am. We enjoyed conversation over breakfast with a Korean couple who were walking St Jean to Pamplona and hoped to return another year to do the rest of the Camino. By the time we were on the road it was almost nine.

We had hoped to push on quite quickly to Pamplona, but the trails were quite tough with lots of ups and downs and we made slow progress. The day was already hot, even before midday. Shortly before Pamplona we were going through a tricky, narrrow section and I fell over to the left-hand side, where unfortunately the ground sloped away from the trail. I ended up upside-down in some bushes, and my bike ended up upside-down, perfectly balanced on the edge of the trail. Alberto was out of sight ahead of me, but we had just passed a French walking pilgrim who rushed to up to me and threw her pack on the ground to try and help me. I wasn't injured, just a bit scratched, but it must have looked scary from her point of view. She didn't speak English, but I managed to communicate that I was okay, and she helped me climb back up the trail.

I ended up in some bushes like these!

Although nothing was physically wrong with me, my confidence was shaken and I walked my way through the rest of that particular stretch of trail. Fortunately, what followed was a long approach to Pamplona on a paved path through a riverside park. Just what I needed!

We arrived in Pamplona and had some delicious pastries from a bakery on Estafeta (the street that the bulls run down). It was almost noon, and we had only covered about 20km. Then, as we were getting ready to leave Pamplona, Alberto discovered a puncture. We headed to the central square to change it under the shade--and then discovered that our 'good' pump was missing. I had been carrying it in the outside pocket of my Camelbak, and it must have fallen out when I took my fall. It seemed like nothing could go our way.

Fixing the puncture in Pamplona

We fixed the puncture and inflated the tire with our backup pump. Then we found a bike shop and bought a better pump again. By the time this was all done with it was nearly 2pm. We assessed our options and decided to call ahead to Los Arcos, some 70km away, to reserve places in a private albergue. Then at least we wouldn't have to worry about finding a place to sleep. Still, it was a tall order to cover in an afternoon three times what we'd managed to in the morning.

Almost immediately, we were glad we had called ahead as the heat was becoming a significant factor and we had some serious climbs out of Pamplona. On our way out of the city I had a clipless fall at a pedestrian crossing -- just to compound the frustration we were both feeling. But there was nothing to do but press on.

We climbed and climbed on a gravel path, up and up above pamplona. I walked a lot of it -- and even walking was exhausting work in the heat. At the top of the hill were the iconic metal statues of peregrinos, built by the Amigos de Santiago de Navarra, along with several windmills taking advantage of the great, cooling breeze. Alberto was chatting with a British guy who was walking the Camino, but was an avid cyclist. After a rest and a snack, we decided to take the roads on the descent, seeing as how we were short on time.

Climbing away from Pamplona

Windmills in the distance

Statues

The descent to Puente de la Reina was a ton of fun -- the wide, smooth roads were nearly deserted and even though I was quite timid with speed, I still had a great time. After Puente de la Reina we rejoined the trail and had some more tough, steep climbs. On one short section, I literally could not walk the bike up the hill. I had to brake the bike with bent arms and anchor my feet, then extend my arms forward to push the bike up, take a step and then repeat the whole process. The heat was relentless and there was very little shade.

I started to feel very discouraged that we were still so far away from Los Arcos, so we switched to roads again. The NA-1110 was empty again, apart from a few Navarran machacas on their road bikes. We passed through the town of Estella which looked really cute, and I was sorry we didn't have time to explore it. We stopped to eat some more food just outside Estella and a man stopped us to give advice on which parts of the Camino to follow and which parts to stick to the road. He also alerted us to the fact that there was a fountain of wine in the next town! Of course it was up a massive hill, and as soon as we had seen the fountain (and tasted the wine!) we descended again. We were learning that this was standard practice on the Camino. Gratuitous hills just to pass through towns, as if there weren't enough hills in Spain already.

Fountain with wine and water

Tasting the wine

The trail started to get better after this, wider and with fewer obstacles, although there were still plenty of ups and downs. Eventually, we headed back to the roads for the final 10km or so into Los Arcos. By that time I was hot, sore, tired, sunburned, covered in mud and bugs. I've rarely experienced such relief at reaching a destination on the bike. Certainly not any time this year, not even the finish of the 300km ride!

Los Arcos

When we arrived in Los Arcos we discovered that our albergue was pretty crap -- full of young cool kids who were having beers in the garden, more like a typical youth hostel than a pilgrim's resting point. It was 8pm by that point so we went straight to find dinner, without even showering. We found a restaurant serving a menu del peregrino and shared a table with a French couple who spoke very little English (are you noticing a pattern?) We tried to communicate the best we could and managed to get across the basics such as where we had started and how long our trips were, but mainly we just ate ravenously.

We got back to the albergue and showered and headed for bed almost immediately. We were feeling very defeated, although looking back on the day there were lots of great moments to go along with the bad. I worried about how I'd cope the following day - I had a bit of soreness from the fall, and the tops of my thighs were badly sunburned - they hadn't seen sun in over a year and all the sunscreen I had applied on just seemed to sweat off immediately. I did discover that chamois cream makes an excellent substitute for aloe vera and was able to go to bed without too much pain. We would have 100km to cover the next day if we wanted to make it to the refugio in Tosantos.

Stats for the day:
Odometer: 95.47
Moving time: 6h52m
Stopped time: 3h53m
Overall average: 8.9kph
Max speed: 68.4kph

The first rule of flat tires is, don't talk about flat tires

(source)

A while back I wrote about how great my Continental Gatorskins have been great so far with very few punctures. And this is true. It has been great. At the time I wrote that post I hadn't ever had a puncture with the Gatorskins in around 2,500 km. We always inspect our tires before organized rides, and I'd often found pieces of glass embedded in the tire, but they'd just never gone through. I was starting to feel they were invincible!

Then, about two weeks after that post, we were prepping our bikes for the Tea and Biscuits 100 audax and I found a piece of glass. Deflated the tire, pulled it out with tweezers, and started to pump it up again. It wouldn't pump; there was a massive hole in the inner tube and air was rushing out of it. My first flat tire on the Gatorskins! Well, I was lucky it happened at home rather than out in the freezing temperatures the next day.

One of the (very few) disadvantages of a good set of tires is that I have very little experience with changing inner tubes. The first time I flatted on my road bike, I did most of it myself under Alberto's tutelage. The second time, we were in a rush so Alberto did it. And that's it. I've seen lots of people change tires and understand all the theory, I just haven't had much opportunity to do it myself. So I actually was very excited to change the inner tube. So excited, in fact, that at first I tried to get to work without taking the wheel off the bike! That didn't go to well. 

Alberto snapped this picture and then left the room. I think he probably couldn't stand to see me struggling! I imagined I was alone on a ride in the middle of nowhere (which I never have been) and got to work taking the tire off, replacing the inner tube, and putting the tire back on. It took me the better part of an hour but I managed to do it! On my own without any help! The only thing I would have struggled with would have been using the hand pump -- I used our floor pump and still found it a bit difficult to get it up to a high enough PSI. But in a real life situation, I know I could pump it up enough to ride home on. 

It has actually been a good confidence boost for me. I still wouldn't want to have to spend an hour in the cold or rain dealing with a flat tire alone, but it is a big step towards feeling comfortable going on longer rides on my own. So it turns out, my first puncture on the Gatorskins was a blessing in disguise!

1,000 Miles!

Last weekend while cycling through Richmond Park in southwest London, I reached a very special milestone.... 1,000 miles on the bike this year!

(Or, more accurately, 1,610 kilometers since that is what my cycle computer measures... but 1,000 miles has a better ring to it).

I bought the Boardman in September 2010 and probably only had the chance to ride 30 km on it before winter began, so the majority of these miles were done in 2011--which is not even finished yet! And since I (well, Alberto if we're honest) installed the cycle computer on my Boardman as soon as I bought it, the odometer also displays the lifetime distance that the bike has done.

The first 1,000 miles of this year has included:

• 2 punctures (both as a part of the puncture from hell)
• 2 clipless falls
• 3 rides of over 100 miles
• Approximately 5 hills walked up
• 10 counties of England

Fittingly, Richmond is where I put the first miles on the Boardman back in September when I was still getting used to the drop handlebars and skinny tires.

Wonder how many more miles I can fit in in 2011?!

The puncture from hell

Any cyclist has had many a puncture at least once in their live. But what happened in our last 2-day mini-tour almost made me run out of patience. Lucy's bike wears Continental Ultra Sport tyres, which although are not awful when they're brand new (as they usually come with low-end bikes off-the-peg), they tend to wear off quickly and get punctures every 20 km after 1000 km or so. This is a short summary of events that happened when we were only 10 km away from our final destination, King's Lynn:

1. Front flat tyre
2. We removed the tyre, inspected it for foreign objects, we found nothing
3. Put a new inner tube and put tyre back on
4. Realised that the valve is too short for Lucy's rims (they're kinda fancy aero tall rims)
5. Take inner tube back out to only realise that the rim tape had moved from its natural place and the hole along the rim is not longer visible
6. Unsuccessfully tried to move the rim tape so that the holes on both the tape and the rim matched
7. Given the heat (even in the shade) and the fact that we needed to get back home at a reasonable time, I decided to cut a new whole on the rim tape using the swiss knife
8. Put a new inner tube with longer valve in. Put tyre back on.

9. Sh*t, tyre lever breaks! First time this has happened to me! Strange...maybe blame it to the hot English weather?
10. Inflate the wheel with mini-pump, doing well, up to 70 psi, boooom! Valve has blown up. This is the very first time it has happened to me at only 70 psi!
11. Only have one other inner tube that would fit those rims, the original one that actually had the flat.
12. Get glue and patches out, fix it, leave it to dry for 5 min
13. Put inner tube back in, tyre back on with only two remaining tyre levers, and inflate to 60 psi fearing that the valve would blow up again and we will run out of options!

We thought this was bad enough, but no...

14. Monday morning we realised that also the back tyre was completely flat! Luckily, it held up on the previous day and we did not even notice! Phew...

Continental Gatorskins ordered!

So, make sure your inner tubes fit your rims, and always carry patches as well as inner tubes! And get reliable tyres to make life easier!