BRM 400 - Polas catro provincias#
If I’d have to give you a summary of this Brevet in a few pictures, I think these would be the ones:
In words, that would be something like centenaire, all-night cycling, double pinch flat and friendship.
But let’s go back to the beginning, so you can get the whole picture.
This was the second 400 Brevet this year for me, just a couple of weeks after the first one. This one was organized by my friends from CC Riazor, which means we started again in Bastiagueiro, A Coruña.
This Brevet is called “Polas catro provincias”, which translated from Galician would be something like through the four provinces. Galicia is split into 4 provinces: A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense and Pontevedra, and during this Brevet we were going to ride on roads from all of them.
The 400s organized by this club still honor the tradition of having to ride all night long, and so we started on Friday (instead of Saturday), at 22:00.
I arrived in Bastiagueiro around 21:00 and I had a quick dinner sitting in the back of my car, with the trunk open. While eating my pasta salad I watched the other randonneurs arriving, unpacking and getting ready. Once I finished dinner, I hurried up and got ready too, closed the car and got to the start point to get my Brevet card.
As usual, this pre-brevet time is the time to meet friends and colleagues, catch up and talk about what to expect for the Brevet. 20 randonneurs signed up for this Brevet, less than the number of participants in the 300s and a lot less than the ones in the 200s. This time, apart from the usual suspects, I saw a few new faces.
We took a moment to take the usual group picture before departure, as well as our club group picture (which means the picture of the members of the Mesoiro cycling club + myself on it).
Start time was approaching and everybody was ready, time to start another adventure. There was still some light when we left INEFG, but soon the only light was the one from the street lamps and our front/head lights.
We passed Santa Cristina and crossed Puente Pasaje, then turned left towards O Burgo, as we had done in a lot of other Brevets. This is one of the main in/out roads to/from Coruña.
As we left the main city areas and outskirts, there were less and less street lamps, and soon we were riding on our beloved secondary small roads. The temperature was nice (around 13ºC) and we were riding on a good pace. Soon we were on the first climb of the Brevet, La Cantera, a classic already in Riazor Brevets.
We rode all together, as a big group, chatting and making jokes. In a couple of hours we arrived in the first checkpoint, A Pontepedra (km 45). There was a bar open, just by the side of the road, and everybody stopped there to get the first stamp in our Brevet cards. Initial plan was to do a quick coffee stop there, but as we saw everybody getting inside and ordering, Dani and me looked at each other and said at the same time - “maybe it would be better to make that coffee stop in Santiago?”.
We were too many people, so preparing coffee for everybody would take quite some time, and it was a bit early for the coffee stop for me anyway. So Dani, Edgar, Jose, Óscar, Alex and me got our cards stamped and left A Pontepedra in direction to Santiago de Compostela. A little while afterwards another randonneur joined our little group, a portuguese called Helder, whom we knew already from previous Brevets.
We had a moderate tail wind on our way there, and the terrain was mostly going down with some flat parts and a couple of light repechos. The road was a secondary one but in very good condition, so we were literally flying and we arrived in Santiago in an hour.
We did the coffee stop in the first bar we found open. It had a nice big terrace, so we could have our bikes on sight at all times. In this stop we put some money into our common pot (which still had 30 eur from our previous Brevets this year).
We made the stop as quick as possible, but when we were about to leave, we saw another group of randonneurs - part of the bigger group that had coffee in A Pontepedra - passing by, while shouting “you are too lazy during stops!!” and laughing.
We left the cafe and took the road that passed by old town and the Alameda, a big green area/park located in the middle of Santiago. There were lots of lights, noise and people around there, as during this time of the year, they do a big local celebration, the Ascensión
I’ve lived in Santiago for a couple of years, back in 1997, and while we were passing through the city a lot of memories from those old times started to come to mind. I also wondered what old 1997 me would say if someone would tell him I’d be riding 400 km a few years in the future…
On our way out of Santiago we had to stop at a traffic light in avenue Romero Donallo. A guy that was walking on the sidewalk came a bit closer and told us another big group of cyclists just passed on the same direction, and then he asked us what was it that we were doing cycling at night like this. We told him about the Brevet, that we were going to ride 400km and a few names of the places we were going to pass by. He seemed a bit impressed before saying something like “you are nuts” and then “hurry up then, the others passed like half an hour ago!” laughing.
We knew it wasn’t that long, he was teasing us a bit.
Finally we left Santiago on the road towards Ourense.
We still had that wonderful tail wind and the roads still were fast ones. We rolled fast, passing villages and towns, O Sisto, A Ponte Ulla, A Bandeira, A Cruz… We passed the group that was riding ahead of us, and Helder decided to stay with them. We kept on and soon passed Silleda too.
I rode a long time of this stretch with Alex. This was his first 400, and even having some previous experience riding longer distances (he did several ultracycling races), he was a bit nervous. In the past, when I was in such situations myself, it helped a lot having someone with experience by my side, talking through the whole thing. I tried to be that person for him this time.
The temperature started to drop, slowly, 10, 9, 8ºC. We were expecting some real cold later, after passing the next checkpoint (Lalin at km 121) and it seemed the forecast was going to be right this time.
On our way, we passed more randonneurs and some of them, like Óscar from Naron and Ferreiro, joined our group.
We finally arrived in Lalin at 03:56. Being a big town, we decided to look for something that may be open 24-hours, like a gas station, to get our cards stamped and something to drink. Everybody had brought food enough in their bike bags, so that should not be a problem. In case we could not find anything open, we were going to take a group picture at the sign at the entrance of town, showing its name.
We were talking about options when we spot a big restaurant to our left. All lights on and a big sign by the road Open 24 hours. “Great” - we thought - “we will be able to drink some more coffee!”.
We stopped there, parked our bikes and started to get our things to go inside when someone said “the door is closed!”. WTF, we looked around but the door was indeed closed, no bell to ring, nobody inside (even all lights were on). So much for “Open 24 hours”… Anyway, nothing we could do about it, we got back on our bikes and rolled a bit more, passing through town and finding a gas station that was open.
Everybody rushed inside, I kept myself outside for a moment, taking everything I’d need during the stop (clothes, food, bottles for refilling). I also refilled the top tube bag with more food from the big saddle bag. During the last 5 and a half hours I ate most of what I had there.
Inside, we ordered some coca-colas and ate something from what we had packed in our bags (bocadillo de jamón con tomate for me). More randonneurs arrived while we were eating and chatting.
Temperatures were definetely getting lower and, even inside, being stopped felt really cold. I ordered a big cup of coffee before leaving, to warm me up a bit.
I had brought with me my Rapha thermal jacket, to wear instead the long sleeve jersey I’d wear so far, when temperatures would get lower. But it was so cold, I decided to simply put the jacket over the jersey, and then the brevet gillet over it.
Once we finished and sorted out changes of clothes, we refilled our bottles and left the gas station with me shivering and praying to get some uphill roads soon.
After Lalin, on our way to the next checkpoint in Cea (km 151), we had to tackle the longest, highest climb of the day, Alto de Dozón. Not one of those long, steady climbs, this was more like a series of repechos with very short descents on the other side, with one final stretch of 10 km that were mostly uphill all the time.
It was cold, the garmin showing 4-5ºC but the sensation being much colder (even going uphill most of the time). Most of the time we did ride in complete darkness. The sky was dark too, covered with clouds, no stars could be seen and no trace of the moon.
And then the moon appeared. To our left. Huge, yellow, like a huge cheese that was missing a big chunk on its right. It was beautiful.
We all were amazed by its beauty. It was quite distracting, so distracting that I did not see a hole ahead, in the middle of the road, and I bumped into it hard.
One of the bottles went flying away (right… just like 2 weeks ago after Tábara) and the front tire got deflated instantly. Pinch flat. “Fuck” - I said. I warned them and we all moved to the side of the road.
Edgar had found my bottle and I put it back in place, got off the bike to start replacing the inner tube on the front wheel when I heard a loud sound coming from the rear wheel - HHHHHSSSSSSSHHHHH - “FUCK” - I said again - “I can’t believe it”.
I had a double pinch flat. Both wheels, both tubes at the same time.
We put ourselves to work, quickly, and while I was fixing the front wheel Dani took care of the rear one. It took us 20 minutes to fix everything and start rolling again. 20 minutes of jokes and laughs. Riding with these guys is awesome, even when things get a bit complicated.
We resumed riding and got to the top of the climb, from where we had a 14 km descent to Cea. If going up to the top felt cold, imagine how it felt to go downhill fast for so long.
We arrived in Cea at 06:15, we didn’t get our cards stamped and instead we took a group photo at the entrance of the village. As we could not find the sign with the name of the village, we decided to take the picture at one of those signs showing which km of the road you are in.
Picture taken, we left towards the next checkpoint, O Carballiño (km 159). Right, the next checkpoint was merely 8 km away, and it was mostly downhill there. 20 minutes later (06:38) we were there already. We found a bar open but they did not have anything to get our cards stamped with, and nobody needed a coffee stop, so we simply took another group picture at the sign and kept on riding.
We left O Carballiño with the sky changing its colors again. The sun was rising and slowly the sky turned from black to dark grey to a mix of colors. We didn’t enjoy a gorgeous sunrise (like we did 2 weeks ago on our way to Puebla de Sanabria, during the 400 organized in Astorga) instead the sky started to get clearer and the roads and scenery around them visible.
At one point I picked up my water bottle (the one that fell off when I hit the pot hole) and I noticed it was quite light. “Weird” - I thought - “this was the bottle that was full”. I tried to drink anyway and when I squeezed it a bit, my hand and arm got all wet. “WT…” - I put the bottle away from my body and squeezed again and I could see perfectly the water coming out from the bottom of the bottle, which was clearly broken :-(
We had a 24 km descent (with a few bumps in the middle) before arriving in the city of Ourense. Luckily we didn’t have to pass through it, we went around it riding on one of those ring roads you can find usually in big cities.
This part was ugly, I’d say the ugliest road of the day. First we rode for a while by the Miño river (that part was ok) and then we crossed it, following the road south. Once we crossed the river, we passed by some industrial area which looked like something out of post-apocaliptic dystopian movie. Ugly scenery around, big main road, lots of traffic. “Wonderful”.
Then the next climb started. Slowly the group split into several pieces, Jose and someone else riding first, followed by Alex, then me a bit behind and Dani, Oscar, Edgar and Manolo at the back. I rode alone most of the climb, finding my rythm there and enjoying every moment of the 18 km climb.
We passed several villages on our way up, O Piñeiral, San Cibrao das Viñas, Noalla, Santa Marta, A Petada. And finally we arrived in the Allariz, the next checkpoint at km 208.
It was 09:00 when we arrived there and everybody agree on having some good breakfast. During the climb a few more randonneurs joined our group, so we were quite the sight for the few people walking the streets at that hour, specially on a very cold morning like this one.
We found a café near the main square, parked our bikes and went inside to order breakfast. As I did in Lalin, I did stay for a bit longer outside.
First I rearranged things in my saddle bag, they were a bit moved around and disorganized after the double pinch flat, as the spare inner tubes were at the bottom of the bag and I had to take them from there in the middle of the darkness, in a hurry.
Second, I moved some more food from the saddle bag into the top tube bag.
Finally, I picked up the broken water bottle and threw it into a recycling container nearby. Then I picked up the other water bottle and went inside with the others.
Inside, people were lined up at the counter, ordering. I joined them and ordered coffee and a big piece of tortilla. Then I looked for a table to seat a bit while breakfast was getting ready.
The coffee wasn’t really good and my piece of tortilla had a few pieces of eggshell, so I’m not going to say it was a wonderful breakfast. It helped filling up reserves a bit though.
With our bellies and water bottles refilled, and after a successful visit to the toilet, we left the bar and picked up our bikes again.
It was shivering time again. Outside it was cold (so cold I kept all my night layers on) but at least the sun was out and shining. I was ready, so I moved myself to a nearby spot under the sun, to wait for the others
Soon the others joined me. After a great time riding our bikes in the dark of the night, this sun light was definetely cheering us up even more. We made jokes and we laughed a lot. And someone even found a nice spot for sun bathing!
We left Allariz, taking some secondary small roads without much traffic. The restart was very cold, but luckily we soon started going up towards the next checkpoint, Alto do Couso (km 234). The sun was shining and warming us up a bit, but I still was wearing all my layers.
This part of the Brevet was specially beautiful. The roads were in good condition and we were rolling fast, even going a little bit up all the time. Temperature was rising, slowly, and the scenery and views around us was very nice.
A couple of villages catched our eye, first Baños de Molgas, a village from the times of the Roman Empire which is well known by its bridge built by the romans, the roman baths, its natural hot water springs, among some other things. We did not stop there, but what we saw while riding through it was beautiful.
The other village was Maceda, with its old castle from the XI century, its cobblestone streets and old stone houses. It was a pity that they were doing some construction works on several streets, which we had to pass on our way through the village. But even with all that work, the village looked nice.
In one of the villages we did a quick stop to remove some layers. I removed the Rapha jacket and packed it in the saddle bag, but I kept the gillet on (it wasn’t that hot yet).
We were reaching the top of Alto do Couso when we spot a nice fountain on the left side of the road. We stopped there to refill our bottles. An old couple was sitting on a bench, outside a house nearby. They said hello and asked “Where are you coming from? Ourense?”. When we told them from where we actually came, they were surprised, but when we told them what we had still ahead of us… I bet they simply thought “This young people is nuts”.
A few meters after the fountain we stop at the top of the climb, at a gas station and got our cards stamped at 10:55. Quick stop to get the stamps and off towards Ourense again, on a 20 km descent with a few flat (and fast) parts.
We literally flew there.
Getting closer to Ourense, we passed by the Encoro de Cachamuiña (the dam of Cachamuiña). The road passed just by the side of the artificial lake made by the dam, and the views were gorgeous. They had one of those parks there with access to the lake, so people can go there for walks, running, swimming or simply spend some time outside.
Half an hour later we were entering the city, again on a ring road, but this time on the east side of the city. We were riding down a long avenue, with lots of traffic lights, when I noticed a Trek bike shop to our left. We stopped for a moment to check if it was open… and it was indeed!
The guys waited outside while I went inside Codigo Bike and bought a water bottle (since Allariz I had only one with me, which wasn’t ideal for a 400 Brevet). I also told the guy there about the Brevet we were doing and my little accident with the pot hole. He offered to check pressure on my wheels and pump some air if needed (great!) and even refilled my bottles with fresh water.
Second time this year that a Trek bike shop saved the day (do you remember about Bragança?)
We resumed riding and passed by Ourense again without entering the city (luckily). On our way to the bridge to cross the Miño river (again), suddendly we had to pull the breaks, completely astonished…
A duck was crossing the road, followed by a few ducklings!!
I tried to take the camera out, everybody tried the same with their phones… but they were too fast and we weren’t able to take a picture. Too bad, it was quite the picture.
We crossed the Miño and took the road right alongside it, towards the climb out of Ourense and towards the next checkpoint, Chantada (km 290), in the province of Lugo.
Big main road, lots of motor traffic, going all the way up under a strong mid-day sun that soon started to cook us for good. If only we would have some nice views… but there wasn’t any.
We started with a 10 km climb on the bigger Ourense-Santiago road. At the village of Cambeo we took the road to Chantada, still a big main road but with a lot less traffic at least. This was the moment when the wind started to push us back seriously.
We were tired and our mood wasn’t that good anymore, but we pushed through. Time to stay inline and take turns pulling. The road was a series of ups and downs, with the ups being longer than the downs, which meant less recovery time.
We were going up another long repecho, everybody silent, when I saw the sign with the name of the next village, Toldavia, and I couldn’t help myself.
“They should have added a big ‘NO’ at the end!”
It took a second, but then everybody was laughing out loud.
Note
Explanation for non-spanish speakers:
The name of the village was Toldavia
Todavia in spanish means Yet
If we add a No at the end… “Toldavia No”, literally translated… “Not Yet”
Now place all this after a lots of little climbs, one after another… ;-)
It took a few more repechos, but soon we crossed from the province of Ourense into the province of Lugo. Our next stop was getting closer and closer, and we were already dreaming of having lunch, but we still had a few more repechos to climb, a few more villages to cross (like A Barrela, A Estivada, Pradeda or Soilán).
It was a relief when we finally reached the 5 km descent that would get us to Chantada. On that descent we catched our friend Manolo again and we arrived in Chantada with him at 13:42.
We rode around some streets for a while, trying to find a good place to eat something, and we finally followed the recommendations of some locals and found a nice little restaurant with enough space to park our bikes outside.
The bar was pretty full, almost all tables already taken, but there was some space at the counter, so we decided to order anyway. I order a bocadillo de calamares (fried squid sandwich) and a beer. I wanted to order some tortilla too, but the waiter said that, sadly, there was no more of it left.
While they prepared lunch, people from a few tables finished and left, and we finally sat for a while. Alex, Óscar and me sat at one table, and the rest of the group sat at another one.
When we finished our food, a few of us still had some free space, so we got some croissants and pastries as a quick dessert. Some others had coffee. We spent a total of 1 hour and 15 minutes during this stop.
Manolo was ready before the rest of us, so he paid for his own food and left, while we were paying ours with the money from the common pot.
Then we went outside and got ready to leave.
We knew the hardest part of the Brevet was history at this point. From then on there should be no more big climbs left to do, but still we would find lots of little climbs. First one right at the exit of Chantada.
The next checkpoint was 102 km away, in the town of Betanzos, and on our way there we had to pass by Taboada, Monterroso and Palas de Rei (still in the province of Lugo) Melide and Curtis (already back in the province of A Coruña) among some other smaller villages.
From Chantada to Taboada we rode in parallel to the Miño river, but we didn’t really have a view of it. A bit before arriving in Taboada, we hit the mark of 300 km.
We crossed Taboada without stopping and took the road towards Monterroso. On our way there, while riding on a long straight road, we saw an ambulance on the road, some traffic police and lots of people. There had been a car crash, some car hit a motorcycle hard.
Then we passed Monterroso and Palas de Rei, also without stopping, and we pushed through to Melide (km 340) where we decided to do one last coffee stop.
We were almost there, almost done. The last stretch, usually the one that feels longer, harder, more difficult. Everybody was tired, so we focused a bit more on pushing the pedals and less on talking, with Dani and Edgar doing most of the work, pulling us all the way.
I started to feel a bit strange, like when sleep is coming over you fast. Not dizzy and not really sleepy, but weird. This brought up memories of a similar sensation in the 400 last year, so I decided to apply the same solution that worked fine one year ago. I pushed myself a bit.
I put myself in front of the group and pulled strongly. We were on a road that was going up and down like a rollercoaster, so I pushed hard on the parts where it was going a bit up, and a little easier when it started to go down. I kept an eye on the guys behind, trying to adapt my rythm, not too hard, not too easy.
And it worked. After a while I was fully awake and I let somebody else take over the lead pulling.
Then Alex was by my side, looked at me and asked “what was that? what happened? you started to pull like a maniac!”. I smiled wickedly and explained why.
I really enjoyed this part of the Brevet, between Melide and Betanzos. The roads were in perfect condition, we were rolling fast (we had head wind, but not as bad as the forecast said) and we had some nice views all the way to Betanzos.
At one point dark clouds started to cover the sky, threatening us with some rain. But we were lucky and it didn’t really rain (but we had a few light showers).
After Curtis there was a long descent to Betanzos. 20 km going downhill, with a short stop in the middle to get some water from another fountain (called Fuente del Caballo because there is a big statue of a horse head by the fountain).
We arrived in Betanzos (km 392) at 19:30 and we got our cards stamped in a gas station. We didn’t want to spend too much time there. Everybody was looking forward to finish the Brevet. We still had around 15 km to the finish line, with 3 interesting little climbs on our way.
The thing with those climbs is that they are in the main road to get to coruña from this side. This could mean lots of traffic, specially at certain rush hours, like the time we were going to pass by there today.
The guy at the gas station told us 3 other randonneurs stopped there too to get their cards stamped. Two of them a lot earlier than us, but the other one had passed by not long ago. We recognized our friend Manolo by the description the guy gave us.
We said goodbye to the nice guy at the gas station and off we went, to tackle the last 15 km.
One climb out of Betanzos, then another one at Guisamo and then some descent in the middle of the fast traffic until we took the road right towards Santa Cruz. That little road is a life saver, we were riding in the middle of all that traffic and suddendly, pop, you appear in a smaller, quieter road.
In no time we were on the road from Santa Cruz to Bastiagueiro. Everybody smiling and getting back to making jokes. I was telling Alex about our little tradition of sprinting all the way up the parking lot ramp to the finish line in INEFG, when I noticed someone on a bike in the last roundabout before INEFG.
It was someone on a road bike, but it was a very small person. When we were getting closer, I noticed it was a kid. And when we were really close, he dashed out of the sidewalk, into the roundabout and towards INEFG.
I realized it was the son of one of the Mesoiros, Jose. I was on the lead then, so I pushed the pedals and got side-by-side with him on the ramp. He looked at me, eyes wide open, standing on the pedals and pushing hard.
“HEY!” - I shouted - “Don’t you dare! You can’t win! I’m gonna win!” and I did stand on the pedals, making it as if I was doing a hard effort. He pushed and I kept myself side by side with him, shouting “Oh!, No!, you are too strong! But I’m going to win!”.
I heard the others laughing behind and we kept like that all the way up the ramp. When we were almost at the top, I let him pass, cursing and shouting about my bad luck finding someone so strong at the finish line.
It was a damned fun ending for a Brevet ;-D
20:21. Brevet card delivered, pictures taken, we did stay for a moment there, chatting about the day, the Brevet, everything. It was the first 400 for both Óscar and Alex, and I had the sensation both of them had a good time.
Personally, I had a great time. I started the Brevet worried about my knees, about the change in saddle height/position, about doing a second 400 2 weeks after doing the first one… lots of doubts, but all of them were completely cleared/wiped out during the first part of the Brevet.
It felt so good to see my knees were just fine again, big win there.
After socializing a bit more, some left home, while me and some others went to the parking lot to pack our things up in our cars.
It took some time to pack things up, mostly because we keep chatting and sharing our points of view of the day, then talking about what will be next in our agendas… the 600 Brevet(s).
As usual, here is some data taken from my activity in Strava:
