Today’s ride didn’t turn out as planned. It’s hard to imagine though that the planned ride would have been better than what we actually rode today. We’re coming to the conclusion that you can more or less pick any white or yellow road on the map, and also most any town as a destination and you will have a wonderful time.
We got off to a pretty early start even given the 8:30 breakfast at the hotel (very nice place but more aligned to the car touring folk). We were motivate to get out early as once again the weather forecast showed great weather until the early afternoon and then deteriorating to rain showers, just like every other day.
The planned ride was a short downhill into Broto, the pretty town we were looking down on two days ago when we rode into Torla, with a short excursion to see the Broto waterfall, and then our only climb of day. Just after Broto we would turn off the N-260a and start climbing on the HU-631 to Peurto de Fanlo, a 10 km 580 m climb with an average grade of 4 - 5%. This would be our only climb of the day and we’d then have a 30 km(ish) downhill run to Ainsa.
Everything was working to plan; the waterfall was beautiful, the climb was steady but mostly in the trees with a consistent moderate grade, perfect. We topped out at 1370 m and took the requisite col shots, had a bite to eat, and then started down into the amazing looking canyon that would spit us out about 20 km’s later at Escalona where we’d have a further 10 km run downhill into Ainsa.
As per recent form, and the forecast, we could see clouds gathering behind us and rain showers happening, but the view to the south, the direction we were heading was still mostly blue and beautiful. All was good in the world.
As we were descending into the narrowing canyon, K and I were discussing the RWGPS elevation profile. Once again there was a very sharp drop followed by a very sharp rise, adding about 200 m of elevation gain. We had more or less convinced ourselves that this in reality would turn out to be a bridge crossing the canyon and then the road would enter a tunnel, and we would find out in just a few km’s if our deductions were correct.
We never got a chance to test our hypothesis.
A minute or so after we convinced ourselves that this would be the case we came up to a viewpoint turn out and an intersection with an even smaller unnumbered road. There were a couple of park ‘rangers’ (don’t know what they are called in Spain) here also …. And a barricade across the road that we were on and planning to continue on.
It was pretty clear that the road was closed and that all traffic, and there actually was some today, mostly motor bikes, was being diverted onto the small unnumbered road. This road went sharply uphill away from the lovely canyon we were going to ride down, and continued climbing for another 250 m before descending down another valley to Escalona, adding another 6 km’s of distance on top of the 250 m of climbing.
The canyon that we were no longer going to be riding down looked sensational, and neither one of us were thrilled with an additional 250 m of climbing, but there was no alternative.
So, we started climbing, again. It was a pretty easy climb and when we topped out at 1265 m there was a lovely bar/restaurant where we grabbed a nice salad and cold drink for lunch. Then we headed down south through an amazing valley.
Who knows if the canyon would have been better …. Maybe we’ll come back again to ride it and see, but what we rode was fantastic and the detour resulted in another road-meet up with Rebecca and Ovid from Colorado …. And we managed to outrun the rain too!
We pulled into Ainsa in mid afternoon and found our hotel, Apartahotel dos Rios at the bottom of Ainsa along the river … and it’s a great place that caters to the very large number of mountain bikers in this area.
We got cleaned up and set of to check out this incredibly beautiful old walled city, and had the place pretty much to ourselves until 8 pm, when the place started to fill up with the dinner crowd, and it still wasn’t crowded.
For the first time in ages we ate outside, a simple salad and paella at one of the restaurants in the main square, and just soaked in on how great a day it was.
Tomorrow is going to be the biggest climb day of the tour, so it was a light dinner, and a small bottle of wine, and an early night. And it still not raining yet!
SOTD - In and Out, Beth Ditto.
It’s a great song, and when we were running around very well the appointed apartment/hotel room, this song was playing and we both started singing along together. Good enough for SOTD!
…. And the waterfall …. Very nice. It looks like they have a via ferrata here as we saw a number of folks heading this way with climbing harnesses, and not much else
K was getting a bit dismayed when she saw this. It had been a very gradual climb so far, almost non existent. This was going to be a back loaded climb.
Yep, stiffened up for the last section, still pretty reasonable climbing though. All of it was on shaded tree lined road. Not much for views but cool. There were quite a number of switchbacks from this point to the col summit
Kirsten KaarsooTo Jacquie GaudetYes. They have them on most of the roads we have been riding on. I will stop and take a photo next one I see. But they are often quite big! Reply to this comment 10 months ago
Until we hit this. The road is barricaded just as we’re about to enter the narrow canyon section. No chance of getting around this as there are three park rangers here ensuring everyone takes the detour … the road on the right that’s heading uphill!
We were getting amazing views of the surrounding mountains though. This one which I believe is Sestral Baxo (2074 m) reminded us of Castle Mountain in Banff
And this classic thrust fault peak which I believe is Mondoto Sur (1944 m) looks like Mount Rundle, the mountain that separates Canmore and Banff townsites
while we were taking these photos we met up with Rebecca and Ovid, a couple from Colorado who were driving from Bilbao to Barcelona and hiking along the way. Their plan for the day was changed due to the road closure as well.
Lyle McLeodTo Lisa BaptieThe Pyrenees are awesome. Hiking, climbing, mountain biking (lots!), rafting, kayaking… it’s all here and very accessible. Campgrounds everywhere and it’s not crowded at all (at least in early June). I’m sure the French side is the same. Reply to this comment 10 months ago
