BRM 200 - De Vacas e Peixes#
Second Brevet of the year done. I look happy in that picture, don’t I?
Indeed I was happy at that moment, but this Brevet was a hell of a ride, let’s go back in time a few hours…
6:00, I open my eyes and check the clock, the alarm should sound in 15 minutes but I’m fully awake already so I cancel it. I take a quick shower and put on part of the cycling clothes I’ll be wearing today (just the socks, long pants and the base layer).
I prepare my usual Brevet day breakfast, a big bowl with a mix of muesli, granola, sliced banana, honey and milk and I sit by the window to eat.
It is still dark outside and it is raining. Any other day I’d love the sound of the rain hitting the window. It is raining quite hard now, big drops coming against the window in waves. Nice, wind too.
Last night I prepared everything for the Brevet. Clothes, tools, spares… I usually bring with me a lot more things that what I’ll pack for the Brevet, so I’ve to decide what to leave in the car.
This time, the weather will be a big factor in what to carry with me.
Usually, in 200 Brevets I try to be as minimalistic as possible and pack the minimum amount of things. This means a medium-small saddle bag with tools and spares and a small top tube bag for food.
This time, though, what I see outside the window makes me change plans. I pack some extra clothes (long sleeve jersey, long sleeve base layer, socks and gloves) into a couple of ziploc bags and I put those into my large apidura saddle bag, alongside the medium-small saddle bag with the tools and spares (yeah, I decided to simply throw the smaller bag inside the larger one, lazy, I know).
Then I pick up my things and leave the hotel under even heavier rain and drive my car 10 minutes to the start point in INEFG in Bastiagueiro.
Luckily, the rain stops when I arrive there, at least long enough for me to take the bike out of the car, put lights, bags, etc on it and go to the main building to pick up my Brevet card.
Almost everybody is already here and we go through the usual flow of salutations, jokes, small talk… This time we talk even more than usual about the weather. It seems everybody agrees it is going to be a tough day.
Today we have a newbie, someone that is doing a Brevet for the first time. Alejandro, coming from Pontevedra, has already participated in several ultra-cycling races, and he was wondering about this whole randonneuring world.
8:00, we leave Bastiagueiro without rain. I start from the back of the group, as I want to say hello to an old fellow randonneur (Óscar). We chat for a while, catching up a bit.
Less than 10 minutes in the ride and there is already a drizzle floating in the air.
I don’t like riding at the back of the big group, so I push a bit the pedals and start passing other cyclists until I’m at the front. It is starting to rain properly again and the roads are all wet and full of water puddles.
Only a few of us have full fenders on our bikes, which means that being behind someone without fenders is like being in front of someone with a hose watering you. So I simply try to be on the front at all times.
We leave the big city and go into the smaller roads near it while it starts raining even more. I’m wearing my castelli gabba jacket and a rapha brevet gillet over it. Those are simply perfect under light rain, but not enough under this, stronger, rain. I tell the others that I’m stopping to put on a rain jacket and I do stop. While I put the rain jacket on, 2-3 smaller groups pass me fast. It is ok, I’ll catch them.
I pedal alone for just 10 minutes or so, before catching those smaller groups, passing them one by one until I’m back with my group on the lead.
It is raining a bit less now (this will be a constant the whole day, drizzle, light rain, strong rain, light rain, no rain, strong rain… and so on) and we start talking a bit more. The main topic is… right, PBP, what else!.
Dani (who is pre-registered, like me, for the first time) and I listen carefully to the veterans, the ones that had done PBP before (some even several times). We also ask “a few” questions, of course.
We are going up the first bigger climb of the day now, subida a la cantera. I’ve done this climb a lot of times already, as it is one of the usual ones when leaving Coruña during these Brevets. This is the place where usually we split into smaller groups and solo riders, but this time our group sticks together.
The chat and the lack of rain cheers us up a bit, but it does not last long, as it starts raining again.
After the climb we took the first big road of the day, lots of lanes, lots of traffic and still going up (under the rain, of course). This big, open road is fast, with a few short hills and long descents and we push through. We pass small villages, like Cerceda or Xesteda, where there is no one to be seen outside.
One bad thing about these long rides with lots of rain is how the rain is able to disrupt your regular eating/drinking habits. Luckily this time I realize I’m not eating as I should before it is too late. But getting food out of pockets, or even the top tube bag, is hard, complicated… I should have brought some protein mix to fill in one of the water bottles, that would be much, much easier.
A bit after Xesteda we leave the main road and take a nice small road towards the second control, the dam of Vilagudin (km 40). I have so many good memories from last year about this part. I’d love to record our arrival at the control point with the gopro, but it rains so much I don’t feel like bringing out the camera from one of my back pockets (this will be also a constant the whole day, passing amazing places but not being able to record them on camera).
9:50. At the dam there is no place for stamping our cards, so we take a group picture instead.
We haven’t lost our good sense of humour though, and we make a few jokes about the weather, the rain and, specially, about what is waiting for us the next few kilometers (hint: very broken roads).
The next 10 km have lots of short, steep climbs and the roads are badly broken most of the time (potholes, loose stones, etc). But, oh my friend, they are beautiful! This is the stretch where we pass by big farms. On a good sunny day you can see lots of cows on the fields and you ride really close to them. Not today. Today the cows must be inside the barns, as the rain refuses to stop and go away.
We start to wonder when (if) will it stop (the rain), when we pass by a sheltered bus stop with the following message wrote on it in big letters:
“E se chove, que chova!”
Which is an old galician saying, literally translated “if it rains… let it rain!”.
Finally we are done with the broken roads and back into bigger ones with good asphalt. The rain is still there, and I’m glad that at least there is not much traffic on these roads today.
We are passing by Trazo now, another small village, and I can’t help noticing its city council building. A circular building from 1975 that catched my eye as we pass by.
Just as we are leaving that village, on a short hill, someone has a problem shifting gears and the chain gets loose (and, as we will discover later, stuck between frame and chain rings, which took a huge effort to fix). Someone else stops to help, so the rest of us keep on pedaling, just slower to give them time to catch up.
The guy is lucky, it stopped raining right now and the sun is shining, which is much better than strong rain when you have to deal with mechanical trouble.
It must be 10:30 or so and we pedal slowly while we wait for the others. The sky is finally clear of dark clouds, looks like a blue field with some white/light-grey (big) spots on it. Nice, the weather report was right! We would have some early rain and then sun and some clouds. This definetely cheers everybody up.
There is no trace of those 2 that stopped to fix that chain. Damn, we are going very slowly, they should have catched us already. Could it be the problem was bigger than we thought? Let’s hope not. After a while we decide to stop for a moment in a crossroads. We take a wee and try to reach one of them by phone, no luck. Well, if something bad happend, bad as in scratching, they would have called us, right?
We take a moment to eat something quick and take a couple of photos and then we decide to leave. Those two will have to catch up with us at the next control. Only that, as soon as we start pedaling again, they appear on the horizon behind us. Great, let’s push it again and recover some lost time.
11:07. We arrive in Portomouro (third control, km 67) after another fast (and fun) long descent. It hadn’t rain in a while now and the sky still seems “open”. We get the stamp on our Brevet cards in a gas station, where we meet Alejandro again (he didn’t stop at the crossroads, so he arrived here earlier than us).
Removing the rain jacket is sooo tempting. The sky looks clear, sun trying to make its way through the clouds… what could go wrong?. The others do not see it as clear as I do, so in the end I decide to keep it on, I simply unzip it. I remember we will have to climb our way to the next control point from here.
We cross the big, old, stone bridge over the Tambre river and took the road to the right and… damn, it is raining already! We just have crossed the bridge from the gas station!
Light rain it is, but rain nevertheless. It comes and goes for the next 15/17km, alternating with short periods under the sun. At one point we start seeing rainbows around us. We pass by Ponte Maceira and Negreira, where we had a super-nice coffee stop last year, but today we are still all wet and right now the weather is much better (more sun, less rain) so (almost) everybody prefers not to stop. A couple of voices would love to stop at that café again, but the discussion is over as soon as we get there, the café is closed today.
So, we keep on and tackle the second bigger climb of the day, towards the next control point, Portocamiño (km 88). It is a gentle climb, around 9-10 km long without any really steep parts. As the weather improved a bit, I decide to take the gopro out a few times and take some shots.
We ride together, chatting, agreeing on having a coffee stop at the end of the climb, at the control point. I remember from last year that this cafe/hostel there is not open always and I really, really hope, it will be open today.
“It is open!” - someone say when we arrive.
12:20. We park the bikes whenever we can, some leaning on the concrete wall opposite the café, some on the walls on both sides of it. I put the synapse by the front door for a moment to take a picture.
The weather seems to improve a bit, the sun is back and it is warming us up a bit, so everybody decides to remove some of the outer layers and “hang them to dry” on handlebars and seat posts.
Sadly, it is just an illusion. The sun is there only for a few minutes, dark clouds covering everything again. At least it does not rain.
One thing I love about riding Brevets with the guys from this cycling club (Mesoiro), is how well organized they are. They work like an efficient machine on each stop. I’ve already talked about this in my previous Brevet reports. This time it is no exception, in a few minutes drinks are ordered and cards are stamped.
We decide to have our coffees outside, to avoid getting too warm inside and then having a huge temperature drop when coming outside.
I have a big latte, and I eat something too. Meanwhile we talk about how things have been so far and what is waiting for us for the rest of the day. I also take a moment to take some pictures of the bikes (look at alex’s beautiful Giant TCR…)
We finish our drinks quickly, gather our things and off we go again. The next control point is 30 km away. We are getting closer to 13:00 and the weather forecast said the worse weather/stronger rain would happen between 13:00 and 15:00. And it wasn’t (fully) wrong.
It starts raining again, and it increases intensity over time. This stretch feels faster, specially after the longer climb to Alto da Pena. There is more rolling time, longer downhills. Even with all the rain, I decide to use a bit the gopro (also, at the last stop I decided to put the camera in the top-tube bag, instead of one back pocket, which makes things a lot easier when bringing it out, then storing it back again).
14:00, we arrive in Zas (5th control point, km 118) after a fast descent, around 4km, passing by small stone churches, old houses and big green fields.
At the entrance of the village, to the left, a huge stone house catches my eye. It is the city council building, which looks totally like one of those Manor Houses from the movies.
This is the point in the Brevet when we had lunch last year and, honestly, right now I wouldn’t say no to a hot meal and sit inside for a while, avoiding the rain.
We go right away to the same pizzeria where we had lunch one year ago, it looks full, with lots of people having drinks inside. We stop and put the bikes where we can see them and where they do not cause trouble to the pizzeria or its customers. Someone says something about a quick coca-cola and keep on riding and I feel my mood going down fast.
In the end, we decide to sit inside and have some bocadillos and the coca-colas (f*** yeah!). Well, all of us except Alex, who gets his card stamped, drinks something quick and leaves (later on, we discovered that he arrived 20-30 minutes earlier than us to the finish line).
While eating, we discuss the “plan of action” from now on. It is clear that the weather won’t improve anytime soon (a few more rain showers fall while we are inside, poor bikes) so we will keep on with our current plan of reducing stops to a minimum. There is only one more control point left, and then the last one at the arrival, back in Bastiagueiro.
Everybody refills the water bottles and prepare everything. After thinking it through, and discussing it a bit with the others, I decide to use the extra clothes I’ve brought with me. In the bathroom I remove the Gabba and the base layer, then try to get myself a bit dry using some paper (the one you can find in public bathrooms for drying your hands) and I put on another base layer and my Rapha pro winter training jersey.
The change of clothes feel wonderful, to be honest. I feel warm and dry (well, at least the upper part of my body). I pack the wet clothes + the wet merino gloves into the ziploc bag and go outside to join the others.
Before leaving, I put on the brevet gillet and then the rain jacket over it, as (incroyable) it is raining. It feels amazing to not be shivering when I get outside, as it always happens to me after lunch breaks in brevets during winter.
(spoiler alert: all this was a big mistake, as I was going to discover later).
The roads from Zas on are in good condition. Bigger roads with a bit more traffic, but roads where we should be able to roll faster. Also, the wind should be on our backs now, pushing (suuure… LOL).
The road is like a roller coaster. We go up, then down, then up. Not super steep, not super long. What we call here “terreno rompepiernas” (literally translated “a terrain that breaks your legs”).
I don’t feel fine. Something is definetely wrong. I’m suffering.
I already told them earlier this morning, at the start, that I’ve had a rough couple of weeks at home. I couldn’t train properly for this Brevet and I was expecting some “down” moments today. So, this does not catch me by surprise.
Still, something feels odd, very, very odd. I start to stay behind, further and further behind the group. On the climbs I can’t keep up with them and on the descents I push hard to catch them (while they rest by simply coast down the hills).
After a few hills, at some point between Coristanco and Carballo I realize what is happening. It is too damned warm and I’m way over-dressed. Shit.
Note
Let me do a break in my story here, to add a couple of details to it.
Earlier today, when I decided to pack some clothes “just in case”, I packed the Rapha jersey and I had 2 options for the base layer:
A Craft short sleeve one, suitable for not-cold but not-hot days
A Decathlon long sleeve deep winter one, the warmer base layer I have
Which one do you think I packed?
YES the long sleeve one :-(
Now, back to my story…
I’m suffering a lot because I’m totally over-dressed and at this point the rain is not constant anymore. Either it is a hard rain shower or it does not rain at all and the sun comes out.
I’m cooked for good, but I can’t remove the rain jacket (the Rapha jersey is not waterproof at all). I think about stopping for a moment, remove the rain jacket, then the gillet and put the rain jacket back on. But I don’t want to slow them down and I don’t want to loose them neither.
So, another big mistake, I keep pushing myself, I keep cooking myself slowly in my own corporal fluids.
I can’t bare it anymore, I unzip the rain jacket. “E se chove, que chova” - I repeat to myself. It helps a bit, specially on the downhills, but it is not enough.
They realize I’m suffering, so they slow down trying to give me some extra breath.
“I should have put only the jersey on, not the base layer”
“I should not have put the gillet on, how stupid”
“I should… I should not…”
All I can do is think about all the things I should or should not have done. Oh, and look at the Garmin and get crazy as the kms do not move forward. I’m a cooked snail, dammit.
Dani asks if I’m ok, and I told him I’m not. I ask him to keep on without me, no need to slow them down any more. Obviously they refuse “you know how we are and how we do things here” - he said - “we start together, we finish together”. I can’t say I wasn’t happy to hear that.
We talk about yet another big mistake on my side. I should have brought salts and/or protein stuff to put in one of the water bottles. Right, this is a 200 “only” and there is lots of places to stop and refill, drink, eat. But it is a horrible rainy day, stops are better “minimal” in these days and, what is worse, with the rain jacket on at all times, you sweat a lot, so you loose lots of electrolytes and stuff.
We are passing through Carballo now. No need to stop here, the next control point is in Caion and we still have 15-20km to get there. I have to admit that even without a proper stop, the few stops at roundabouts and traffic lights give me a break.
After Carballo, we are going up another short hill and it is not raining. I’m definetely pissed off and I simply remove my gloves, storing them into a pocket on my back. This simply act helps a lot.
I look at the sky. It is grey, there are clouds, but it is not raining and it hadn’t rain in a while so I take the risk and stop for a moment to remove the rain jacket, packing it into a pocket on my back. Meanwhile I see them putting some distance with me.
But now I feel much better, simply removing gloves and rain jacket helped by cooling me down.
One more climb, this one longer, on our way to Caion. I remember last year I was ahead of everybody, doing several turns on the roundabout at the top waiting for them and then stopping to bring the camera out and take pics of everybody as they were passing me. Not today, I do the climb in “reserve mode”. When I get to the top, they are already going down the other side.
We do a short stop at the side of the road to take a group picture with the view of the small sailor village behind us.
To get to Caion, we go all the way down to sea level. It is a wonderful descent with some impressive views of the ocean, the coast, the village itself. But I’m so destroyed that I don’t even consider picking up the gopro.
16:12. Arriving in Caion, it starts raining harder again. We talked earlier about doing a “stamp only” quick stop, but when we get to the main square, we find open a nice, small and quiet restaurant. It is too inviting, so we have a coffee to warm up a bit before starting the climb back up (yeah, from sea level all the way up from the point where we came from).
Dani and me start while the others are still gathering their belongings. We take it easy, talking a bit about everything. At the top we stop at the water fountain to refill our bottles (better here than the tap water at the restaurant), eat something quick and regroup.
I look again at the sky and it does not look very promising. It is a uniform mass of grey clouds and it is raining already, so I replace the gillet with the rain jacket and I put the gloves back on.
Time to start the last part of the Brevet, near 40km to get back to the start point in Bastiagueiro.
A few minutes after resuming riding, I quickly remove my gloves again. I prefer my hands wet from the rain than from my own sweat. This part of the ride pass like in a blur, a cycle of hard rain showers followed by light rain and then more rain showers. Those showers are more intense every time and by the time we pass through Arteixo it rains even harder.
“Of course it has to rain harder when we are so close to the finish” - someone shouts over the rain and the noise of all the traffic in town.
One last real climb, Boedo, we take it easy but the rain is falling hard on us, sucking every last drop of energy left out of me.
20 more km and we will be there. The sun is shining now, the sky is much clearer, someone say we will be lucky and arrive in Bastiagueiro with good weather. “No way” - Dani replies - “There is still more to come”. And he was right. We enjoy the sun while it lasts, speeding up a bit through the sliding road that takes us to O Burgo, but there more hard rain is awaiting us.
This town in the outskirts of Coruña is always full of traffic, which is not nice under all this rain. We are lucky though, and we pass all traffic lights in green while riding through the long avenue that takes us to Puente Pasaje.
We are literally at the finish now. We climb from Santa Cristina, going on Avenida Che Guevara. They are ahead of me and I can’t catch them, I’m too tired, but in the roundabout at the end of the climb (where you can see a big sculpture of the head of Ernesto “Che” Guevara) they have to stop to let some cars pass by… and I push with whatever is left in the tank, arriving at the roundabout when they are going to resume pedaling. I pass them, shouting loudly “nooooow is my turn!!”, leaving them behind, laughing.
Arriving in Bastiagueiro I feel happy, relieved. I push on the last climb to reach the parking lot and then beyond, to the arrival point.
18:05. Unclip, leave the bike, fill in the Brevet card with the arrival time and leave it in the suitcase.
So, here we are, back to the picture at the start of this report:
So, was I happy there? definetely yes. Sure, I’ve had some bad moments in this Brevet, but overall I enjoyed it a lot, and I’ve learnt some valuable lessons that will be useful in the future, I’m sure about it.
Of course we took the usual arrival group picture…
But we cut the “after brevet” chatting short. Everybody is soaked to the bone and we are getting cold fast. We say our goodbyes and agree on meeting next month, in the first of the 300 Brevets in the calendar.
I get to the car, leaning the bike on one side of it, and open the trunk. My car is a Toyota Verso, which has a very nice space on the back (once you pack/lay down the second-row seats). I remove both the overshoes and shoes and I leave them outside, while I seat inside to remove the wet clothes, dry myself a bit and put on dry clothes.
While doing so, it starts raining hard again. I can’t help myself and I start laughing. I wait for a while until it finally slows down a bit. Then I finish packing everything in the car and leave.
And here is some data taken from my activity in Strava:
