Day 5 - A 'comedy' of errors

Templar castle minus the Templars.

Ponferrada to O'Cebreiro

What would be the worst thing to happen on a ride like this? Oh, sure, getting hit by a car or riding off a cliff or just plain old falling off the bike.

Obviously, those sorts of things are horrible. But, outside of that (and any other actual bodily harm), what would be the most inconvenient thing to happen?

Losing your riding partner in the middle of nowhere without any means of communication?

How about getting lost AND managing to snap off one of your pedals? Not just the plastic bit your foot sits on, but the whole shaft that connects to the mechanism. Yeah, we've had a pretty interesting day.

As we've become used to getting up in the mornings, we left Ponferddara at eight and set off under the cover of clouds. It was a cool morning and from the looks of things the two thirds of the day's journey was going to be relatively flat with the final part representing the biggest challenge.

We climbed the hills leaving Ponferrada behind us and spent the morning working our way through the usual suburban districts that surround any large town. As we headed into the countryside, the undulating (there's that word again, who knew Spain was so rotund?) hills became more pronounced and we found ourselves in wine country.

Wine vineyards! Unfortunately you can't drink these. 

The majority of the morning was spent tacking tracks in-between vineyards and this made for some lovely riding.

The tracks themselves were dusty and rocky with the occasional hill and everything was going as it had been over the last few days.

I'd cycle ahead until I thought it best to wait for Dad and he'd eventually catch up and on we would press.

Dealing with the hills this way meant I managed a mid-hill break every now and again letting me recover so that I could press on and claim that 'no hill had beaten me!!!' Moving though the vineyards really was stunning, too. The hills became more pronounced and interlocking and eventually we were well and truly into steep valley country.

We knew from the maps that the afternoon would represent the biggest challenge though. There was an eventual incline of over 1,000 km and it occurred within about 18 km distance of our destination. That meant steep inclines and lots of them. We followed the valley for the early part of the afternoon and that's when things became much more complicated.

Halfway through the valley, and on our way to when the ride would become really tough, I found myself once again waiting for Dad after getting a little bit ahead of him. The minutes ticked by and eventually I became worried something had happened and decided if I just cycled back down the route I'd eventually see him coming up the other way and we could carry on.

This line of thinking took me twenty minutes back though the valley to the small town we'd had a break at, and with no sign of Dad I decided he must have come off the route earlier than I thought and was now ahead of me.

The problem with the Camino way is, though there are plenty of signs pointing you in the right direction, there are still number of different routes you can take. Some are better for the walkers, others, the cyclists.

Realising that Dad was now ahead of me on the trail I thought it wouldn't be too long before I caught him up and we could crack on with tackling the looming mountains that were quickly approaching. Only, things are never that simple. After leaving the town I'd backtracked to, I took a few peddles down the road, felt a wobble in my left leg, and before I knew it the entire pedal, metal shaft and all, had come away from the bike and was left sitting in the dirt behind me.

Brilliant.

I went back and collected it and attempted to reattach it. No luck. I proceeded on foot, pushing the bike as fast as I could. I thought if I could at least catch up with Dad we could work out some ingenious way of reattaching the pedal so that I could ride.

I pressed onwards. Eventually I reached a rather busy intersection where the path crossed with a main road. There was a garage, so using my initative I popped in thinking I could get some tools (or something, I don't know) to help.

I found duck tape (score!) and bought it immediately. This was rubbish. Never try and attach a bike's pedal with duck tape.

Trust me, the legendary status of duck tape as the saviour of any problem is horrendously ill-founded. I proceeded onwards, sans pedal. It quickly became obvious that no matter how fast I walked and occasionally ran (yeah, I ran with the bike) I wasn't going to catch up with Dad.

By now I realised that he would more than likely think that I would have pressed on ahead and he would be trying to catch me up, never realising that I was actually behind him (without a pedal). I pressed onwards, using any downhill moments to hop on the bike and use good ol' gravity whenever I could. I managed to sail past a few walkers but my joy was short lived. Soon, the imposing climb approached.

Pushing a bike is the least fun ever. I lost my pedal a good 18 km away from where were headed and a quick look at the map told me I was still at least 15km from it. Not an insignificant distance, but on foot and with that incline, the day was going to be a lot longer and a hell of lot tougher.

I didn't want to miss out on what Macs Adventure brochure described as a 'mythical' ascent though (pretty sure they meant 'legendary'). I've walked long distances before, how hard could it be?

It turns out, pretty ****** hard. The cloud cover of the morning had given way to a blistering afternoon heat and the road upwards stretched on forever.

It was hard, and steep enough walking up the road, but eventually this gave way to dirt tracks with rocky terrain and inclines, and I'm not kidding, that saw me lifting the bike up wholesale regularly.

The going was tough, to say the least and on my own it was so much harder. A guy from Belgium (I initially guessed Germany) on a lovely looking bike stopped and asked if he could help but realised that was a silly question when he saw the problem. When I told him I was planning on walking the rest of the way and pushing the bike, the height of his eyebrows gave everything away. This was no small undertaking.

The heat and steepness of the climb created a killer combo and before long I was drenched with sweat and my legs were beginning to feel like jelly. Regular breaks helped, but the route was relentless. Even the stunning views did little to help matters, I had to keep going and the chance of a lift became scarcer with every step. Before long the option was entirely removed. The path was no longer road-worthy and I'd walked myself into a corner. I'd just have to keep going.

I made it to the top, obviously. But it was incredibly hard. As I suspected, Dad was waiting for me though he'd only just arrived. Guess he was going even slower than me.

We contacted the Macs Adventure guys and they had a new bike with me within the hour. Seriously impressive stuff and much appreciated.

You'd think the drama of the day would be done. Given the amount of sweat and energy wasted on the climb. But no, there was one more twist in the tale.

After a bit of a break and a well-earned beer, I was in the shower. I heard an almighty scream from the next room and went in to find Dad hunched over and clutching his back.

The collision last week and the day's hard riding had proven a bit too much. He hadn't slipped a disk, bit he had pulled a muscle, which is incredibly painful. We'll wait and see how he feels tomorrow, but right now it's looking likely that he might have to rest his back and avoid getting back on the bike.

I'll keep you posted.