The longest day

Saturday 11/09/2010 - Pamplona to Soria - 105 Miles

The accommodation last night was a hostel, so instead of sharing a room with one other person, we were 6 to a room, with 3 bunk beds, this is all well and good, but Guy, Tim S, David and I came back from eating out well after Jamie and Mike had gone to bed, for some reason we transposed into a bunch of kids, sssh'ing as we got back to the hostel, giggling when the floorboards creaked as we got into the room, and things descended into farce when one of us broke wind - fortunately we did not wake Mike or Jamie up - mainly because we were stuffing our faces into pillows to keep the noise down - boys will be boys I guess.

As it was a long day, we started early, getting up at 6:30, a number of us have picked up colds, my throat was very dry during the night, we were a bit groggy over breakfast. We departed at around 8am, it was a bit chilly, not helping those with colds, Tim S, Jamie, Tim F, Andrew G and I were the last to set out out, but soon front group even though we passed no one, as the others took the wrong route out, were joined by Joe, Neil, Andy H, Rob and Mike who had the pleasure of being with the front group for the first time. We worked our way out of town, but the pace was easy as we knew it was going to be a tough later. There was no planned 1st stop, as the van had to go shopping for lunch but after about 22 miles we came upon this wild west bar, which was too good an opportunity to miss.

While we were there the van turned up and informed us Steven had got detached from the other group and was now lost, as he had no GPS and had left his map in the van, he'd called David to get instructions and was following the road signs to get the the bar, but managed to get on the main highway where bikes are not allowed ending up having a conversation with some policemen, who had fortunately seen the van and Steve's team shirt and worked out it was an innocent mistake. They ended up escorting Steven off the highway, following him with lights flashing !!

Andy H crawling up the hill

Unaware of most of this we left after the others arrived, set off in a group, we were on open roads, generally long with steady climbs, the group eventually split during the first hard climb, with me, Tim S and Guy letting the others go, Andy H had been dropped a little earlier, Joe caught up to let us know Andy was not doing very well, so we waited for him and looked after him up the climb and on to the lunch stop.

Lunch was at the town of Cintruenigo, where they had just had a bull run, everyone was in white with red scarves and in the mood for a feista. As we were setting up for lunch, we saw some school children doing their own mini version of the bull run.



After lunch, I left in a group with Tim F, Tim S, Guy, Andy H, Rob, Joe, Neil, joining up with Andy B and Andy H who had left earlier but stopped for a coffee. Tim S, Guy and I got dropped during a climb and from then on we took our own time, climbing hill after hill on open roads, grinding it out, mile after mile, each time we though we were at a crest, the road turned and there was another hill

Finding some shade

It's hot today

Tim and Guy were great company but grinding out the miles was not much fun, although we did celebrate reaching the peak when we came across the sign saying we were at 1144 meters - over a kilometre up.

At the top of the last peak, we met Neil and Rob who were waiting to join us for the final 10 miles, which Andy B had said would be a free downhill ride all the way - as if !!! Even though we were descending, there were loads more hills and turns with more hills waiting for us.

More climbing !!!

All in all it was a long, hard and pretty boring day, 105 miles, with over 2,100 meters of climbing. On the positive side, we are well over half way to Gibraltar and everyone is still in great spirits.