October 3: Day 6, San Gregorio to Rio Gallegos
Today's weather had a lesson, and it was: cycling in severe winds is a bad idea.
I got on the road before 9, the wind wasn't that strong and it was basically a tailwind so it's hard to say. Almost no traffic. Spectacular sky, barren scenery. I could do this all day.
Until the road went from north-east to north-west-north, and the wind picked up. This was a bit of a known quantity: the route is mostly north and a bit east, so I was expecting the westerly to be mostly useful and only occasionally a problem. This was expected.
It's not a headwind but an increasingly severe sidewind. The problem is that gusts push the front wheel right; if it does that twice in a row and you haven't recovered in between you're into the gravel and have to put all the brakes on because with this sidewind the bike wants to go diagonally right which means into the loose gravel and then down the bank.
And then when the bike stops, the wind tries to blow it over. So there's a lot of ways for things to go annoyingly or painfully wrong.
First stop for the day was the border crossing, which looks barren. No dramas - you're given a paper recipt when entering Chile and need to take good care of it, because you hand it back when leaving. No problem, I had it. Then there's a kilometer to the Argentinian side of the border, and the road changed from smooth concrete slabs to asphalt with potholes.
The Argentinian side was a bit more chaotic: I go to the first window, get a paper slip, go to customs. The attendant says "you don't need customs because you're on a bicycle!" hands everything back and I head out. I'm just saddling up when another gent in full uniform comes by and asks where I'm going, and then for the paper slip. I guess the customs person should have taken it off me. No problem - back on the road.
And the potholes are serious. There's a few trucks on the road and they have to slow right down and carefully go around some of the big ones.
From left to right: possibly the last proper view of the Atlantic. The border post - this is the Chilean side, it’s barren and cold. Lunchtime, I’m trying to hide from the wind and it’s not really working - there was (seriously) a patter of small things getting blown into my helmet.
The wind is picking up; but hopefully I'll be on the north-east stretch soon. It seems so simple on the map!
But it's not working so well on the ground. The wind is so strong that I'm leaning into it, and keeping a straight line is tricky. Best way to go is in swoops, that keeps things under control.
Except that means making turns, which is fine on asphalt but risky on gravel. Whereupon a gravel section comes along, and I'm trying to swoop carefully and stay on the good surfaces, and, well, I dropped the bike. Maybe I'm getting better with practice? I picked up a scrape on my leg but otherwise everything seems OK. I think my arm scraped the gravel but whatever happened, the fleece protected me and there's no scratches or damage on it so it must have been light.
All this swooping is a fine technique for riding in the sidewind but getting started is another matter. Pushing off diagonally into the wind doesn't work, you will get you turned around and back into the gravel. So the only reliable way to start is directly into the wind, settle the bike, then turn to the right direction. I don't know what I'd have done if I didn't have the road to myself - the shoulder is gravel and therefore treacherous.
Anyway, this was no fun at all. I'd swoop along, with a tight grip on the handlebars in case of gusts, trying to balance the swoops with the wind. But the wind works fast, so inattention means gravel and stopping and then having to do the ticklish process of getting restarted.
So I'm not keen to repeat it.
One other annoyance is that I broke my headphones. The wind blows the cable up around my arm, I waved it around to free it but it was somehow attached and I jerked it out of the phone. And that's enough to stop the volume control working. The in-ear speakers and mic still work ... but those volume buttons are nice because they can be used with thick winter gloves on, while the buttons on the phone are so small they need care to work. So I'm sad. I think these are the third pair to fail this way.
From left to right: this won’t have been when there was a sidewind, because I didn’t risk taking a hand off the handlebars. Approaching Rio Gallegos. The name was so good I had to get a photo. The hotel served me a coffee when I arrived so I must have looked like I needed one.
In the fullness of time, the road turned a bit more to the east and there was enough tailwind to make a difference. I shifted up to the highest gear - but it didn't want to engage. Back down and retry didn't help, so I tried changing up twice - and the derailleur shifted too far, and jammed the chain. Changing down didn't move anything. An exciting moment! Maybe the bike couldn't be ridden any more? Well, fortunately a bit of persuasion got it unjammed and the derailleur behaving again. I'm treating upshifts with a bit more care now.
The back derailleur also chose that moment to start causing problems. I'd ride along with careful consistent force and the chain would spontaneously pop up or down a gear. Most likely the back derailleur is misaligned. A job for tomorrow.
Or the day after. Because the wind is so bad I'm going to take two rest days, hopefully that's enough for the wind to calm down a bit. Because cycling in severe winds is a bad idea.
