May 20, 2025
Logroño to Haro
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In keeping with the adjustment in Spanish hours even Dave has started sleeping in a bit, aided by the great blackout curtains in our room. This hotel (Mercure Carlton Rioja) is recommended: very nice, slightly upgraded room (robes, a Nespresso machine and a little more room) with breakfast for 133 euros, right downtown but still feels quiet. We have found Spain a very good value for nice hotels and dining.
The breakfast buffet was open until 11 am which was great for working on the journal. I am mentally the freshest in the morning after breakfast, but often we are anxious to get on the road. Today the forecast is cloudy but no rain so we feel relaxed. We are on our way to Haro - another wine town.
I spent two previous bicycle trips in the Rioja region (with a different spouse) so I feel like I know the region, but it was 20 years ago. The development of the internet in the intervening time has certainly made it easier to plan. On those tours we did a mix of making it up as we arrived in town or sometimes trying to book ahead which meant sending a fax using the form Rick Steves provided in one of his guidebooks and hoping to get a response. And there was no “gee I need a tub” business. We were always focused on getting the essentials, a room for the night for two people. At that time, the Rioja wasn’t really known as a tourist destination. I think I had access to a two page discussion (probably in a Lonely Planet guidebook but I am not sure). That also meant dining was pretty adhoc. You had less chance of getting a great experience, but you really remembered it when you did. Now internet research largely rules out the duds and we have more consistently great meals, but some of the wonder has diminished. That is the blessing and the curse of the internet for travel planning; there is way less uncertainty but it has also created fewer surprises- both the good and bad kind!
Weirdly enough, we are staying in some of the same places this time that I stayed in 20 years ago. Even taking a fresh look (and having a more comfortable travel budget) some of those places still look great.
Our destination today, Los Agustinos Hotel in Haro, has a special place in my cycle touring psyche. 20 years ago on our very first independent tour - and on the first day of riding, I gotten the dates mixed up and realized only a few days before our trip that I had booked into this Hotel in Haro for the wrong date. I thought we had two days to get there and we only had one. This resulted in us riding 85 miles in one day from Bilbao (we were on road bikes with my spouse at the time carrying all the gear in a Bob trailer). After a late start from Bilbao we arrived in the small town of Orduña about 3 pm and learned there was a sucker of a climb ahead of us, over Orduña pass. We went into a bar to refill our water bottles and see if we could get a sandwich. No go on the sandwich but my husband - who had some good qualities but planning ahead was not one of them — wisely, for once, bought about 6 chocolate bars and some additional bottled water. The dudes in the bar were laughing at us - clueless Americanos. To be fair to us, it was before easy access to elevation data and we had no idea about this climb when we mapped out the trip. Honestly, we were just poorly prepared and uninformed, idiotic, clueless; whatever. It took two hours for me to do the climb and we scarfed chocolate on frequent breaks to keep our energy up. Later in life I checked the elevation and the climb is billed as a Cat. 1 climb with an average gradient of 7.8 percent and maximum gradient of 10 percent with 15 hairpin turns, although when you plug it into Komoot it shows pitches of 14 percent. My mental recollection was that we hit 20 percent gradients but maybe that’s just the nightmarish buildup in my brain. We finally reached the top at 5 pm and we still had to ride 61 km to Haro and Los Agustinos We wound up riding a number of hours in the dark - with no lights - on a rutted road with trucks wizzing by. This day stands out as one of more terrifying experiences I have ever had on a bike. We arrived in Haro a few minutes before 11 pm, hopelessly lost. A 10 year old girl on a bike roaming the streets of Haro escorted us to our hotel. Los Agustinos held the kitchen open late to serve us dinner but we had to eat in our sweaty cycling kits in a fancy dining room. In hindsight, we were fool-hardy, ill prepared, idiots, whatever, and I was never so tired in all my life, but it turned me onto the adventures of cycle touring. We christened that day the “Orduña Ordeal.”
I am assuming today’s arrival in Haro will not be as exciting. Of course, it is different now. We would never be in the same boat today because (1) we would never have the hubris to plan to ride 85 miles in a day, (2) if we got into trouble late in the day we would just bag the hotel reservation and write off the expense as “stuff happens,” (3) we have access to the internet so we could check on closer accommodations and make other plans. Yes, the internet does make things different and easier.
Later:
While today did not turn out to be quite as signature as the Orduña Ordeal, it did have its “charms.” It was a case of the good, the bad, the ugly and then the slightly bad.
In that order:
The good: the ride out at Logroño was A plus. It was a bit hairy leaving the downtown core (there were sharrows (that’s what we call them in Oregon anyway) which warn drivers that they will be sharing the traffic lane with cyclists, a lane for buses and bikes but it was somewhat congested with vans and buses pulling over, and then we had 6 km of pretty glorious riding through the vineyards on a tiny road with no traffic.
The bad: At km point 14 we came to a weird turnoff by the railroad tracks and had one of those lengthy marital discussions referred to yesterday. Our choices were: follow the Komoot route which put us into some serious mud and gravel for an allegedly short time before coming out on a busy highway (but how busy we didn’t know), OR, follow a sign that said “5.5 km to Ceniceros”on gravel that followed right along the railroad tracks. Since Ceniceros was our intermediate destination this was a safe, if somewhat unscenic route on gravel. I let my desire to avoid gravel rule and we opted for plan A. Dave likes gravel so we is always up for it.
Dave initially picked his way through the first part of the muddy Komoot route and rang his bell to indicate I should follow. It was muddy and he had to walk both our bikes through the worst of the mud until we got to rideable but icky gravel.
It was only about half a km to the highway, which brings me to…
The ugly: We discovered we were faced with a 3 km climb (the road sign said 7 percent) on an extremely busy N road with a very narrow shoulder. The traffic was going fast on some major curves. In 3 km there were half a dozen signs asking drivers to slow down. We didn’t have much choice and just got on with it. I followed Dave riding neurotically on his wheel and winced every time a car or truck or bus whizzed by; I just tried to focus on my ride and hoped nobody would run me over. It was complicated by the fact that on the right of us there was a deep gulley and on the left there was a rumble strip and best case we had 3 feet of shoulder, worst case one foot. It was a very scary 3 km to the top.
After that we had a pleasant cruise to and then through Cenicero and it looked like it could be a cool place to stay as there are lots of wineries there.
The slightly bad: After Cenicero we thought we were through the worst but the route put us on the N-232 where we stayed all the way to Briones (14 km). It was busy but the shoulder was wider so although it was unpleasant, it wasn't awful. The unpleasantness aggravated a bit by the head winds whipping up and having wncountered a few unexpected raindrops. We needed a break so we rode into Briones - which is up a monster hill —and stopped in the square to have a beer (Dave), water (Jill) and split a mystery sandwich purchased in a bar. Spain is very handy for cycle tourers in that regard; the bars are open in the afternoon and they always have a case of pretty attractive (although mysterious) sandwiches. This mitigates the need to smuggle out a ham sandwich from the breakfast buffet or worry about lunch time closing times (like in France). Kudos to Spain.
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Thus revived we rode the last 9 km into Haro and found our place of rest.
More tomorrow!
Today's ride: 42 km (26 miles)
Total: 844 km (524 miles)
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2 days ago