This two-wheeled couple completes the route that El Campeador made between Vivar and Valencia
Julia and Gonzalo were still convalescing at home due to covid. A bike trip? 800 kilometers in fourteen days? What do we go out in a few days? “Of course I do.” They remember to say it almost at the same time. Neither the fever, which still gave them trouble with a few tenths, nor the infinite fatigue that hardly allowed them to leave the sofa made them hesitate for a second. Julia Fernández and Gonzalo De las Heras, journalist and infographist for ELCORREO, respectively, are fans of two wheels. Gonzalo says that he won’t buy another bike to do this route because he can’t fit any more in the living room, so he’ll manage with his ‘gravel’ and Julia will take the mountain one.
She says that everything was going well until they began to prepare the luggage. Removable pants, two shirts, a pair of socks, flip-flops and two changes of clothing, as well as clothes for riding a bike and a tiny toiletry bag. The bike panniers don’t leave room for more, so Gonzalo convinces him to leave her shoes at home. “What if my feet are cold, what?” “Well, flip-flops with socks.” She reluctantly agrees, promising to never smile when she sees foreigners dressed like this around town.
This couple will complete 800 kilometers of the Camino del Cid Campeador, from Vivar (Burgos), after their exile to Valencia, the city of which they became king. They decide to start as soon as the doctor releases them because it is still June and they want to avoid the heat of the months of July and August. But as soon as they start pedaling they will realize that this forecast (like others) collapses because the first big heat wave catches them en route, which they do not avoid even with the early morning. Not even for those do they get off.
60 kilometers a day
From this Sunday until next July 31, EL CORREO will publish the story of Julia and Gonzalo every day, stage by stage: fourteen sections on two wheels, which makes an average of almost 60 kilometers by bike per day. Falls without transcendence – “I stop in front of a rut like someone who has seen the devil,” says Julia-; sections with slopes of 20% that make them sweat the fat drop; anecdotes of all colors, like when Gonzalo loses a flip flop; unforgettable encounters along the way, like that group of Cantabrian ‘jubilees’ who also go on wheels although at a slower pace or that taxi driver who knows the palace intrigues of the 11th century better than those of ‘Games of Thrones’; tourism en route, passing through towns of that so-called emptied Spain, such as Matillas, which today only has a hundred residents; and whims, of course: «We visited the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña and bought almond paste at the monastic store, instead of the carbohydrate bars that we always carry. And later on we stocked up with the Mariángeles chorizo”, says Gonzalo.
The route that Julia and Gonzalo have completed, in addition to being a beautiful adventure, can serve as a guide for all those bicycle lovers who are looking for an ambitious plan to do around Spain. How about following the footsteps of Cid Campeador on two wheels?
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