Tuesday 26 December 2006

Esquel, Argentina to Futalefu, Chile

Beatuful sunny day when we woke up this morning, pretty quiet in town since it was Christmas day. Took a picture or two of town looking back toward where I think the ski area is, then headed west. Right out of town there was a bike path/walking path on the side, so we went on that right away. Took a minute to figure the signs on the side out, but all made sense once I rode back a hundred meters or so. The path starts with a big concrete sun on the ground, and has signs representing the planets along the way. Rather thought provoking really - we've been buzzing around for a week or so now on our own power, but haven't really made it that far. And considering that mankind has only made it to the moon once, we haven't gone too far. Tori stood at earth and I took a picture from the sun, probably 30m on that scale, of course I forgot the number by now. We reached pluto 8.8km later which is what the sign displayed, although my speedometer wasn't at 8.8km yet. I think they just put it at the end of their bike path.

We rode along nice highway to Trevelin, admiring the ranchlands butting up against the dramatic mountains. We made the 25km ther in just over an hour, my legs felt pretty improved but I sort of knew it was just a matter of enough riding before they got sore again. I figured out exactly what the problem is, I've sprained my achilles - they're stretching or micro tearing or whatever happens when you sprain an ankle, but instead of one big impact doing it it's a slow process. Stopped in Trevelin's central park for a snack, then headed out to face the gravel. The next 40km were slow - gravel, headwind, and rolling hills. With less weight I'd be more inclined to let my tires down a bit so I could ride in more comfort, and faster. Doesn't help that with my sore legs I'm not inclined to stand or unweight from my saddle on short notice as it hurts my legs, so I'm not riding as fast over the gravel as I could with a little more finesse, not to mention just being able to put more power down.

I've run through the calculation in my head a few times over, and I think I could trim my carried weight in half, from 40-45lbs to 15-20lbs, and not be too poorly off in terms of gear. Turns out cabins and hotels are plentiful, so tent, mat and bag not needed. That's probably 15lbs right there. After that it's little things - swim trunks not needed, a casual pair of shorts not needed as I've got pants that zip off plus a pair of cargo shorts I wear over spandex, could leave my knickers and just have knee warmers, I've got 5 spare tubes, could bring just two and use patches (I've got two kits), seems I've got several arrays of tools, could whittle those down by half. This is really my first cycle touring trip, and it's much easier to know what to pack now. Besides changing packing, I'd probably try to adjust my gearing a bit easier in addition to lighter weight. Overall, 10% lighter weight and a 3-5% lower gear (get a 29 or even a 30) would be the trick. With those mods, and presumeably then not injuring my legs, we'd be doing 25kph steadily on average instead of hanging in just under 20kph. Those are the trips I think I aspire to try next - ride solid tempo and cover some good ground all day, thereby satisfying the racer mindset, yet carrying just enough to be self sufficient (by that I mean being able to ride without sag all day, and have clean clothes at night). If I can figure out that recipe, there's a few Deadgoats who I'd like to lure out for some travel. In Alberta, it seems "randonneur" has a slower connotation, but in France I know there was a subset of randonneurs who were know as hardcore fast guys who could stretch the days out really long. Somewhere on the greyscale of definition, rolleur enters the picture as well. I'd like to hone in a bit more to the sport side of cycle touring I think.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter so much in terms of speed as it does for just getting from place and covering some sights during vacation. I also didn't bring too much of my Norte Americano race potion mixture stuff, but just because we're going slow doesn't mean the body isn't working. I wish I would have brought at least some recovery potion like Endurox. Repeated days of 4-7 hours necessitate some recovery planning. We have access to enough food, but it just doesn't go as directly to the muscles as the refined stuff, we're eating fairly heavy stuff... sausages, cheeses and breads that keep without refridgeration, with some fruits along the way.

As we battled the gravel and strong headwinds, I felt my right achilles stretch and burn in an unhealthy way on a particular hill. Lovely. Tori had wanted to make it a ways past Futaleufu, to shorten the next day's journey, which I thought was reasonable this morning. After this latest development I knew I was stopping at Futaleufu today. We continued along the narrow valley toward the border point at a slow, slow pace, with me just softpedalling. Before the border I felt my left achilles give in to another stretch as well. Last time I checked the solution to sprains wasn't to use that particular ligament for hours on end under load the next day... but no choice. My muscles and such weren't even sore the first day it happened, I've been doing some leg weights and mormal offseason riding. It's just that those little ligaments can stand up to say an hour of slow high force grinding, but 7 hours for two days in a row was too much. Couldn't spin enough on the hills!

We check out of Argentina at what I would call a fairly low volume border station. Gravel road, one little building, manual gate across the road. This time it was only 100m to the Chilean entry point, but we had lunch between in no mans land. There was a sign posted that we had fun translating, it was basically the same as the english one you see that says something along the lines of "we didn't inherit the earth from our fathers, we're borrowing it from our children". I was proud that I actually figured out what it was talking about.

The Chilean side was pavimentado, which felt good. After sitting down for lunch and cooling off, my legs lost their mobility a bit, so it took a while to enjoy riding again. I drafted off Tori and softpedalled. All I can say is that after a week of rest, I'm gonna head outside and tear the cranks off one of my bikes. I can feel my heart, lungs and quads having so much extra power.

We coast into Futaleufu and find a cabin. It's big again, has an on demand hot water heater run off propane that's only mildly less sophisticated than my Takagi, and a woodburning stove. Tori heads to town to see if anything is open, and returns with a box of 20 tea bags for 30 cents. I'm glad we have tea to drink at night.

I wash my clothes in the sink and arrange them around the stove, then get it fired up. I'm impressed with the drain on the sink. It's a 2" diameter exit with a pipe going straight down through the floor. It's a big kitchen sink, just like ones at home, and draining it from full takes about 5 seconds. It makes a powerful sucking sound like it's got a turbo. The stove doesn't seem to generate as much heat as I expect, but once it's on it keeps going without suffocating. I'm trying to find out what the two levers do and how to position them right by trial and error, the way they're build into the stove, it's impossible to see, and hard to hear, what vents they're opening and closing.

We polish off the rest of our storebought food, saving enough for breakfast tomorrow. I'm enjoying the time off my feet, and we're considering taking a bus to Chaiten in the morning.

It's fun looking at all the roads, secondary road, tracks, and paths marked on our maps. It's easier to read them now that we've seen some of the area. A Toyota Hilux or Land Rover with a mountain bike and a dirtbike in the back could keep me occupied for quite a while basically from Temuco south I think.

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