BRM 400 - Braganza#
What a month, this april 2023, I won’t forget it anytime soon. After doing two 300 Brevets in 2 weeks, this weekend I did the first 400 Brevet of the season.
Back in Astorga again, this was the first time doing a 400 here for me. This time the start was going to be in San Justo de la Vega but due to some national holidays the prices of the hotels in the area sky-rocketed (doubled prices) so I booked a room in a hotel in the nearby village of Hospital de Órbigo (11km from San Justo).
I drove all the way there from Lugo on Friday afternoon, earlier than usual as the Brevet would start at 06:00 next morning and I wanted to go to sleep as early as possible (I’ve had a very bad week at home, with several slepless nights).
After doing the check-in at the hotel, I left my luggage in the room and took the car to San Justo to meet my friend Sergio and some other randonneurs at the Oasis, the bar that is the usual meeting point in San Justo, and the place marked as the start point for the Brevets there.
I got my Brevet card and had dinner with Sergio and the others. We talked a lot about the 300 we did a couple weeks before, and about what everybody was expecting of the 400 we were about to do the next day.
After dinner I said goodbye and went straight to the hotel, to double check everything for the next day and go to bed. As soon as I did lay my head on the pillow, I fell asleep instantly.
As usual, I woke up before the alarm, 4:40, had a quick shower and full breakfast and left the hotel silently.
When I arrived at the Oasis, there was nobody there. I checked the clock, 5:35, with the start scheduled for 06:00 it felt a bit awkward that there wasn’t anybody around. Anyway, I got things ready and when I was almost done Sergio appeared riding his Trek Émonda.
In a few minutes everybody was there. Some fully ready, some still preparing things. At 06:00 we took a few group photos and we left San Justo, direction to Astorga.
We left San Justo in the dark, as a big group (15-16 maybe), and we took a small broken road on our way to Astorga, as the main road was blocked (a bridge fell down and they were rebuilding it). Once we crossed Astorga we took the bigger road that was going to get us to Puebla de Sanabria.
This first stretch of almost 100km to Puebla was smooth and fast. The road tarmac was in perfect condition and there were no climbs. As a group, we rolled fast on the flats and descents (with the occasional repecho).
The temperature was very good, my garming showing 12-13º C for the first few km and then a drop to 7-8º C for a while (which was good anyway, as we were spinning our legs strongly). Only when the temperatures dropped a bit, while going down one of the repechos, I realized I had forgotten my gloves.
“Fuck!” - I thought then, not having my gloves at that point was ok, and I was sure I wasn’t going to need them during all day but when the next night comes… I’ve enough experience already riding in the roads near Astorga to know how cold it gets, with temperature going down 20º C or more.
Ah, well, nothing I could do about it right now. Just enjoy the ride.
At one point the sun came out from the horizon to our left, giving us the chance to enjoy a gorgeous sunrise.
At that moment, I was leading the pack, riding with Alfonso (a fellow galician member of the Riazor Cycling Club and Randonneurs Galicia). We chatted a bit, talking about how different these roads were from the roads we are used to in Galicia, as well as about PBP (of course!). I think PBP is a big topic for everybody this year, and I take every chance I’ve to talk to those randonneurs that had done it in the previous editions.
The sun finally came out completely, and we were able to enjoy the views around us, with long open flats on both sides, covered with bushes and small trees, and the sight of mountains and hills far to both left and right.
At one point, we noticed something moving ahead of us, to the right. It was a small deer, running alongside the road. We slowed down a bit, looking carefully around us, when the deer crossed the road to the other side, followed by a few other deers of different sizes.
I wasn’t able to get them on camera, as they moved fast. It was one of those magical moments in a Brevet.
We arrived in Puebla de Sanabria around 09:30, passed by old town with its cobblestone streets and old houses and castle-like buildings, and decided to do a quick coffee stop.
The stronger/faster riders left a few minutes before our group. We followed them soon, but that difference plus the fact that they were way faster than us meant we won’t meet them again.
The group we had made so far would stay together the rest of the day. Both Sergio(s), Valentín and Saúl have done several Brevets together before, I already knew Estefanía from the 300 a couple of weeks before and it was the first time riding with Manuel, a very tall and thin guy from Alcalá de Henares (Madrid).
Leaving Puebla we had a 9 km climb. It wasn’t hard at all, and we were rested from the recent stop, so we keep on a good rythm. Then we had a long descent (10 km) until the next repecho, which was also the point where we crossed the border into Portugal.
More descents, passing villages like Portelo, França or Rabal and getting closer and closer to the first checkpoint, in Bragança.
Temperatures were already over 20ºC and I had already removed the gillet and the arm warmers. Even this early, the sun was starting to hit us hard.
Since we left Puebla, I started to feel a pain on my left knee. Like being stabbed with a needle, repeatedly, a bit below the knee, on its outside part. It was the kind of pain that grows over time, and I started to get worried about it.
Note
I didn’t mention it in my previous brevet reports, as I didn’t consider it may be something serious, but I felt this same pain in the 300 a couple of weeks before (AKA, Del Urogallo).
Back then, I started to feel the same pain with 100 or 100-something km to the end. Then I felt like shit afterwards (couldn’t walk normally up/down stairs) and then it went away after a full night sleep.
I thought it was some problem with my new shoe cleats (I replaced the old, broken ones, the week before that Brevet), so the week between the 2 300 brevets, I double checked the cleats and re-adjusted them. I tried again in a couple of short rides and all seemed to be fine.
Then I did the 300 Percorrendo a Raia and I didn’t have any pain during that hard Brevet, so I thought it was indeed some problem caused by the new cleats position, and that it was fixed.
I was wrong
At one point I told Sergio about my problems with the knee. Luckily he had some painkillers (ibuprofen) and he offered me some. I decided to wait until the stop in Bragança to take it.
Bragança was km 135 of the Brevet. As we already did a coffee stop around km 100, we decided to do a stamp-only quick stop here. No need to waste more time.
We passed a gas station at the entrance of the city and took the road left, which is that kind of outskirts road that let you go around the city without having to get inside the city. The thing with these roads is that sometimes you don’t find cafés or shops (the kind of places where we could get our cards stamped). But then, after yet another roundabout, we noticed there was a bike shop to our right.
It was perfect, the faster guys already had passed and had the same idea, getting their cards stamped at the shop. So, when the owner saw us at the door, he already came out with the shop stamp at hand.
When I said it was perfect, I meant it. Being a bike shop, I bought some gloves to bring with me, as I was 100% sure I was going to need them later during the night. Imagine the face of the shop owner when I asked him about some winter gloves, in april and with 23/24ºC outside. He probably thought I was crazy.
I took the painkiller before leaving the shop and off we went, going up on that steep 4 lane street which was full of traffic lights. Some of them turned red when we were arriving at them, so it was quite an unpleasant ride until we left the city.
We were already in the hardest part of the Brevet. The next 100-something km from Bragança to Miranda de Douro were going to be probably the most beautiful part of the Brevet, but also the toughest. Lots of short climbs, crossing bridges over big rivers, and fast descents with gorgeous views of the valleys we were crossing.
Luckily, the painkiller soon made its effect and the pain on my left knee went away, which helped a lot.
We were riding in Portugal (first time riding my bike here) and soon we noticed how different the car driver’s behaviour was, compared to the drivers back in Spain. Cars were passing us too close, speeding aggresively most of the times. Motorcycles were even worse, speeding up when they were upon us and several times honking when they were passing way too close.
A couple of times a motorbike passed so close that almost made me loose balance, it was scary and dangerous.
It is a bit sad that in a country so beautiful and full of nice roads, like Portugal, there are drivers like those.
On the other hand, the roads were in perfect condition and we were able to roll smoothly on them. Village after village we rode, Santa Comba de Rossas, Chaos, Vila Franca, Vinhas… every one of them having something that catched our eye.
Around km 185 we tackled possibly the longer climb of the day, 10km of going up to the villages of Santulhao and then Carçao. We had decided to stop for a longer lunch stop in the village of Vimioso (we had some good references of a restaurant there) but there was a misunderstanding and we all thought that village was going to be at the end of the climb.
We got to the top in 3 separated groups, but the village was not there, so while we re-grouped, we noticed the village was still a bit far away. “It is not much” - someone said - “it must be around the next turn”.
But it turned out it wasn’t. There were still 10 km to get there, 4 km going down and another 6 km climb afterwards. Nothing too serious, but most of us ran out of water in our bottles during the first climb and the sun was cooking us real good at that moment (my garmin was showing 27-29ºC during that climb).
Again, the group split in 3 and we arrived in turns at the entrance of the village and the restaurant, Vileira, located after the first roundabout.
The restaurant was quite good. At first it felt a bit awkward to sit, all sweaty and smelly, in its dining room, which looked like prepared for some event (like a wedding or similar).
They told us to seat at a big round table, which was perfect for our little group of 7. We sat and ordered drinks first, then food. Instead of simple bocadillos, we ordered some house-made starters (queijo, presunto, chouriço, melao…) and then each one ordered a second dish (bacalhau, vitela, …). Every bit of it was delicious.
Just when we had ordered, another randonneur appeared at the door. Alfonso, who had been on the stronger/faster leading group earlier. He told us that at some point he decided to let the faster group go. They were going too fast and the heat was taking its toll on him. He saw us passing a few km before, and he decided to chase us and try to catch our group. We welcomed him to the group and added another chair to our table.
We had such a good time in the restaurant. It all felt like sharing a meal with old good friends. We made jokes, we laughed, we told stories of previous Brevets and details of the day so far.
When we were done, we refilled our bottles, packed our things and resumed riding. During lunch, I used my external power bank to charge both the garmin and the front light a bit (charging the light was specially important, as I discovered later).
Leaving the restaurant, we had to keep on climbing, passing Caçarelhos and Malhadas where the descent into Miranda de Douro started.
The effect of the painkiller started to go away and the pain on my left knee was back. I started to suffer again.
Sit on the saddle and pedal? -> pain
Stand and push the pedals -> no pain
“Fun” - I told them - “all I had to do is ride the next 200 km, standing”
I tried to make jokes and keep on, but the pain was there and I was getting worried more and more. At one point, Alfonso told me he has some analgesic cream and that I could try and see if it may help.
We arrived in Miranda de Douro, next checkpoint at km 235 around 17:15, and we stopped to get our cards stamped in a café, the Vista Bela.
While we drank some coca colas and/or coffee, I put the cream all over my knee. It definetely helped, but only for little while (maybe 1 or 2 hours). It was clear at this point I’d have to “live with it” the rest of the Brevet, so no use keeping my brain focused on it. What I was hoping was that all the stress put on the knee today would not mean some more serious injury afterwards.
I forgot at the stop to replace the batteries of the gopro, which had ran out of juice on our way here. Man, how much I regret forgetting that.
Leaving Miranda we went down towards the Douro river (Duero in spanish) on one of the most beautiful descents I’ve done in a long time. And the camera refused to turn on :-(
“Ah, well…” - I thought - “So be it, let’s enjoy the descent anyway!”
At the bottom of the descent, there is a big dam we had to cross to go back to Spain. We stopped there for a moment to take some pictures, the place really deserved the stop.
We crossed the dam and went back into Spain, just to do another climb into the province of Zamora, followed by a few km of ups and downs and then a nice descent into another dam, Salto de Villalcampo, where we tackled another longer climb, Puerto de Villalcampo.
During that climb, the temperature got up to 30ºC. We had no shades, no protection and the sun was hitting us hard. But we also had some regarding views of the river.
At the end of the climb, just before the village of Villalcampo, we found a fountain by the road. This was a life saver, as everybody needed a refill on their bottles.
After that refill (I took the opportunity to eat something too) we resumed riding by taking a turn left at the entrance of the village and going into secondary roads, the kind of roads that give no break, no resting, lots of ups and downs.
Alfonso and me noticed Sergio was missing, so we did slow down a bit, to give him the chance to catch up again. It took him a while, but in the end he made it. When he was with us, he told us he still had one bottle to refill at the fountain when everybody left.
We kept riding and got to the descent that took us to cross another dam, another river. This time it was the Esla. After crossing the dam, we had to do one more climb and, again, we had such gorgeous views of the river and the sun setting behind it.
The next 30 km were hard. We rode all the way to Tábara (the next checkpoint) while the sun was setting. This is usually a bad/low moment for me while riding Brevets. The moment you realize the night is coming and there is still a long way to get to the finish and, inevitably, you will be riding in the dark, tired. Every time this happens, anxiety starts to grow inside me and it feels like my energy levels go down.
This part of the route was tough, with short steep climbs and broken roads, but it was also beautiful, as secondary roads always are. The thing is, I did not really appreciate such beauty at that moment.
We passed village after village, in some of them, people were seating on benches outside old houses. Some other villages look completely empty. In one of the villages, a group of old ladies were seating outside and they cheered us up as we were passing, one shouted “go, go, go up that tough climb ahead!” and indeed there was yet another steep repecho a few meters after leaving the village.
In another village we did another short stop to refill our bottles in a fountain. It was still hot and we were drinking a lot of water, so fresh water from a fountain felt wonderful.
Finally we arrived in Tábara, checkpoint at km 319, around 21:30. We decided to have something quick for dinner while we got our cards stamped. As soon as we entered the village, we started to look for any bar/cafe/restaurant where we could get some food. We found a square with 2 bars and Sergio, Manuel, Alfonso and me stopped right there. The others kept on and we called them. We saw Estefanía coming back, so we asumed everybody was coming back.
We asked the waitress of the first bar for a table for 8 and soon we were seating and looking at what to order. We ordered some sandwiches and, while they were being prepared, we took turns to go to the bathroom and change clothes. It was getting colder and we all knew it was going to get even colder soon.
When I got out of the bathroom, with my warm clothes on, I realized Valentin, Saul and Sergio Pulido were missing. I asked the others what happened and then everybody realized about it too. We gave them a call and they were in another bar on the next square. Weird. Anyway, we agreed on having our dinner quick and leave as soon as possible.
Problem was, the kitchen in our bar was terrible. Terrible as in really terribly slow. It took ages for them to prepare the sandwiches and soon we got a call back from the others, they were ready to leave.
Panic. Everybody went into panic mode real fast. Some wanted their sandwiches packed to bring with them (as if they would be able to eat them on the bike, in the middle of the night, without any light around), some were even ready to leave without eating anything or carrying anything (crazy as it sounds).
And in the middle of it all, Alfonso, completely astonished, saying he wasn’t going to leave until he had dinner.
I did hesitate for a moment. I didn’t want to leave without having dinner, both the rest having dinner AND the dinner itself were a good thing, considering we still had 90 km ahead of us. Eat the sandwich on the bike wasn’t an option for me, too risky at night, and I didn’t see the point of it. But the worse thing, IMHO, was leaving Alfonso behind, alone, knowing he would have to do the last 90 km riding alone in the dark.
But I also didn’t want to loose the group. Specially not with that pain on my left knee.
So I tried to put some sense in the situation, but I failed. And then Alfonso told me to go. To just go along with the group, “I will be fine” - he said, “don’t worry, really”. I ate my sandwich in 3 big mouthfulls, paid the bill for everyone (didn’t want to even think about how much time it would cost to split the payment), picked my bike and left with the others.
And into the night we rode.
Just before leaving, Estefanía gave me another painkiller, which made effect quite fast. At least I didn’t have to worry about my knee for another while.
All I was worried about was Alfonso, and the fact that we just left him there alone in Tábara. Even now I think we should have waited for him. I should have waited for him.
But soon my worries focused on something else. The night was very dark. No lights, no villages to be crossed and a cloudy sky that was pitch black (no moon to light our way, no stars could be seen).
We were going fast and we started to take turns pulling. One of us would pull while the rest of the pack did stay in line behind. When we reached one of those road signs marking that one km have passed, the one on the front would move aside, letting the whole group pass and staying on the back, in the last position. Then the one that was second would pull until the next sign.
We kept on like this for a while, but pushing this hard was taking its toll on my knee, and the pain came back earlier than I expected.
Anyway, when I was considering not taking any more turns pulling, we changed into smaller roads and the take-turns-pulling game was over. These smaller roads were really, badly, broken. And we were going too fast. At that speed in the night, the guys up front were not able to tell the ones in the back (like me) about potholes, gravel, etc.
It was a total gamble, an act of faith on whoever was in front of you. If the wheel in front of you did a hard turn to the left, you simply and blindly followed, no matter what may happen afterwards.
I trusted them, honestly, but I wasn’t happy about the whole situation.
And then, it happened, they didn’t sign a huge pothole and I smashed both wheels against it. The hit was so hard that one of my bottles (the one that has any water left in it) was sent flying away (and we were going so fast I couldn’t even stop to try to find it). But worse was that just after this one there was a second one, as huge as the first one. Again, no sign from whoever was in front of me and BAM, BAM, both wheels hitting hard.
I did complain loudly, we were going too fast for a road like this, we had been lucky so far that nobody got injured or a flat… And then I heard the long phhhhhhhsssssssssss while my rear tire got completely deflated.
Snake bite (or llantazo as we call them in spanish).
I was angry, very angry, at that moment. Angry at the night, at the broken road, at the pothole, at whoever was in front of me for not giving any sign or advice about the pothole, angry at my bad luck and angry at me, for not being more careful and keeping myself behind that wheel.
Everybody stopped and Valentin did most of the job replacing my pinched inner tube (it is up to this day, that I’m completely amazed about how fast this guy can replace an inner tube). Meanwhile someone told me “I’m so sorry, I could not warn you in time, I’m really sorry”. It didn’t really matter, not anymore. The good thing is, afterwards we slowed down a bit and people started to give advice about holes, etc.
Temperatures dropped a lot, as I was expecting, and this was the moment when having the chance to buy those gloves back in Brangança paid back. My fingers were starting to get numb with the cold, so I put those winter gloves on and told the others “You know, tomorrow I’m going to drive all the way to that shop in Bragança, and I’ll give the guy there a huuuge tip”. We laughed and the mood improved a bit.
Luckily we finished with the broken roads without any other damage. We took the main N-VI towards La Bañeza. I had been riding without any water for quite some time now, as the bottle I lost was the one that has any water still in it, so when we were closer to La Bañeza, I asked them to stop if we could find a 24-hour gas station or similar.
We found one on our way out of La Bañeza and we did stop there, to refill the bottles before tackling the last 15 km.
I got into the 24-hour shop and grabbed a couple of big bottles of water (4 litres total, enough to refill all our bottles) and on my way to the counter to pay for them I passed a shelve full of boxes… filled with doughnuts. I couldn’t help myself and I picked up several boxes of chocolate-covered doughnuts.
When I came out of the shop, eyes opened wide at the sight of those boxes… and in no time all of them were gone.
Time to resume riding and finish this Brevet. The last 15 km were tiring, with another mix of main roads and smaller, broken ones, but we finally arrived in San Justo at 02:30.
One more Brevet done, first 400 of the season. I was tired and my left knee was throbbing. I said goodbye to the group (“see you at the 600!”) and started to pack my things up in the car.
Once I had everything ready, I decided to wait for a while, waiting for Alfonso to arrive. I still was worried about what had happened in Tábara, but I was sure he would arrive shortly after us. It started to get colder, so I sat in the car (parked in front of the Oasis, I had a good view of the entrance) and I ate something.
After a while, I saw him (great! ;-D). I stepped out of the car and said hello, he seemed surprised to see me there. He looked exhausted (but happy), I bet this last part was hard on him too. He chatted a bit but it was late and colder by the moment, so we said goodbye to each other and part our ways.
Then I drove the car to the hotel in Hospital de Órbigo, where a hot shower and a comfortable bed were waiting for me. I was exhausted too and worried about the whole knee issue.
When I got to the hotel, there was still one more surprise waiting for me. I got to the bathroom and started removing layer after layer of clothes, just to find out I was totally sunburnt. I trusted the weather forecast before the Brevet, which was 90% cloud coverage the whole day with chances of storms and some rain here and there (and some big showers from 13:00 to 15:00 in Portugal). I did not put any sunscreen on, and what was worse, I did not bring any with me neither.
And the day was cloudless, with some strong sun most of it. Hot as it was, wearing short summer cycling clothes… I guess this was expected, but I was so busy thinking on everything else that I didn’t realize about being sunburnt until I looked myself in the mirror.
Ahother lesson learnt, I guess.
As usual, here is some data taken from my activity in Strava:
