Breakdown

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If you thought the American diner was a poor eating choice you will be appalled by where we ate last night.  Villalpando is a small place with very few dining options, the best of which was our own hotel.  However, the restaurant wouldn't open until 8:30 and nobody spoke a word of English and we decided it would just be too much work.  So, we went to the motorway service station.  In our defence this is a superior experience to Watford Gap (an infamous UK equivalent for my readers from the colonies) and we had a very nice chicken and chips washed down with a glass of tinto.  Those of you who like to pass an evening in a foreign town strolling in a pair of chionos with a jumper draped casually across your shoulders before mingling with the locals in a charming little place the hotel recommended will not understand us.  But then you have no idea what it is like to have a big calorie deficit that needs repaying lickety spit.

Today we set out on our big 75 miler.  We were still at altitude and it was chuffing cold....about 3 degrees c...but it soon warmed up, the terrain was very manageable and it started to look like we might have a reasonably early finish.  You can probably see where this is heading.

First Neil announced that his gears weren't working and we suspected a broken cable.  We stopped, offloaded his panniers and started looking at how to remove the cable.  On a whim I tried changing gears and...it worked.  We still don't know what the problem was but possibly a bit of grit or stone in the mechanism.  

We reloaded the panniers, got back on the bikes and thing proceeded smoothly until 15 miles from the finish when Neil announced an urgent call of nature so he stopped for an 'al fresco' as we like to call it.  200 yards later and he declared a puncture.  On closer inspection we discovered that both tyres were covered in little thorns from some sort of spikey weed that infests the verges.  Offload panniers, mend punctures, reload panniers.  While doing all this we spotted that he also has a broken spoke.

2 miles further and Neil (who is starting to really piss me off) says his brakes aren't working.  We tinker and improve things and off we go again.

3 miles from the end and my least favourite cycling companion announces another puncture.  A residual thorn from the last lot was located and removed, the underlying problem with the brakes was resolved and he very graciously managed the last 3 miles without making me any madder. 

We are now seriously behind the curve on beer drinking and still have a spoke to mend.

We are in Salamanca, a spectacular town with lots of very old stuff.  Lunch was taken in Torro where the pictures were taken.  

Comments

  1. Salt Spring1 November 2026 at 18:45

    Brain played Tom Petty entire time I chuckled my way through this piece, knowing how outwardly graciously you probably handled the mechanical inconveniences while inwardly stewing until the first beer....

    ReplyDelete

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