FROM THE RACING DIARY OF A BIKEPACKER LUBOŠ SEIDL: IBERICA TRAVERSA #5
18. 07. 2019
Day 8 Saturday 20thApril 2019
Borja – Pamplona178 km / 2.488 m superelevation, time on the road 15:16
When the alarm rang, still half-asleep, I burst a quick monologue at Nikola asking him if he was also so "pleased" that we could go on a bike ride that day (accompanied by several expressions typical of the Ostrava region). There was silence for a while and then came a plea: “English please…” I had a feeling that I had known the guy all my life, and I was almost surprised that he was not Czech. We laughed about it for a long time afterwards.
We were not in a hurry in the morning. We went to the motel for breakfast and asked where the car wash was. Surprisingly, it was just around the corner. Before we put the bags on the bikes again, we jumped into the car wash and got rid of those crazy mud deposits from last night. I replaced the brake pads and set off at half-past nine.
Our plan was to go some 180 km to the last CP6 in Pamplona, bivouac in the fort behind it and then arrive at the finish line with a demonstration ride like the Tour de France, where nobody competes on the last day as well. The route began with the crossing of Europe's largest desert formation, the Bardenas Reáles Natural Park, and some steep hills just before Pamplona. The morning was beautiful. The rains that had plagued us the previous two days were still raging in the central part of Spain, but we had already escaped them. Only in the evening, there was a risk of thunderstorms, but we hoped that we would get away with it.
Riding on a clean bike made us feel as if we were born again. We still got into several sectors where there was a risk of getting stuck in the mud, but in the daylight, we always detected them in time and managed to bypass or pass them somehow. We rather lost a few minutes rather than risking getting stuck again, so sometimes we went around seemingly safe sections. After twenty kilometres we passed a drugstore where I bought new sunglasses. There was a desert in front of us and we were supposed to cross it at about noon which is something nobody wants to experience.
A strange, MEGA-sized hen was sitting by the roadside as we approached the terrain on the first hill of the dessert section. As we got closer, it just jumped off the rock and we marvelled at the dimensions of the animal. It was a vulture and we shied away from the whole group of them. We could then watch them circling above us. I tried to take a few photos but I had no chance with my mobile... then we continued deeper into the desert. There were various gorges and canyons around us and we agreed that we felt respect for the greatness, strength and diversity of nature. We rode on, recorded, took photos and enjoyed all the beauty.
In one faster downhill ride, I felt my back-wheel wobbling slightly. However, I was still gaining on Nicola, who, when he caught up with me, said he probably had a stuck bearing in the centre (crank axis) due to the mud. He tried to lubricate it with oil from the outside. we rode on in a peaceful manner. On some hill Nicola recorded the panorama for his Instastory, in which I uttered some Italian phrase he had taught me. He said it was so successful that his girlfriend nearly fell off a chair.
We went down another hill and found Andy lurking there, carrying a whole set of cameras and video cameras. He continued on a bike with us, taking photos and interviewing us while riding. The interview with me will probably not be much interesting as I was so much under the impression of the surroundings that I was unable to formulate any ideas. Andy took pictures of us from the front, from behind, on our own and together. You should take this section and now it's your colleague's turn. It was fun but it slowed us quite a lot. Our main thought was to get to Pamplona in dry clothes... Then, when we reached the edge of the stunning valley, Andy waved goodbye, saying that he had to go back to his car. It wouldn't be him if he didn't have some trick up his sleeve. We followed a single track on the edge of a hillside for some time and then suddenly we were off the track. We turned and started looking for the correct path. There was a couple of tourists sitting literally above the abyss, pointing somewhere to the bottom and saying that there might be a footpath. OMG, well, that is a surprise: “Nicola, wait, I just have to make a video of that!” I put my bike aside and climbed on a rock overlooking the abyss. Our trail wound down a breath-taking toboggan. Nobody's going to believe us. I prepared my phone and launched the recording. Nikola rode to the edge of the abyss and shook her head in disbelief. This is really crazy... He then firmly grabbed the bars and rolled downwards. It was mad, captivating and breath-taking. When he reached the bottom, he grabbed his cell phone and it was my turn. I rode to the edge and I could not believe I was supposed to go down. I went down and the only way was to let the bike go just fast enough to be able to use the wall from the other side as a banked turn in places where the footpath sank down into the abyss. When we got to the bottom, we saw the fox Andy waving at us, saying that he did not believe that anyone would ride down ☺ Well, at least I have the most thrilling bike photo of my life.
We set off, and Nicola discovered that the right side of his saddlebag carrier had broken. It was a pre-production prototype that he was testing for a friend of his. I have to admit it was proper testing. I pulled out the zip ties which I had in my triathlon extensions and fixed the holder to the saddle and saddle post and in a few minutes, we continued.
We left the desert by a long ascend to a village that was sitting on the hill, looking like from an animated fairy tale. We replenished water and climbed on behind the village until we reached the ridge, which was dotted with wind turbines as far as the eye could see. It was getting overcast and we had the last hour of light and crossing of the ridge riddled with the wind turbines, which was as jagged as an ECG record and most climbs were so steep that we had to push our bikes. We fought on and soon we were leaving the wind turbines and scrambling up some super steep hill, which was supposed to be followed by a descent to the valley and a fairly flat section through the suburbs of Pamplona. It started to rain when we reached the last ascent and when we got to the top, it was pouring with rain. I said to myself: "Go on while it rains, so the mud will not stick to your bike and you will get down somehow." It was disgusting; the mud was everywhere and the downhill course had turned into a skating rink, where both wheels were often skidding and so I just kept rolling into the valley. The route was not exact at one crossroads, so had to go back and forth through the mud twice and I heard Nicola in the forest repeating the complete list of Italian swear words. Finally, we got out of the forest and arrived to the village. We were soaked to the skin and angry that we had not made it before the rain. We just needed 20 more minutes, but there had been too many delays during the day… There was a public fountain in the village, where we washed our bikes and eventually ourselves, as we were in our clothes, from the waist down. A short walk from there was a decent place for a bivouac under the terrace of the sports hall, but Nicola wanted to warm up somewhere (he did not have any spare clothes left and had a summer sleeping bag), so he wanted to reach Pamplona. We had a look at the track and it looked like it might only be on roads and bike paths and hopefully there would be no more mud. I still had a spare Joshua jacket, so I put it on and I was quite OK. Nicola, however, was in trouble and he was shaking with cold so much that I was wondering whether he would fall from his bike. His girlfriend was trying to find some accommodation in Pamplona in the meantime, but the prices started at 300 Euro per night and it was off the route. We, therefore, headed to McDonald's which was open until 1 AM and we had some meal and dried our clothes there. On the way there I heard ominous cracking in the hub of my rear wheel. We reached Pamplona and saw some parking house in front of the McDonald's. We went in to have some meal and we took the whole menu twice and planned to make a bivouac on the top floor of the parking house, hoping that no one would drive in at night. Nicola managed to dry a little in the baby changing room and he felt better.
At the closing hour, we took our bikes and moved to the car park. It was not a parking house. The car park was on the ground floor only and the other floors were a shopping centre. The car park was quite busy so we walked around looking for some quiet corner where we could hide. We reached a door marked Emergency exit, opened it and saw a concrete corridor leading to another door out of the building. Nicola tried the other door which was not locked, so we had a way out. We hid in the corridor with our bikes, prepared our bivouac, and used the bikes as hangers for our wet clothes. We set the alarm clock to 6:30 AM. We were perfectly protected; we could sleep in peace and there was the last 120 km ahead of us.
Photo: Luboš Seidl, Nicola Canzian, Andy Buchs – Iberica Traversa