An annual cycle

50 yards on from where I stopped to have my lunch break on the side of the road . . . Thank you St Patrick!

(will be checking my stopping spots more carefully from now on!)

After nearly 1,000 feet of steep climbing, there’s no way I’m about to break this speed limit!

El Coto is a Rioja producer whose range is simply outstanding (disclosure: supplier to one of my clients at home). I was lucky enough to have a personalised tour and tasting – after a long day’s cycling, it was most welcome.

Their facility is enormous, catering for over 800 hectares of grapes from their own land. This picture shows just one of their facilities boasting 50 stainless steel tanks each of which has a capacity of 50,000 litres (as well as additional 100,000 litre tanks for good measure). (That’s somewhere between 2.5 to 3 million litres!). Compared to the tiny holdings in Burgundy which we saw on our recent cycling trip – some perhaps only a handful of hectares – it is astonishing that El Coto produces such a high volume of consistently excellent wine.

You can read as much as you like, but until you’ve experienced gravel pathways you simply have no idea what the real world is like (rather like AI?).

Increased risk of puncture, and a fall caused by a pothole or deep gravel/sand are just two of the risks. But the landscape more than makes up for these irritations:

The hotel informed me the resto was fully booked (Grrr!!). So, I just had to find a Michelin star Pinxto bar to compensate!

I did.

It was madly busy – so I threw myself at the feet of a barman and asked for the 6 best Pintxos – along with his favoured wine (and 2 subsequent different)) reinforcements).

Holy cow! What a feast!

Vegetables. Cod. Mushrooms. Pork. Steak. Foie gras.

3 excellent wines.

€33

I wanted to cry.

I knew crossing the border from France to Spain was a get-out-of jail. No serious hills (that’s the benefit of hugging the coast).

I reckoned there would be some serious climbing ahead.

Doh!

An early start seemed prudent – so I found myself on the road at 7:19 (breakfast on board – and some stealthy supplies tucked away for replenishment later on).

The forecast was sunny, light wind with a tiny amount of rain.

Hah!

My first response was to replace the lightweight wind cheater with the sleeveless Irish version (i.e. keep the bloody rain out). That lasted only minutes before I realised I needed the heavy duty, sleeves version – along with overshoes (you can’t beat staying dry and warm)

Still, the gradient wasn’t too bad.

After a while, the clouds (and the rain) cleared somewhat and I found myself on a pleasant cycle track. A tunnel posed an interesting challenge (I had no lights, neither did the tunnel). The route continued to the sound of birdsong. Another tunnel loomed – only to present a hefty chain and a notice indicating it was closed for works.

U-turn!

Two locals provided (what I am sure was ) fantastic advice on how to re-navigate my route – shame my Spanish is so poor.

I muddled through, however, and girded myself for the hilly route that lay ahead (see my separate blog post on stress!).

Pamplona presented without incident and I set about exploring the locality. . . . Happy days.

I should have known – Google had warned me “Very steep hills”.

Initially, I thought, “Hey! Maybe I’m fitter than I thought?!”

Google got it right.

My Garmin wristwatch confirmed it – from 10am to 4pm my recorded “stress level” was 100% most of the time. . . that translated to being in bottom bottom gear – and struggling.

The only answer was get into counting mode: 1,2,3 with every turn of the crank . . . .up to 50, for each finger on each hand.

Pause.

Start again.

Only look up when you count to 50.

And never despair.

It worked.

I ordered a glass of red wine (Michelin star Pintxo restaurant – fabulous food) – the wine was not special, but perfectly acceptable. Cost? € 3.10.

Dublin. Do better!

On a previous trip I visited the house once occupied by Copernicus. This time I found an interesting connection between Basque Country and Ireland: Antoine Thomson d’Abbadie d’Arrast (1810 – 1897).

He was an explorer, geographer, ethnologist, linguist and astronomer notable for his travels in Ethiopia during the first half of the 19th century. In 1835, he also travelled to Brazil, producing Observations relatives à la physique du globe faites au Brésil et en Éthiopie. He left in November 1836 in the frigate L’Andromède and had as a travelling companion Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, exiled after the attempted uprising of Strasbourg.

He built a château between 1864 and 1879 on a cliff by the Atlantic Ocean – apparently considered one of the most important examples of French Gothic Revival Architecture. It is divided in three parts: the observatory and library, the chapel, and the living quarters. Over the front entrance door of the château is engraved “Céad míle fáilte” in honour of his Irish heritage.

The château still belongs to the Academy of Science to which it was bequeathed in 1895 on condition of its producing a catalogue of half-a-million stars within fifty years’ time, with the work to be carried out by members of religious orders.

Who can I point to in Irish society with an equally interesting CV?

300km completed – a tougher day today. Partly because of more climbing (even though I tracked the coast – especially across the border, avoiding nasty Pyrenees climbs); mostly because I had a bike breakdown. My back freewheel suddenly locked and made the most alarming noise when I stopped pedalling. I was afraid the derailleur would get completely snared in the spokes (bad event!).

I removed my panniers and flipped the bike to examine the problem. I may have well have been looking into a well. A call to the Bike Rack led me to conclude that I needed to ride the bike as a ‘fixie’ (where you must keep pedalling at all times unless you are stopped).

A somewhat tense ride to Bayonne and I found a fabulous cyclist repair shop – disassembled various bits and reassembled them to get a fully working machine in 70 minutes (charge €20!! and that included some parts!). A Bayonne ham roll seemed in order for lunch!

In fairness, this has been the first notable breakdown since I started long distance spins 11 years ago – I can’t complain.