Day Three — Vultures, Gravel & Casa Leonardo

  • Distance: 105,37 km
  • Vertical Ascent: 2.142 m
  • No. of Named Cols: <TBC>
  • Start Date & Time: 2019-10-06, 10:20
  • Start Location: Aínsa
  • End Date & Time: 2019-10-06, 20:58
  • End Location: Senterada
  • Time Moving: 6:17:45
  • Moving Average: 16,7 km/h
  • No. of Stops >3 Minutes: 14

Data: strava.com/activities/2768694184

Day Three — Aínsa to Senterada

After a rather luxurious good night’s sleep in a huge double bed and an extended breakfast in Aínsa, I again took too long to get on the road.

… and when I got (the dot) moving, eventually, there were far too many photo opportunities to not miss — stopping time for pictures taken must have amounted to hours, plural intentional!

Leaving Aínsa

I also, intermittently, spent significant time to finally upload a consecutive track of the first day’s GPS recordings to Strava (kudos to Florian!), and to post to Tiggertracks.com and Flickr. BTW — editing images and typing while riding is not a good idea.

Over the course of day two, the topology had already changed dramatically, several times, almost at the same sometimes steady, then break-neck speeds at which I was climbing or descending on the N-260: From the rough, wet roads and rolling, mist-covered hills and valleys of the French side of Basque Country on the first day, my journey had taken me to mostly pristine tarmac in Navarra.

Simply breathtaking!

Today, not even 2,5 days into the race, one particularly odd kit choice of mine and the totally nice weather joined forces to slow me down when everything was actually just going smoothly:

Mental and material preparation for the TPR included visualizing lots of rain and freezing cold in the high mountains. Although biased towards them already, the weather report on the day before the race made me settle on my lightly insulated, GoreTex-equipped early-winter boots instead of the lightweight race shoes I usually wear (which also have a still stiffer carbon sole and offer more support to the arch).

I really love these boots though. They fit perfectly and had been good company in all alpine and long distance adventures over the past 2+ years. Outside the immediate summer months, of course. And except once, on the longest of those rides, there never had been any issues.

So far the tunnels have been fun …

But now, weather is better than anticipated and over the hot hours of yesterday and today, temperatures went up sharply — in the sun at least. At around 3 pm today, just when I reached the plateau to the south of El Turbón, my feet began to hurt like hell. I remembered a similar situation from the 2017 “Flèche Allemagne”*, after the first roughly 100 km of our almost 400 km route. And stories about hot spots on riders’ feet during the TCR this summer also came to mind.

In 2017, I managed the situation by dismounting, stepping out of the boots, massaging my feet for a short while and just resting for a few minutes. For the remaining 300 kilometres on the Flèche, the feet didn’t hurt no more. Fresh to freezing conditions for the rest of my first ride over 200 kilometres also may have helped my feet from burning. And I truly appreciated the warmth of the boots at -5°C.

Solitary Giant — El Turbón

This time, I stopped repeatedly and alternated putting left or right foot and leg up on a crash barrier or sidewall. I even sat down on the road on one occasion. And I also did everything else that had seemed to have any positive effect last time. And I changed into my lightest pair of socks.

It was also kind of funny to sit there, barefoot, on the shoulder of the HU-V-9601, in plain view of El Turbón, and the very few cars passing by, stretching my legs and eating cheese, meat and pastries (from Ansó) and feeling good.

Obarra

While in the morning of the third day, I had rode through Spanish Túnels, across tall viaducts spanning valleys cut deep into an arid, mountainous vasteness, only hours later, these red, yellow and gray sands turned to colorful banded rocks in narrow valleys and gorges, overflowing with trees and bushes, nurtured by an abundance of water from small rivers and streams everywhere. Now cycling through Aragón, I was quickly approaching Catalunya, for a while still hoping to pass over to Andorra and reach CP2 before the end of the night.

On one occasion, on my way from Torre de Ribera to Obarra, I disturbed a flock of big birds during their Siesta, resulting in a beautiful, memorable encounter — I’m not an ornithologist, but they may have been the Bearded Vulture: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearded_vulture

Shortly after the HU-V9601 merged onto the larger A-1605. For a long while my route now was accompanied by the Rio Isábena. Passing the stunning setting of Santa Maria de Obarra monastery, I followed the Isábena through tunnels and gorges, over several bridges, until the A-1605 finally turned right into a forested area with a slight uphill gradient towards the Alto de Bonansa. After a fast descent down from the plateau in direction of the small town of Bonansa itself, I felt a bit dizzy from so many different types of landscape to properly absorb with my senses. I needed a change in pace and riding style:

Onwards to El Pont de Suert, I had plotted a gravel alternative to the joint N-230/-260 stretch of national road. And this deviation turned into a full-out Gravel Fest! Highly recommended! But you might want to equip a tire width of more than my 28 mm (almost 30 mm measured).

Taking the gravel alternative do El Pont de Suert

Feeling refreshed after this intermezzo, I left El Pont de Suert towards Senterada. The N-260 again offered spectacular views, and between the mountain pass of Viu de Llevata and Sarroca de Bellera, I rode the most technical descent yet — would have been more fun and less scary during daylight hours.

By now I had realized that reaching the start of the CP2 parcours, leave alone Andorra, would mean cycling through the night. Just only having sort of recovered from the first day, when a bit after sunset I reached the summit of Viu de Llevata, I booked a hostel in Senterada telling them to expect me around 21:00, and I made it perfectly on time.

My home for the night, Casa Leonardo sits on the junction of the N-260 with the Avinguda del Flamicell (L-506) which is the central road passing through Senterada and traversing the Sarroca river right in front of the hostel/bar/restaurant. It’s a massive, meticulously and very carefully renovated old stone building of multiple floors with high ceilings on the inside that preserves its historic flair without being in any way too “chic” or even obtrusive.

It speaks for itself that while Casa Leonardo offers high quality accommodation and food, it is also frequented by locals for a drink and for watching sports on a TV screen in the bar at the front. Altogether, it is as close to perfection as a hostel can be.

diving in …

*=The “Flèche Allemagne” is a “Brevet” organized by the German randonneuring association, the ARA in accordance with ACP rules. The specific routes are designed by participants and teams and pre-approved individually by the ARA. Within 24 hours, each rider has to cover a minimum distance of 360 km (from anywhere), along self-designated control points, to the Wartburg (an historically significant, medieval castle, towering over the town of Eisenach, more or less in the geographic center of Germany).