Grind It Out Day!

Day 17  Sahagun to Leon

Miles today:  35.4 (biking)

Elevation gain: 849’

Descent:  866’

Total Bike Miles:  114.5

Total Walking Miles:  187.7

Total Miles:  302.2

Moving speed: 8 mph

Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.

               Maya Angelo

Yesterday was a challenge...today was a hard push and a challenge. We started the last day of biking knowing that we had about 36 miles of mountain bike riding ahead of us.

Chum, the ultimate technology geek checked at least 3 different online weather forecasts and announced at breakfast that he was confident that we would had relatively good weather with cloudy skies, no rain, and a breeze late in the day. Wrong!!

A few minutes later we finished our most skimpy breakfast of the trip at our worst accommodation of the trip to discover it was already raining. We delayed a few minutes and the rain let up so off we went in full rain gear. And we had a plan—ride for 8-10 mile intervals, then stop for either a coffee break or one of two planned lunches. The dual lunch idea was to help prevent hunger anger later in the day.

The start was good, the seldom used road was old pavement, and the wind was at our backs.  Then the rains began, light at first and then heavier. Our first coffee stop was at 11 miles in the small town of El Burgo Ranero.

At 23 miles we stopped at Mansilla for 2nd coffee and first lunch which we purchased. It had rained on and off and the tailwind shifted and hit us from the right side. Our only two minutes of sunshine resulted in the rainbow shown above.

At 32 miles we did a roadside stop in a spot sheltered from the wind and ate our packed lunches.By then the rains had ceased. Once we arrived in Leon (pop[ 130,000), the sun was out and the wind had died down. We are staying near the downtown in a very nice hotel, the Hotel Silken Luis de Leon. It appeared that our arrival on bikes looking like rain suited vagabonds was very much out of the normal! We stored our bikes two levels below ground in the parking garage in a locked storage room. The bike man will stop by in the morning to retrieve them.

Tomorrow is a Rest Day, which we all need. Then I am looking forward to returning to walking. When you walk you have time for photos, you see so much more, and your chances of dying are lower than while riding a bike on the highway shoulder. The Camino is in general an often a bumpy path and narrow in many sections. A biker is best served staying on the paved shoulder of the road for a smoother, easier ride and you avoid the hassle of passing hundreds of walking pilgrims who wonder from side to side while swinging trekking poles, wearing headphones, or talking on their cell phones (yes, there is a surprising amount of that—certainly a small minority, but annoying none the less).

Few photos taken again today so I will post some from the past couple of weeks.