Cycling the Camino de Santiago
ut also full of information whilst researching my own tour, I wanted to give something back.
I took my entrylevel Giant Iguana mountain bike with me for the tour. The frame’s a bit too big, the bike’s a bit too heavy, but it was sturdy and did the job. I wasn’t bothered if it could be scratched or not. If you want to buy a new bike, make sure that it has all the necessary fittings at the rear so that you can screw the rack onto the frame. Mine still had the old V-brake system, but since then I’ve also toured with disc brakes. Disc brakes are fine, but they make the frame wider at the back, so check first if your rack will fit onto this wider mounting.
Make a packing list. You need less than you think. First rule: take no cotton. When you wash a cotton garment, it will not dry fast enough to wear it the next day. If it rains, you’ll be wet and stay wet.
eave home, it’s not necessary. As long as you get it before you start with your trip, it is fine. I bought mine at the office in St Jean the morning before I started my tour.
tayed over in Portomarin. They wanted to join me for dinner, but they couldn’t speak English, and I didn’t do Spanish, so we agreed to smile, shake hands, laugh at my constant stopping for coffee, and parted. It’s fine, it’s the spirit of the Camino that counts.
d get back into touch with yourself. Hey, sounds pretty cool to me. Some people do yoga, other smoke potent stuff, and she does the hard work in a corner of Spain.
Rabanal del Camino to Ambasmestos, 76 km
accidents.
w completely restored). As I cycled out of the village, I took like what appeared a short cut back to the highway. It ended up as a big mistake in the sweltering heat. The road was uphill, loose gravel and hard going. I battled to get back to the highway, and soldiered on.
Carrion de los Condes to Leon, 113 km
allana a few km’s further on the N601 I stopped again, this time to get my tyres a couple of bars stiffer. Convinced myself it was easier going from then on.
Burgos to Carrion de los Condes, 100 km
ecame more flat as you cycle to Citores. At Citores I took a breather in a small roadside busstop shelter. Two Norwegians, all the way from the Pole circle, joined me, and as we chatted three other cyclists joined as well. They were not sure of the route, and the Norwegians advised them to go straight on to Osorno.
rom their home in the north of Germany, and one look at their huge thighs confirmed this. Their mountain bikes were equipped with thin roadsize tires, and they pumped it to 5 bars, they told me their efficiency secret. Less friction, and easier pedalling, they assured me, und zen zey were away again. The rest of the afternoon they would stay ahead of me, their low friction tyres doing the job, even though I’m surely twenty years their junior.
retch must be tough going for the walking pilgrims. But it was hectic for me as well. The last 20 km’s from Fromista on the P980 to Carrion were tiring. Long hills proved to be challenging with the constant dry, hot headwind and the ever elluding Germans. When I cycled into Carrion, it was with a sense of relief. I went right through the village, and couldn’t spot the refugio. Turned back, and then, in a smallish sidestreet, found the unassuming house that doubled as a refugio. There was one bed left, and I gladly took it.
g. An hour later I was on the road and peddling towards the next village, Belorado. Here I stopped at a supermarket to get some stuff for breakfast, and then it was on the road again. At Montes de Oca the sun started to belt down again, which would become a regular feature on the trip. Every morning you have to slap suncream on all over your arms, legs, neck and face, otherwise you’ll not only get sunburned badly, but sunstroke can sap your energy as well. 
dly in Spanish. I smiled and gestured I can’t speak the local lingo. But he persisted, and then produced a pen and paper and draw sketches of Earth, with Burgos somehow also on it. Apparantly, the guy wanted to show me that Burgos is the centre of the Earth. It was a bit weird, for he wasn’t dangerous, just annoying with his constant chattering. And he took a picture of me and my broken bike after I had to show him five times how the digital camera works. 
their bikes. If you think that most of them transported the bike on a plane, it’s just natural to accept that the bike setup wouldn’t be perfect first time round. Still, I was surprised to hear, as I worked on the saddle, all the shouts of encouragement and offers for help from other cyclists as they whizzed past. This is the spirit of the Camino, and you soon get to appreciate it and make you want to help others as well. 
Refugio’s differ from one to the next. While some are like modern backpackers you find all across Europe, this one was virtually a church hall with four rows of beds running the length of it. Lights go out at ten, and everyone must be out of there by eight the next morning. Your credencial give you one nights cheap refuge at each refugio, but you can’t stay over for a second night. And while the curfew seems a bit odd in the 21st century, it still helps everything to work well and orderly. Every one gets a bed to sleep for cheap.
on the stretcher next to me. It was amongst the things scattered on her bed, and I had to smile. You can walk the Camino, and sleep in the refugio’s, but that won’t put a halo around your head. Like all the pilgrim fathers has that’s painted on the church walls around us. 
e closed off. A couple of wrong turns and wasted kilometres later I decided to cycle a stretch on the highway (it’s forbidden) until I could get back onto the smalller road. Luckily it was a Saturday, so the road was fairly quiet.
road, hunched over a map. I walked over to point them in the right way, as I’ve just did all the hard work of cycling in the wrong direction. But the man angrily waved me away. It was strange, and sad. It’s the Camino, we all have the same goal and purpose, and we’re like a family from all over the world. We help each other, even if you can only communicate with gestures and smiles. But this couple didn’t realise or appreciate this. I would think that they missed the whole point of doing the Camino.
detour and head straight onto the gravel to the next town of Logrono. At one point I passed a couple of stunned roadworkers, but I just waved at them and cycled past. 
iches at a petrol station and fell down on the lawn of a bank that was closed out for siesta. Shortly after I left Campanas, some 11 km’s, I turned off to make a detour to the beautiful church of Santa Maria de Eunate, a church thought to be built by the Knights Templar in the 11th century. The smallish building is in the shape of an octagon whilst the windows are thin slabs of marble to let the light through. I was glad I made the detour. 
village is virtually a frontier town, but steeped in history. For centuries it’s been a major thorough port for pilgrims, and it’s also the place where two big pilgrim routes, from the southeast of France and the northwest, converge. The actual convergence point is the beautiful old bridge – dating back to the 11th century – just outside of town. But that I would cross tomorrow. 
St Jean to Burguette, 32 km
ad with virtually no traffic, but it was very steep. If you stop to catch your breath, it’s tough to get pedalling again. You can’t get any momentum going. To overcome this, I tried to stop at a farmhouse’s driveway. That way you can cycle some metres sideways in the road and get your speed up before you hit the climb again.
stop. There were also two guys with a loaded donkey at the fountain. It turned out that they were two brothers from Nice who were on a year’s tour of Spain. The donkey’s name was Stan, but I didn’t get their names.
[This section, as well as the summary regarding logistics, I compiled with the help of Arthur Mitchell’s website – a site I used extensively before I left for my own Camino.]People have been making the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela for nearly 1 200 years. According to legend St. James (Santiago, in Spanish) was sent by Jesus to Galicia to preach. He was largely unsuccessful, and returned to Jerusalem. Agrippa had him beheaded, and his followers placed his body in a boat (some versions has it that it was a miraculous boat, carved from stone), which eventually reached the Iberian peninsula. His body was re-discovered by a shepherd in the 9th century. (In one version of the story, his body was found at Compostela covered by scallop shells – hence the scallop shell that, today, is a symbol of both St. James and of the pilgrims en route to Santiago). The locals decided to built a church on the spot where St. James’ grave was found, and so it is believed still today that his tomb is right beneath the cathedral where your pilgramage ends.
A more accurate version would rather be that the site – where a small church already stood in the early 9th century – was since the 9th century used as place for gatherings by monks.
During the Middle Ages, over a million Europeans put their lives on hold and walked to Santiago. It was a challenging feat, for not only were the pilgrims subjected to bandits on the way, but the south of Spain was also under the control of the Moors.
Santiago de Compostela was the third most important Christian pilgrimage destination, after Jerusalem and Rome. The reasons for its importance are many. The primary reason, was, of course, to venerate the saint. Santiago is also the patron saint of Spain. At the battle of Clavijo, Spanish soldiers saw a vision of St. James in the sky, and went on to defeat a Moorish army. Santiago became known as Santiago Matamoros – or Moor killer.
Finally, as Maria Rosa Menocal points out in her book The Ornament of the World, the veneration of St. James’ remains was largely local until Al-Mansur sacked Santiago and melted the Cathedral’s bells to make lamps for his mosque in Cordoba. This enraged the Christians of the time, and the local cult became international.
Cees Nooteboom, in his excellent book, Roads to Santiago, asserts that the sheer number of pilgrims who made the pilgrimage may be a reason the Moors never successfully conquered the most northern part of Spain, and may also be why the Islamic conquest of Spain never spilled into France and the rest of Europe.
There are a number of routes to Santiago de Compostela. Pilgrims started from their home countries, like Switzerland, Germany, England, Italy and France, and then converge at a couple of entry points in Spain from where they would walk together to Santiago. The most famous – and currently most well-traveled – is the Camino Frances (or French Road). One leg begins its Spanish phase in the Pyrenees at Roncesvalles. An alternative way from France starts at Somport. Both routes from France converge at Puente la Reina. From there, a single route continues to the destination on the west coast of Spain.
Today, about 150 000 people a year make the pilgrimage. The majority (80%) walk. Crossing Spain from the French border to Santiago de Compostela on foot takes about a month to forty days, and by bike ten days to two weeks. Why do people do it? Religion. Spirituality. Culture. The physical challenge. Or simply to take part in the river of history – to participate in something that has endured for twelve centuries.
Completing the pilgrimage entitles you to receive a Compostela – a certificate you obtain in Santiago de Compostela. To qualify for a Compostela, you must walk the last 100 kilometers or cycle the last 200 kilometers to Santiago. You can also cover the distance on horse back. No matter where you start, you need to prove you’ve covered the requisite distance. For that, you need a Credencial, a pilgrim’s passport. You fill up the Credencial with stamps – or sellos – in the towns you pass along the way. The Credencial also entitles you to spend the night in Refugios and Albergues – dormitories and hostels for pilgrims along the Camino. It’s usually a convent that’s geared for pilgrims (dormitory style rooms) which let you stay one night over for either 5 euro, or sometimes for free. It provides for an inexpensive way to see the country and be part of something special.
If you can find the time, do it. It’s a relatively inexpensive bike tour, a great way to see a country and a cool, physical challenge. But apart from the physical aspect, it will also be an emotionally rewarding experience. For me it was a moving, but fun tour. You’ll learn more about yourself, and you’ll meet interesting people from all over the world.
