Day 170
Blowout!
Our penultimate ride in Spain. Today we were rewarded for all those endless climbs, those days when even downhills went up, the stony paths, the unrideable Camino dirt tracks, the so steep we couldn’t stand never mind ride roads, the maze-like villages, the nightmare that was EV8 on the road of hell, headwinds from Hades, and so much more. We had done it all! Today we went downhill for neigh on all 30 miles of our route and we loved and deserved every minute of it.
We headed out of the old main highway, which was pretty much deserted. We were descending through a gorge and that meant we had waterfalls all around us, some so fierce they had taken over then road. We didn’t care, we just loved it all.
After about 13 miles we left the old highway and our route took us by a river. We were following a road cyclist and when we all stopped for a photo of a particular fast flowing section, he explained the good bit was yet to come. He was right, from a bridge we could see a particular dramatic waterfall caused by the river going through a narrow gorge. The site had inspired novelists and engineers alike and today we were seeing it at its most dramatic.
The river flowed between us and the train line. At times we were going so fast that we were able to keep leap-frog ahead of the train as it stopped in villages.
We felt invincible, or, as that lovely guy in Belfast had shouted out to us, “Winners!”. Only we weren’t quite. I heard a noise from my front wheel, I pulled over and stopped just as it went bang, very loudly, in a puff of dust! Tom had never seen the like, my inner tube had exploded and the metal beading on the tyre had broken through. We were unsure if the tyre had caused the blow out, or some debris had damaged it. Whichever, both the tyre and tube needed replacing. It was the first front puncture of the entire trip. Fortunately I carry a spare tyre so we soon had it sorted. We were offered assistance from a passing couple in a motor home, which was kind but we were already sorted, although if we hadn’t had the tyre they would have been life-savers, especially as their bike rack was empty! What was slightly spooky was that very morning I had put extra water in our bottles in case we needed to wash our hands!
The rain was falling as we set off, only 10 miles to go but they were to be very wet ones. Fortunately our hotel had a garage and as the door was open we cycled straight in, glad but also sad to finish. Just one more day’s cycling to go.
