Ponferrada sin mi coche 10K (
Ponferrada without my car 10K).
A useful facet of this training/race diary is that I’ve now got instant reference to
races I’ve done before.
And this 10K was as hopelessly advertised as ever. As last year, everybody turned up in their cars except a self righteous BB who rode in on his trusty pink racing bike and my old friend Fernando Loco who rode in on a unicycle with a whopping great TV camera on his shoulder. Now Fernando Loco is one of those larger than life Bierzo characters who deserves a more than quick mention. I first met him when he played in goal for our now defunct 5-a-side team. They say goalkeepers are different and this one certainly was. Fernando would sometimes ride into the changing rooms on the pre-mentioned unicycle with a ghetto blaster on his shoulder. Before the game started he’d sometimes play the theme tune to the A-Team at full blast in an attempt to intimidate the opposition. Beethoven’s fifth symphony invariably came on when we lost.
Fernando with his camera invented Jackass before the Americans did. Fernando also invented the game of unicycle-basketball. And last week when the Vuelta de España cycle race passed through Ponferrada he scaled a vicious category 2 climb in the wake of the peloton and to the applause of cycling fans everywhere...on this very unicycle. There’s more, too many tales of wonderful eccentricity to mention here, but one that springs to mind occurred in a previous Vuelta a few years ago when the pro-cyclists had to climb the terrifying “
Redondal” to end a particular stage. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is one of the hardest end of stage climbs possible... anywhere. Legend has it that a tubby Jan Ullrich (amongst others) got off his bike and walked a bit. I’ve tried to climb it a couple of times on my pink racer but the steepest section near the end always grinds me to a standstill.
Anyway, the Redondal is about 20K from Ponferrada and here Fernando decided to try out his new invention, a home made-tandem built from two old mountain bikes welded together in his mate’s workshop. Fernando Loco is blessed with the strongest pair of legs imaginable and the trial run would be up Redondal on Vuelta day and without anybody else on the back of the tandem to slow him down!!
The waiting crowds applauded wildly as the crazy, bald guy with the big legs sped past. He dismounted when the pro-cyclists approached amidst all the usual pro-cycling paraphernalia but then got on the mountain-tandem again to home in on the tail end of the peloton. I witnessed the following sequence with my own eyes (and not dare I say, with somebody else’s which would have been silly.. and messy). The sprinters and stragglers at the back of the pack were struggling with the horrendous gradient. Some of them wobbled or zig-zagged across the road. Others accepted pushes from spectators. Fernando made spectacular ground on the suffering pros as we all watched in disbelief. People began to cheer as our man revelled in a brief moment of glory. Fernando was chasing down the pack and then....the Guardia Civil hauled him unceremoniously off his madcap contraption just as he started overtaking people! Fernando Loco, a great bloke and a local legend.
Not much to say about the 10K. This was the first road race I’d done for ages and I got round. Fernando was filming at the end, I don’t know for who.
