Day 2
After a few hours of sleep, I awake feeling surprisingly rested. It’s still dark out. Pack up and I’m on the road again in less than an hour. My stomach has completely calmed down, the previous night’s roiling pain has subsided – at least for now.
I continue through the gravel and come across others who are struggling — some sleeping, others barely moving. I feel better knowing I’m not alone.
I descend and see a cow lying in the middle of the narrow road! Is it sleeping or dead? I see a giant hole on it’s die and realize it’s definitely dead. Onward!
The sun starts to rise and the colors light the sky. I get some glimpses of the rugged and natural area, relieved to see at least part of this section during the day.
My Garmin watch suggests that I take a “rest day” – it has no idea what I’m attempting to do. I ignore it, of course.
The clouds are gone, the sun is shining and I feel good. The morning always energizes me. I keep pedaling, staying in my zone and minimizing stops.
It’s mid-morning and I’m due for a quick resupply and hygiene break. I come across a bar at a camping which was not on my cue card – what a good find! I pull over and order supplies from the bar, use the bathroom and organize my stuff. There’s other riders there as well – we chat and exchange words of encouragement. It’s a festive and friendly atmosphere, people are in good spirits but also worried about making the checkpoint cutoffs. I impress other riders with my command of Spanish and recommend ‘cola cao’, Spanish chocolate milk, to another rider who’s quite happy to drink the potent sugary drink. I wash my bib, clean up, and eat. It’s an efficient and productive stop and I’m feeling hopeful of clawing my way back.
At this point, I calculate that I’m 5-8 hours behind schedule; not great but not bad either. There’s still plenty of margin to get back in this race.
I continue on scenic tarmac through rural landscapes, along rivers, through valleys. My body feels good – no complaints. The bike is dialed in and working as expected. I’m trying to be conscious of how much food I eat so that my stomach doesn’t become upset.
I realize I’m out of sunscreen and take a slight detour to Sabiñánigo, in the province of Huesca. I only took a small stick sunscreen but realize I need more for my legs, arms, and neck. This was an oversight – I should have brought extra! I stop in town by the pharmacy and by the time I buy the supplies, apply sunscreen, eat and organize my food – it’s 45 minutes later! The stop times really add up when you’re racing.
Back on the road, the scenery gets progressively more epic and stunning. As I approach Torla-Ordesa National Park, I see massive mountain peaks, roaring rivers, green hills, forested ravines. Suddenly I find myself off the tarmac and on to a gravel path. I check the map to see why I’m leaving a perfectly good tarmac road to go on gravel. I trust the planning process; that maybe this route is faster or more scenic or the main road is too busy – but slowly come to regret my decision. The trail is free of cars and scenic, but very slow moving. Why am I on gravel now, when I haven’t even reached the mandated gravel parcours 2? It makes no sense! In a race that is free-route between checkpoints and parcours, there is no point to taking the scenic gravel route unless it’s significantly faster (which this wasn’t in my case).
This grave error costs me 1-2 hours of slowly climbing on gravel before I’m re-united with the main road (that I should have stayed on the whole time). It’s frustrating, but also an important lesson. The route planning process is extremely important! I knew this going in — I’d spent two or three hours planning each day — but I’d focused too much on resupply points and not enough on inspecting every meter of the route to be sure it was optimized for fast moving tarmac.
I try to stay positive despite the frustration of the routing error. I just keep pedaling and soon I’m at the base of parcours 2, ready to tackle the mandated gravel section. The elevation profile looks intimidating, essentially a non-stop climb up a mountain and then an equal distance down. It’s about six-thirty, and I only have an hour of daylight left.
The trail immediately becomes unrideable.
It’s steep with loose gravel and trying to pedal is a fool’s errand. I push my bike, frustrated. It’s at this point that the familiar feeling of stomach cramps and nausea returns. This makes the challenging task of pushing my bike up steep gravel even more grueling. I struggle to eat, to find the motivation to keep moving. I listen to random podcasts to distract me. I ride my bike when I can, but mostly push. It’s dark now and I feel alone. I don’t dare check the tracker, I fear being discouraged and seeing how far behind I am.
It’s a long night, cold and silent, but I finally reach the top. I’m making painfully slow progress – it was supposed to take me 3 hours to this section, but it ends up being closer to 6 – due to the stomach pains and unexpectedly rough gravel. I put on all my warm clothes and slowly descend, being extra careful for fear of crashing.
I’m exhausted and don’t want to continue. It’s time to sleep. I find a raised outcropping, next to an antenna tower. “This will do”, I think to myself. The moon is full and the stars are bright. I don’t even need a headlamp to setup. For the second night camp, I’m a bit more careless, quick and disorganized – I just want to get to sleep. I don’t even set an alarm. I feel like the race is slipping away — my slow pace has made the next checkpoint feel impossible. I only care about closing my eyes and making the stomach pains go away.
Day 3
I sleep under the blinding light of a full moon. Despite my physical pain, I take in the stunning environment. It’s a privilege to be here – isolated nature in a peaceful landscape.
I’m awake and it’s still dark. A new day! I quickly set up and make some instant coffee. I feel better. There’s a common theme emerging — nights of struggle followed by mornings of calm. It amazes me how a few hours’ sleep could reset everything.
Before I know it, I’m out of the gravel madness and passing through the sleepy village of Nerín. I didn’t realize that I had almost completely all of the parcours 2 during the night. That lifts my mood a bit and I continue the chilly descent through country roads on fast moving tarmac.
It was still dark when the GPS guides me to what appears to be a dead end – turns out it’s a hiking trail. Once again, I’ve made a costly error on routing. I struggle for 1-2kms through a thorny path – pushing my bike along. I curse the routing software of Ride with GPS for putting me into this unnecessary detour. Deep down, I realize that I’m the only one to blame – another hard lesson learned to double and triple check every meter of your route. Despite the logic of knowing my error, I find comfort in letting out a string of expletives – no one but the early morning birds to hear my frustration.
I make it through the valley of thorns and arrive at a sleepy mountain village. I pull over and have a bikepacker’s breakfast: more instant coffee and Tuc crackers. It calms me and I appreciate the beauty of the place. It feels so isolated and remote. A group of hunters drives by and gives me a friendly buenos días as they start their day.
I continue my ride, this time on perfect tarmac. I fly down hills and the scenery is stunning, forrested hillsides, flowing rivers, crisp mountain air. There are hardly any cars, people or towns. It’s some of my favorite riding of the whole trip.
I pass through a village and surprisingly see a hotel bar open. Time for resupply and some real food. I order un bocadillo de tortilla, fresh orange juice and coffee. The real food is incredibly nourishing and the freshly squeezed orange juice feels like the elixir of life, rejuvenating the battered cells of my body. I charge my power banks, take care of my hygiene maintenance, wash my spare bib and warm myself in the cozy bar. After 2 nights roughing it in the bivy, I’m happy to clean my hands and face with soap and water.
Loaded with caffeine and some real food calories, I push onwards. It’s a blur of pedaling. I listen to music for motivation – an eclectic mix from swing jazz hits of the 1930’s to Talking Heads to techno. Mentally, I’m feeling strong and upbeat. I know that I’m behind pace for the GC but I’m ready to ride hard and not stop until I get to that next checkpoint. It’s time to claw my way back into this race. Just keep pedaling, I tell myself. If only it was just pedaling….
Hours melt away. I’m in the zone. I come across a gas station for a quick resupply and meet a few other riders – happy to see them after over 12 hours of being alone. We exchange horror stories of parcours 2, rider E tells me that he almost scratched, how brutal the gravel was and how discouraged he was feeling. It was good to know that I wasn’t the only one suffering. He felt pessimistic about making it to the checkpoint – despite the fact that the organizers had extended the cutoff by 6 hours. “The math just doesn’t work” he said.
I choose to not analyze it too much and feel optimistic that with some consistent riding, strategically timed instant coffee and a ‘just dont stop strategy’, I could will myself to that checkpoint. It was, however, a literal and figurative uphill battle. I would have to complete the dreaded and unknown hike-a-bike, complete parcours 3, ride to parcours 4 and then ride the entire length of it to get to the checkpoint – all before 10AM the next day. “F’ it! I can do it! Who needs sleep?!” I naively think to myself. The hike-a-bike appeared to be just around the corner, just follow the straight line. Oh, how easy it is for the mind to self-delude myself into thinking hard tasks are possible….
I ride as consistently as possible for the next 2-3 hours – non-stop. I’m entirely focused on the goal at hand. No more silly videos or chatting with friends and family on whatsapp. Just pedal.
I reach a planned resupply point at a gas station. Load up on empanadas de espinaca estilo catalán. Chips, crackers, candy bars, soda. Use bathroom, do hygiene maintenance. Organize bike. Nearly an hour passes! How is it possible? I was being as efficient as possible. It’s incredible how much time one can “waste” on stopping. In the moment, everything seems necessary. Not sure how the front-runners do it.
I feel like the hike-a-bike is right around the corner. It’s just one road away. That road, however, is a slightly upward slog on a busy highway – incredible scenery but also quite stressful as cars have to veer into oncoming lane to pass me. It’s an endless stream of cars; makes for stressful riding. Cars are safe and respectful, but nonetheless, it’s not a pleasant experience. On top if it, the wind is roaring directly against me.
With each pedal stroke, my enthusiastic optimism is diminished; the headwind does not abate. A bright spot is when I meet another rider, a young Spanish lady who is bikepacking her own adventure. She just started her journey and is quite chipper, chatting away. I tell her about my plan to hike over the tunnel through the Viella pass – she gives me a stern look and tells me it’s not rideable: “no es ciclable”. It’s what I expected, but a bit discouraging. I ask if it’s cold and windy at the top and she says “yes” to both. Of course. It’s a mountain peak that towers over all the other mountains that we already climbed.
As a quick aside – the reason for the hike-a-bike is that the Viella tunnel is banned by the organizers – technically it’s legal to pass through, you just have to call the tunnel operator to get permission. This creates one of the biggest planning challenges for riders. There’s at least 6 options for how to connect parcours 2 to parcours 3 – many hikes and some are long detours on the road. All of them are “bad” options – there’s no easy shortcuts. The route that I chose was the most “direct”; simply hike over the banned tunnel. I did a lot of research before the race, checking trails on Wikiloc, Komoot, Strava, RideWithGPS. I read forums and consulted with friends. In the end, I found a Wikiloc track of someone who hiked the route I was attempting. In the commends, they said there was no technical difficulty and that it’s not possible to ride it – but I figured that pushing the bike would be possible. The pictures made it seem like there were many parts that were rideable and it didn’t look too rocky. I concluded that it was the least bad option of them all, and in my naivety, I welcomed a chance to give my butt a rest and push my bike on a walking path for a few hours.
I finally reach the end of the slog and the entrance to the tunnel. I veer to the right and continue to the trailhead. It’s way later in the day than anticipated – already 6:30pm and the valley is surrounded by towering mountain peaks, blocking the sun. It’s getting cold.
I locate the start of the trail and start to put on warm gear. As I’m getting ready, a truck pulls up with 2 old timer farmer guys. When he sees me pedaling toward the hiking trail, the driver shouts, surprised, “Where the hell are you going? ¿Qué coño haces?” I sheepishly tell him my plan to hike over the top and he gives me the most incredulous expression, looking around with a half-grin on his face – wondering if he’s being punked by a reality TV show. He simply can’t believe this crazy guy on a bike would be attempting something so absurd. “No. No. No! No! You can’t cycle it, it’s super steep – like this”, motioning with his arm demonstrating the steep incline. “And then, you have to go down!” The look on his face is priceless; without words, it says “oh man, I thought I’ve seen it all, but this….this is the most absurd thing ever!” I explain to him that I have warm clothes and sleep gear – I’m prepared to sleep anywhere. This doesn’t do much to give him clarity on the whole situation. As I layer up with warm gear, he sits there, perplexed grin on his face – car idling and just observing me put on my ultra light warm gear, probably thinking to himself “this guiri loco is going to freeze to death on top of a mountain!” Eventually he shakes his head one final time like I’ve escaped from an insane asylum and says “good luck buddy!” and is off with a wave.
I laugh to myself at the comedy of the situation – apparently he has never heard of the “beautifully hard” bike races that LostDot puts on. To people unfamiliar with ultra cycling, the distances and challenges seem impossibly hard. However, I can’t help but have a twinge of apprehension upon getting stern warnings from an seemingly grisled wise outdoorsy old man.
Despite the cold, setting sun and humorous but ominous warnings from locals – I’m stubbornly planning to stick to the plan. I must do this hike and get to parcours 3 by the time the night is over. I ride the beginning of the trail – it’s rideable! That doesn’t last for long. Suddenly, the real trail begins. It’s a steep incline with a mishmash of switchbacks on an invisible trail. Where the trail should be, it’s a pile of rocks. I load up the Komoot track, thinking it will help me – but it does nothing for navigation. I’m pushing the bike up, battling rocks and gravity. I’m immediately lost, unsure of where the trail is. I check in with myself and realize I’m exhausted and calorie-depleted. The bike feels heavy and the loose rocks are unsteady beneath me. I think about the physics of the challenge before me. I’m pushing my 21kg bike up a steep incline. Add in some gravity and miscalculated steps and that bike becomes a weapon that can snap my bones. My shoes are MTB style – better than road shoes – but not very good for hiking a mountainous and rough trail. It’s already freezing at my “low” elevation – how would it be at the top? The sky looks clear and the forecast doesn’t call for storms but the climate can change quickly in the high mountains. How bad do I want to stay in the race? As the race organizers cautioned during the briefing – never put the race ahead of your own personal safety. I run the calculus in my mind – and the answer was clear. There was no rationalization or action that I could take to continue. I felt at peace with my decision. I would not attempt the hike and would sleep at the base of the mountain. With that decision, I knew that a scratch (giving up on the race) was inevitable, but I accepted it.
I descend the 20m back to the relatively flat area of the valley and set up camp on an exposed outcropping. If I’m scratching I’m going to have a damn good view from my sleeping bag. It is stunning. The sun is setting on the high mountain peaks, leaving burnt orange and yellow temporary scars on the mountain side. The fall colors were in full bloom. I’m disappointed in how the night ended, but know it was my only choice. I try my best to appreciate the wonderful setting. I feel like an ant on top of a mountain – humbled by the rugged landscape.
