Day 13: Elgoibar to Miranda de Ebro. 68 miles. 6200 feet of climbing.

The "canyons" leaving Elgoibar.
I didn't take a parallel shot of the
actual canyons we rode through.

When cycling long distances, there are three conditions when all you can do is put your head down and keep pedaling: When it rains; when you have severe headwinds; and when you have to climb mountains.  Today was the latter.

I don't think anyone thought about today's ride in that way but, for me, this turned out to be the hardest day we've ridden so far.  We had all seen the road profile on our "Ride with GPS" apps.  The first 40 kilometers were straight uphill.  Then there was a bit of leveling off, followed by another hairy climb.  But, until we were on the road today, I don't think anyone appreciated just how hard today's riding would be.  And James, who's ridden this route eight years ago, didn't remember how difficult today's second mountain climb would be.

Today, we traveled southwest, skirting a direct assault on the Pyrenees, but still playing in their foothills.  The first few uphill miles out of Elgoibar were a mere taste of things to come.  We wove through the canyons of the a number of mountains in the morning.  I thought we might be dodging a few mountain bullets and hoped, in vain of course, that maybe I or we had misinterpreted the rode profiles on our apps.  Late this morning proved them right all along.

Church in the old town square in
Elgoibar.  Every small town we
rode through had a similar site.

There was a threat of rain in Elgoibar this morning, so everyone was wrapped either in their rain gear or in some kind of windbreaker.  I chose to wear my sleeveless vest.  It worked well in the morning, so well in fact that I would up giving it to Jesse during our first SAG stop.  That, too, proved to be a mistake.

The first climb of the day, at 24 miles, was an ungodly steep switch-backed road that remained in the double digits of percent grade for much of the ascent.  At one point, the road pitched up to 15%.  And, to make matters worse, that was just as the road turned sharply up to the right, making that hairpin turn even more of a challenge.  If I didn't keep pedaling, I would surely have fallen off the bike.  Tired as I was, and with Gene pedaling about ten feet in front of me, we both huffed and puffed and climbed out of our saddles to keep pedaling, more for sheer survival than for getting up to the top.

Gene had told a story at dinner only the night before at being teased during one of his cycling races from that brief time in his past life.  A kid waving a cow bell was running along side of him as Gene was attempting a similarly very steep ascent. The kid, clanging the cow bell, yelled at Gene that he could run faster up the hill than Gene could climb. Dispirited, Gene would soon end his competitive cycling career.

I took this picture riding up the first climb.  Little did I know how far I still have to climb.  I was nowhere near the top, nor anywhere near the impossible 15% gradient about to push my heart rate to the max.

On today's first climb, as Gene and I were now two-thirds of the way up the mountain, we passed a number of cows, all wearing cow bells.  I asked Gene if he thought they, too, might start running beside us as we made our way up the last third of that climb.  He just turned my way and smiled, wryly.

Waiting for the racers to arrive.  That's the French cyclist on the right in the blue and white as well as one of the team representatives with whom I was speaking.  While we waited, we also had a pantomime "conversation" with a Spanish policeman trying to figure out how we'd get back down the mountain when the roads had been closed for this race.  After five minutes of hand gestures, we finally understood each other.  Claro!

The reason Gene, Jane, Laura and I rued leaving our jackets/vests with Jesse was that, no sooner had we arrived at the summit of that first climb, we found ourselves on the very mountain top where a bike race was about to finish.  All during the morning, we had been passed by cycling team cars and caravans of teams, buses and equipment vans.  I think we all assumed they might have something to do with the upcoming Vuelta a España, the final three-week grand tour in professional cycling.  It turned out that there was an Under-23 cycling event taking place on our very mountain this morning. As we got to the top, we stopped to check out the festivities.  Team cars and vans with all the sponsors name emblazoned on them were parking in the nearby lot.  We leaned our bikes on the side of a building next to the finish line and waited for the cyclists to arrive, once we learned (through my limited French from a fellow cyclist who was standing nearby) about the event and the expected time of the riders.  In the ensuing twenty minutes, the mountain top temperatures had dropped a bit.  Nearly everyone in attendance was wearing a sweater or sweat shirt.  We were standing there, in our very sweaty bike jerseys, now succumbing to the colder air.  And Jesse and Michelle couldn't get to us with our jackets/vests because the roads up ahead were closed for the bike race.  But once the riders arrived, it was great fun to watch young riders, all vying not only for today's race win but, much more importantly, for the potential to go beyond their current sponsored teams and to be picked up by one of the world class professional teams.  That's really what today's race was all about...separating the true potential stars of tomorrow from the rest of the peloton.

The peloton arrives!  They were great to watch.  So fast.  So strong.  So young!  I don't know what was more unnerving...the fact that these guys got up that same mountain in one-third of the time we did, or the fact that they don't have an ounce of body fat.  Yeah, probably both!

We rode through what appeared like an industrial corridor today.  Apart from the two mountain climbs, we seemed to be on what would be called in the States (for those fans of either Rand McNally maps or the travel author William Least Heat Moon), "blue highways."  We seemed to weave in and around a major Federal highway much of the day as we rode along the Deba river valley, but our road was older and less traveled, except for large tractor trailers that seemed to be going in and out of those industrial complexes we continuously passed.  No bike paths today.  No narrow, but charming downtown roads.

Riding along Spain's Blue Highways.  They even paint their bridges blue as well :-)

The second mountain climb almost did me in.  Not because of any accident or misfortune.  It was just a continuous, seemingly never-ending, ascent.  By then, Gene and Jane were long behind me (Jane having made a wrong turn many miles back) and Laura and James miles ahead of me.  So this climb was a solo effort.  Just me, my bike, the road and my thoughts. Singing in my head when I could concentrate on that, listening to the strange sounds coming out of my bike as I creaked up the switch-backed road, and cursing the fact that, when I asked Jesse at an earlier SAG stop after the first mountain climb if we had already done the toughest part of the day, he said, "Yeah, you just have some rollers from here on in."  Michelle, who was riding with Jesse today as her recovering shoulder would not have stood a chance on those climbs, said to Jesse in the car after seeing the road profile that Jesse hadn't actually looked at, "your father is going to be cursing your name all the way up this mountain," as they drove up it.  Later, when I saw Jesse at the hotel when I finished, he gave me a sheepish look and apologized for giving me incorrect info.  It was fine.  He actually did a great job today finding Jane lost in the wilderness, negotiating three closed roads (one due to construction, one due to the bike race, and the other due to a town fair) and volleying back and forth between all the riders who were spread far apart today.

It doesn't seem very steep, but this shot was taken near the top of the final climb, looking down towards the valley floor.  It took me over ten minutes to ride down the entirety of that descent, doing over 30 miles per hour much of the way down.

Okay, totally a non sequitur (and I didn't take a picture of this), but why is it that the red octagonal signs at intersections in both France and Spain say "STOP" and not the word in their respective local languages?

How tough a day was it?  I passed out (as did most of us) after a shower and stretching this afternoon.  It was THAT challenging a day.  Tomorrow is also all climbing, but it's only 50 miles and it's a much milder grade.  Still, another day of constant pedaling.