February 25, 2022
True grit
Day 7 - Triacastela to Pedrafita do Cebreiro
We knew today would be hard - one of two of the hardest, steepest sections of our entire route in Spain. However, what I hadn't realised was that a good part of this extreme climbing would be on gravel, dirt, and otherwise unsealed, gritty roads... Surprise!
It started off really hard, and got harder. It did make the brief tarmac sections feel easy peasy.
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| Heart | 8 | Comment | 3 | Link |
2 years ago
While hard, we didn't give up. We had to push several sections, but after hours of effort, we were almost through it. The feeling of accomplishment was swelling, I could almost taste victory...
Then, probably 1km from the start of our reward - the downhill - the unthinkable happened. My crank fell off, AGAIN! After getting it fixed professionally, I was sure it would last, but no. A really rather massive cocking blood-boiling pain in the balls, if you'll excuse my exasperation.
I now suspect that it wasn't installed correctly to begin with, and my riding it in that state has permanently pooched it, and I'll need a new one. We're getting another taxi ahead to Ponferrada where there are several bike shops. Fingers crossed.
Sometimes, true grit isn't enough.
Postscript: seems like I was prolly right. We took it to a well-reviewed bike shop and despite it looking a bit more carbon fibre and lycra than we might have wanted, they agreed my diagnosis might be correct, and were able to replace my crankset with a shiny new Deore version, with an even shinier new XT small ring. The minor tragedy (aside from the not insignificant number of euros spent on taxis and repairs) is that my lowest gear is now 24-36, not 22-36.
Today's ride: 18 km (11 miles)
Total: 153 km (95 miles)
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2 years ago