Tom and Dave’s BIG Ride

From Chile Chico we got a ferry to Puerto Ibañez. Bleary eyed and still pretty sleepy we rolled down to the port to see Jeff, a Canadian cyclist whose website Tom and I have been following quite a lot. His altitude profiles and route info along the Austral have been pretty good! As it happened Jeff was off to Coihaique too so we stuck together for the 2 day ride. It was 130km (ish) and originally we thought we may do it in 1 day. A nasty headwind put pay to that though, so day 1 saw us do around 80km. The first 40km were pretty tough with a lot of wind and a LOT of climbing. At around Km 40 we reached the top of the highest pass on the Carretera Austral (1100m). The views on the way up were stunning. The mountains looked very dark and brooding. Almost like something from Lord of the Rings! We could seethe weather to our rear was getting worse and rainclouds were hanging low in the valleys a few kilometres away.
 
At the top of the pass we stopped before heading down to have a little rest and leave Jeff behind for a few kilometres. Being a bit of a touring veteran he wasn’t so bothered about pedalling frantically downhill to beat 50mph! Tom and I, on the other hand, are new to this high speed malarkey after the bumpy gravel of the Austral and the high winds of Tierra del Fuego so we steamed off into an epic 10km descent clocking a bittersweet 49mph. So close to that magical 50mph we’ve been yearning to top for ages now! Nevertheless, tyhe descent was amazing!!! We went so fast we had to put extra layers on to stop us from getting really cold.
 
Possibly the strangest experience of the day happened as we were riding past Rio Blanco – a small river nestled in between some massive steep-sided valleys- The road had been predominantly downhill, and we were still riding downhill but the river really did appear to be running UPHILL!!! It took us a while to figure out what the hell we were doing as neither of us could believe what we were seeing. It was crazy! It turned out, however, that we were in fact riding uphill and hadn’t realised it yet! This went on for a couple of kilometres, perplexing us until we turned into the next part of the valley where the river definitely did flow downwarrds!
 
After some more battering from the wind the three of us camped up 40km from Coihaique. That night was the first night we slept under the stars. No tents, just laying on the groundsheet snuggled up in our sleeping bags. But… Guess what happened that night of all nights?! No, A hareem of beautiful women didn{t come to join us in amongst the flowers on the side of the road!! It RAINED!!! Typical! Luckily it didn{t last though and we didn{t have to put the tent up to shield ourselves from the rain.
 
Morning saw more headwind to Coihaique where we stocked up on food, ate to the point of not being able to move, and went online to check the weather.  We also tried to replace our broken pannier racks but with no success leaving us with no option but to take a ferry at Puerto Chacabuco then get racks in Puerto Montt. The latter half of the day was nice, with another 25km being quickly eaten up on nice tarmac winding through the deep valley of Rio Simpson – A river we{d follow for 40 more kilometres until it meets the sea at Puerto Aisen. The scenery was lush. Steep hillsides lined with temperate rainforest so dense you couldn’t see very far inside at all. The verge was lined with thousands of purple and pink flowers that look like foxgloves, and all along the way the river was  meandering past as it neared the fiords of the west coast of Chile. 
 
Camped up at a little campsite with a nice hut and massive fireplace where we slept. The sign said hot showers. Excellent, we thought! Then it turne4d out there was hot wat4er, the reason being that it had all been used up before. So a discount of $1000 was arranged with a cold shower, which didn{t even work! Great!! At least the hut was dry and warm with a light and a roaring fire.
 
And that brings us to today. Unfortunately it rained all the way (40km) until Puerto Aisen then as soon as we got into the internet cafe the sun broke through the clouds!! Still, in 42 days, today has been our first day with any substantial amount of rain. Despite this, and a landfill site half way which gave off a disgusting stench, we loved the ride. the valley sides were shrouded in cloud giving a mystical feeling to the area. As we neared Puerto Aysen the valley began to fan out and there were more and more little estancias (farms) dotted around. We saw a couple of small but spectacular waterfalls, more huge forested clifs making us feel very small indeed, and lots of cows. If only we were in Argentina, we’d probably have had one of them on our (read my) dinner plates by now! 
 
So… from here it{s a ferry crossing to Puerto Montt, where we’ll spend xmas, then head over to San Carlos de Bariloche to meet Oliver for new years eve. Can’t wait.
 
Until the next update,
 
Adios

Hola!
 
Wow what a last few days! There has been some seriously demading yet rewarding riding. The roads leaving Cochrane were terrible, as was the rather large hill climb, especially in the heat. However, things did get easier. We were very hot and tired on the first day out of Cochrane as we skirted alond the very impressive and blue Rio Baker. We stopped at a small lodge/cafe and enjoyed a well earned cold can of Sprite and a sit down over looking this stunning river-it was certainly a challenge to get back on the bike when the soft chairs were so comfy.
 
With the shores of Lago Betrand not to far off we pressed on. We were desparate for a swim after the days ride and the first spot that was acessible we stopped and were both in for a swim, then had the bar of soap out for our much needed wash! we pitched up on the lake side and was treated to another fairly stunning sunset.
 
The next day we had more bumps and hills and both bodies and bikes seemed to be feeling a little worse for them. We reached the edge of Lago Buenos Aires and we thought it may get a little flatter asd the road followed the lake…no they decided to just put the road inland just enogh so it would go up and down all the hills! This hardly mattered when you saw the view, we didn’t know when to bother to stop and take pictures of the views- it always seemd to look more impressive each turn! Along the way we met a ver hippy American couple coming from the other direction on bikes. We chatted about the route and what they had been up to before we found out they had a 5 month old baby in one of their traliers! this was a massive shock considering the conditions (bumps, dust, heat and general lack of anything! But they seemed well expericed and equiped-well at least we hoped so! A little further on we saw on the map the road went right next to the lake, so that was our aim for the night. We curved though an amzing road cut into the rock, and the lake met the road at the bottom. We ended up camping at the side of the road(there was literally no where else) and prepared ourself for and early morning to try and escape the heat.
 
We awoke with the task of the large hill we had camped at the bottom of to tackle. The morning was very tough. 20mile sin we stopped under a bridge and cooked up instant mash (yum!) for lunch, feeling pretty exhuasted! Chile Chico was still a long way off, another day and a half at the pace we were at. However in a fortunate turn of events the road began to smooth out and level out in patches. The tail wind we had suddenly became useful and we were then flying along! With big grins on our faces the miles/kms flew by. Before we knew it we were less than 20km away from Chile Chico and on smooth down hills with a terrific and terrifying tail wind! Dave and I stormed into the town at around 50kph mid afternoon and grinning like Cheshire cats! What an end to that leg of the journey.
 
Ice lollies, probably our new favourite thing, was first on our menu as we entered the supermercado. We then thouroughly enjoyed the treat of eating out and sleeping in a bed that evening too! Its some very small things you take for granted when you have been living rough for 10 days!!
 
Aidos
 
Tom and Dave

Hola from Cochrane!

Before i explain the riding etc, i just have to say how absolutely AMAZING the Austral is. All the problems and bad roads in the world couldn´t put a dampener on this place. Winding roads turn corners making your jaw drop at every turn. There´ve been beautiful blue lakes, rainforests, hanging glaciers and some truly fantastic stretches of road, not to mention the fact that in 3 days we saw almost as many cyclists as we did cars – and that´s not many!!
The first day after El Chalten was pretty sweet, with 39km of winding track runnng alongside the river up to Lago Del Desierto. The sunshine has been out all the time so far – quite abnormal according to the locals. At Lago del Desierto we took an overpriced but stunning ferry across the lake to the Argentine border where we camped in the best setting to date. Mt. Fitzroy was towering in the distance behind us. Also it was free!! Excellent! We chilled out, had a paddle, and prepared for a gruelling hike the next day.

Oh, i almost forgot. We had breakage number 1 that day too, as Tom´s rack bolt sheared leaving us in a bit of a quandry. However, with a bit of inspiration and some truly Tom Skipper-esque bodging we used gaffer tape and a stick to fix it. It lasted really well too – 250km of bike-breaking, bone-shaking gravel

9.30 saw us packed and ready to leave. The border crossing was a 7km hike which was steeper than a lot of hiking tracks you´ll see in the UK in places. It was rutted as well from countless horses riding alongthe route. The only way to get over the pass was to de-pannier and carry the bike and bags up in shuttle runs. Luckily after 2-3km we were over the worst of it and were able to push the bikes for the rest of the way. There were, however, some really tough river crossings though, with literally 1 rotten-looking very bendy log as the bridge. The bikes just had to go through the water. Thank god for waterproof panniers!! After the trek we had a 15km ride. Not too bad at all, and very fast compared to the walking! We arrived at chilean customs at around 3.00 then cruised down to the jetty to wait for the boat, which was at 5.30. It was freezing cold in the water but nevertheless we were jumping off of a pier into the ice blue lake. Great fun! Ferry was late by 4 hours meaning we got to Villa O´Higgins at 1am and had to cycle in the dark to find a camping ground. It´s more difficult than you´d imagine! I spent a lot of the night trying to move the sticks and stones under my tent to get a bit more comfortable!

The next day saw us stock up with fery pricey supplies at Villa O´Higgins and cruise along some truly epic roads to Rio Bravo some 105Km away. The gravel, contrary to our expectations, was really good and we made good pace. The hills were by far the larges we´d tackled so far with two climbs of over 4km in one hit. On gravel with a heavy bike that´s pretty tough. It was worth it for the dscents though. One was truly amazing if not a little (read “VERY”) scary. It was similar to a road you´d see  in an alpine section of the Tour de France but rutted, dusty and with very loose gravel. The drop at the side of the road was pretty huge, too so we went at a steady speed but often more than 35kph. Later on, when it flattened out, we hit some truly awesome temperate rainforest. It looked like something out of a movie.The trees were so dense and so wild. We´ve never seen anything like it. We also had a scary encounter with a cow. we were just ambling along and saw some cows in the road – females with calves. We slowed right down but one managed to get separated from it´s calf. Guess who was right in the middle?!!! We looked at the cow. The cow looke at us, then we got off the bikes slowly praying that it would just walk on. Its horns looked pretty sharp and i didn´t fancy getting charged at! Luckily it just mooed and ran on into the forest.

The next 80km ended in a little campsite at a tiny place called Nadis. I won´t go into the riding as nothing interesting happened apart from one puncture (My first) adn my SPD cleat breaking. Unfortunately the latter was partially my own fault. The gravel got pretty attrocious and we were pretty demoralised by the end of the day. Not so much by the riding but by something else…

FLIES! They´re everywhere. They bite, hard, through clothes and always fly into your face. They can follow you at over 20kph, so a lot of the time you just can´t get away. It´s horrendous. Truly horrendous! Tom actually said he´d prefer the winds of Tierra del Fuego to the flies of the Austral, and you all know just how much we hated the wind!!!

Anyways, the campsite had a refugio where we slept. It had a cold shower, but a chower nevertheless and an amazing wood-burning stove which we kept warm by and used to cook up some cheese tortellini with passata.

So… that brings me to today. only 50km today. Worst flies ever, ad Tom´s rack broke again. Luckily only 3km from Cochrane, wher we are now. It was sunny all day, and progress was good despite over 10km of hard, slow uphill withmillions of nasty flies. Many expletives were shouted at the top of our voices and plans to exterminate the worlds population of flies have been hatched…

Well, i think that´s about it for now. Despite a few problems and some absolutely attrocious roads our spirits are very high, buoyed up by the most beautiful lush scenery we could possibly ask for, and by a nice cold beer at the end of today

Well its surprising we even got internet here as this town is so rural, but next update should be from Coihique.

Adios

Dave and Tom

Hi Everyone,

We have had a lovely ride out of El Calfate, with the first 30 or so km having a glorius tail wind-a massive bonus and change!! The weather was lovely, and even with a bit of wind when we turned back on ourselves to travel back down the other side of the Lago Argentina we were making good progress. About 40km into the ride we came across Rio Santa Cruz. Its ws a lovely large glacial river, the minerals from which made the water an amazing blue. In the heat of the afternoon we couldn´t resist a dip. The cold was well worth the refreshment it provided!

We continued riding at a reasonalble pace as the wind was kind to us well into the evening. We clocked up an easy 79km from 3pm when we left as we found an estancia. We were warmly welcomed and were able to pitch tents in the barn-perfect! Even more perfect for me was my knee had been ok, but the morning would tell…

At 4.30am our alarm went off, but we could here the wind and all agreed it was a far too unsocialable hour to get up. We were on the road still before 7am and condtions was good, and so too was my knee! We carried on riding until luch time in beautiful hot weather. We clocked up 82 km before Dave and myself stopped in an estancia, seeking extra water and shade. It was so nice there and we were ahead of schedule so we just spent the afternoon and night there, watching there many animals just wander around. Oliver in the mean time steamed onto E Chalten.

Again and early start of 5.30 wake up call! We got up to an overcast sky, but it was perfect riding condions. The road seemed to go on straight forever to El Chalten, but the scenery kept us from getting bored (and a healthy pace of over 25kph most of the way helped too!). We got to the small town El Chalten before 11am and found a free campsite and Oliver. 

The next email will be after the Austral, so it will be a little while yet, but I´m sure there will be plenty to tell as we enter one of the most beautiful parts of our journey.

Until next time

Adios!

Tom and Dave 

Hi all!

Thanks for the replies from the last e-mail. As you all know I (Dave) went solo to allow Toms knee to recover some more for the last 210ish miles. You´ll be glad to know that we´re all back on the road today, cycling to El Chalten for a truly hardcore border crossing.

The riding was much the same as Tierra del Fuego, but for one glorious day i had a lovely tailwind allowing me to clock an easy 117km. It really was AMAZING!!! Although the road did leave a little to be desired. Photos to come, although not yet as the internet connection here is very slow. The gravel on La Cuarenta (Ruta 40) ranged from amazing to down-right appalling. Inevitably you´d always reach a ba part whenever you began climbing a hill, with rocks, dust and car braking bumps everywhere. But… at least i had a tail wind. Poor old oliver, the brit we met before, had a nasty headwind all the way! I must have timed it just right.

I got to the en of the gravel by about 7pm then asked if i could crash in a half-built estancia/hotel. The workmen thre wre more than happy to let me have a room for the night. It was great! No need to pitch the tent in strong winds, and a place to wash up the pots and pans after dinner.I even had 4 eggs left despite the very bumpy gravel. You may be thinking why the hell would they carry eggs, but it´s a real luxury and some vital protein. Not to mention a lot of cholesterol!

So… the second day was good for about 60km. I stayed in bed til about 7.30 then decided to brave th wind once more. The tailwind was gone, only now a side wind. But it was easily bearable. Once i crossed the pass which winds round to Rio Bote i thought my dreams had come true. There was a great looking sign which read: Peligro. Descensar sinuoso  8km. That may well be spelt wrong, but it means winding downhill for 8km!!!!!!!!!! woooooooooooooo!!!!!!! i thought.

I was wrong!

I had to pedal all the way down, sometimes achieving speeds less than 10kph down steep-ish hills!! Oh well! I got to the bottom, exhausted, after what should´ve been an amazing descent and cracked on until Hotel Rio Bote. That was also a mistake. The owner, a grumpy old man, said he was closed and wouldn´t even let me fill my water up. I camped out on his porch for a couple of hours (it was the only place free from howling wind), cooked up some pasta, then had a nap, only to be awken by the sound of the old man inviting his friends in for drinks at the bar and telling me to clear off. He wasn´t nice at all! Thats the first instance of somebody not being friendly to me/us on the road.

Slightly down-beat, i soldiered on to El Calafate: a gruelling 40km which felt more like 400! At 9pm, i arrived. At last! I cycled down the customary descent there seems to be into every town making my arrival all the more sweet. I even managed to break the speed limit for the first time! Derek, i know you´ll be frowning at that, but it really had to be done at some point, andi rally wasn´t gonna hang around with the prospect of a shower only 5 minutes down the road.

The next day, met up with Tom and Oliver, and an Aussie cyclist called Bob. we hired a car then drove to Perito Moreno Glacier that afternoon. Words can´t explain how amazing this place is! It´s just awesome. And to see the ice calving off of the glacier front into the ice cold lake really is an experience. We took the customary photos, waited poised for some ice to break off but never caught it on camera, then went back to a hostl that evening and chilled out with a few beers. It tutrned out that Bob had just ridden the route we intend to take so we got lots of info from him, but then forgot to write it down!! Not the best idea!

The last 2 days at the Hostel have been ace with the culmination coming last night. There were abut 12 r 13 of us all round this massive table after Eduardo, the hostel owner, invited us all for a traditional Argentinian meal. He literally cooked a WHOLE SHEEP! it wa the best lamb i have EVER tasted. Eduardo was knocking the gin and tonics back as fast as we could eat the lamb. How he was still standing at the end, i have no idea! He really took a shine to Oliver in particular, naming him Piranha number 1 and feeding him probably twice as much as everybody else. Needless to say, he polished it off without an issue. That boy has an appetite! After much meat and alcohol-fuelled merriness, and a lengthyh debate on the pros and cons of road biking and mountain biking, we all hit the hay – full bellied and very happy. 

So… that brings me tothe end of the next update. It really is great to write one which isn´t dominated by wind!! We hope you´re all well. Plase do reply, it´s great to hear back from you all.

Also if you have any questions just ask. We´ll be happy to answer any.

Hasta luego,

Tom and Dave