November 27, Day 40: Linares to Talca
Today the start and finish are on the Ruta 5, and Komoot avoids that highway so hard it's taken me east into the mountains. Which I don't have any objections to.
Like yesterday, the route was built on two things: crossing the river without swimming, and not being on the Ruta 5.
One of the Chilean engineers had specifically warned me about false river crossings in the OpenStreetMap data. He'd been riding out here and had been routed into a river. So a few weeks back we'd scrawled on a map screenshot so I'd remember the problem. Last week when setting up the route I'd checked it, found the problem, and fixed it like he suggested.
And today, I had no memory of this and charged right down the line without a care in the world. It avoided one problem, but there was a second one that I nearly ran into.
Just north of Maule Sur (-35.63779, -71.38997) I'm rolling down a very nice surface on a road which is a little more major than usual. The route takes a right, follows a canal for a hundred meters, then takes a left and follows the road again and then rejoins. Seems reasonable. But I like the asphalt so much I chose to stay with it and not follow the route. (Maybe my spidey sense was tingling?) And that was a very good call because checking the route now I see the planned route doesn't exist on satellite images, the point it looked like it rejoined the asphalt was actually a high bridge so it did not connect, and I'm pretty sure it intended me to cross the river the wet way.
I found all this later. At the time I was happily zooming along admiring the views from the bridge, taking selfies, and working on my tan. At the far end of the bridge Komoot got confused for a minute, and I now realize that's because it thought I was on the ground under the bridge and needing to go around a hill to get back to the road. Quite glad I stayed on the asphalt.
From left to right: I think this is a barrel sundial but it doesn’t look very useful so maybe I’m wrong. Linares was having a road construction festival, I hit several dead ends and accidentally visited two building sites while trying to get out of town. One of the last views of the Andes. A canal! And this is the bridge I’m glad I went on instead of under.
There was another moment when Komoot told me to go down a gravel road into the forest and I stayed with the asphalt, it looked like it wasn't that much longer. Coincidentally I finished the day about half an hour quicker than predicted, and that includes the time to eat two big empanadas. It's probably because that gravel road was long and slow, and once again the asphalt option was the right call.
So either Komoot or the OpenStreetMap data had quite a bad day. And so far I’ve been lucky enough to avoid running afoul of these problems but I’m a bit worried that my luck is going to run out.
From left to right: random street art in Talca. And a “completo”, a modern Chilean street food tradition - it’s not unlike a hotdog.
Today's ride also was more than half on bike paths. They weren't great; they aren't that well maintained, they sometimes disappear for a hundred meters, or change to the other side of the road for no obvious reason. But they're a lot better than riding down the white line, skirting sand and gravel, while avoiding traffic. These roads are small and rural but often quite busy.
In short: no delays, no drama, arrived early. I like it.
In a week I fly back to Amsterdam; there’s not much of the trip left. There’s three last days of riding to get to Santiago: I do hope they’re all as drama-free as today was.
