Our Vuelta or how Chris Froome came to use our toilet!

[pistonbroke]

Not Bikepacking related I know but thought I'd share this.
When the Vuelta route was published Mrs PB and I decided to have a week's holiday in NW Spain as we hadn't been for several years and I wanted to visit the infamous Angliru climb. We set off in our 2 month old camper last Monday, arriving in Logroño for the TT on Tuesday. We found a spot in a bus shelter on the outskirts of the city and had a nice afternoon spectating. As soon as Froome had passed we were off to the Cantabrian mountains to watch the Machucos stage the following day. This was absolutely brutal with 30% sections of concrete with 45degree rain ruts, the riders looked absolutely battered when they finished.
It was then off to Asturias to get a spot on the Angrilu for the showdown on Saturday. We found a great spot right by the course about 7km from the top. We were parked about 20m from an enormous beer tent which was being set up as we arrived, there was seating for about 300 people and a massive barbecue serving ribs, sausages and typically octopus! On Friday we had a ride up the climb which was really tough, imagine Devils Staircase, Park Rash and Rosedale Chimney all added together and doubled in length, 500m ramps of 24% we had to stop a couple of times, once for cows being herded down.
Although Friday was a lovely day, people were saying that race day would be windy and wet. We popped over to the tent for a glass of wine and decided to turn in about 11pm. Then the party started, music and chanting continued until about 4am, the wind and rain had been increasing all night and just as we had got off to sleep, there was an enormous crash, the tent had been blown sideways about 10m and the centre section had collapsed, thankfully no one was inside but it was a real mess. Luckily the direction of travel was away from our van.
We got up and had breakfast and were standing around watching the demolition work on the tent when a Team Sky van pulled up outside our van, inside was Dave Brailsford, he had ridden to the top and was on the way back to the team bus. I had a little chat about the impending day and off he went.
A few minutes later an organiser's car pulled up and a guy came over to ask us if we would be willing to drive our van to the stage finish to be used by the medical control as their second camper van had broken down. In return we would ger VIP passes to the finish line hospitality and some goodies. We agreed and started packing up. There followed a very stressful drive to the top trying to dodge the thousands of spectators who were walking and riding up with a 1000m drop on 1 side of the narrow road and a rock face on the other. It was blowing a gale and raining when we got to the carpark so we parked up and sat tight.
When the weather abated, I went for a mooch around, apart from the tv vans and police there seemed to be very few people around, we watched the race unfold on the big screen and chatted with the guys from Eurosport. Giving Juan Antonio Flecha a demonstration of how our drop down bed works was one of the more surreal moments.
The events of the race are well known with Contador winning his last competitive stage and Chris Froome the event, we were stood in touching distance of the podium and interviews. We wandered back to the van and next minute Contador was ushered over to have his stage winner tests, followed by Froome who was taken into our van. He emerged 15 minutes later as he walked by, he thanked us for the use of our facilities and paused for a photo with me.
What a day!

[Single Speed George]

was it a pain clearing up all the needles nad blood bags after those roadies had used ur van ..... nah that does sound a pretty good day out haha

[pistonbroke]

Sorry George but I think you've stumbled onto the wrong forum, give STW a try, you might like it.

[Moder-dye]

Wel I'd be quite happy with that claim to fame

[pistonbroke]

Just thinking about what to do with the contents of our chemical toilet, might buy a few of those 100ml fuel bottles off Stu

[benp1]

That is pretty damn cool!

Presumably you weren't allowed in your van in between any medical visit? Did they give you somewhere else to go?

[Richard G]

I hope you got some photos of him heading into your van. :D

[In Reverse]

What a long winded way to boast about having a new camper van.

[pistonbroke]

Ben, we were given passes to go to the hospitality tent but as they were only testing Froome and Contador at the finish, we just hung around the van waiting for them to come out so we could get a photo.
Richard, got plenty of photos which I'll try to post up as soon as I work out how to do it ,guessing I need a hosting site. MrsPB has put some on fb but I'm a bit of a luddite.
In Reverse, fair point but after 35 years of mind numbingly boring and stressful work for each of us, I think we are due a few perks.
Moder, yes I'll be dining out on this one for almost as long as my story of helping Colin Mc Rae change a wheel in the middle of Kielder on the 1995 RAC rally, the year he won the World Championship.

[benp1]

I'll try to post up as soon as I work out how to do it ,guessing I need a hosting site

If you drop the size enough you can host them directly on here

When you go to post reply, there's an 'upload attachment' button at the bottom

[In Reverse]

Email me some photos if you want Duncan and I can post them on here.

edit - just remembered that involves attaching them to an email though. Good luck!

[pistonbroke]

Ben, the photos I've got on my phone are just over the 1mb limit, how do you reduce them? They were taken on my Samsung phone and I've bluetoothed them to my Samsung tablet so android based if that's any help.

[benp1]

Ben, the photos I've got on my phone are just over the 1mb limit, how do you reduce them? They were taken on my Samsung phone and I've bluetoothed them to my Samsung tablet so android based if that's any help.

Hmmm, options I think as follows
- edit them to change their compression/quality, use an app for that (if you can't do it in the standard photo software)
- crop them and see if that drops their size a bit?
- email them back to yourself, you should get the option of saying if you want to compress them when you send them. Save them back off the email and that might upload OK

Sorry, I'm on an iphone!

[fatbikephil]

Nice one
The vuelta was a cracker this year, never watched so much tele for years

[In Reverse]

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THE MONEY $HOT B-)



















He looks a bit mad in the face I think. Like he's thinking about killing you and eating your flesh. Froome looks like a proper mental too.

[In Reverse]

[Richpips]

Great story and pictures!

[PaulB]

Great story, and really nice guys.
Following on from your Colin McRae story, I have Mr McRae's GT bike that he used for getting around the pits etc, long story... sister-in-laws ex worked for M Sport/Colin.

[pistonbroke]

Paul, I always thought Colin rode Konas in fact they had a special edition made. He used to do quite a bit of mountain biking around Machynlleth which was my old stomping ground. He was mates with Howard Davies, Gwyndaf Evans' co-driver who lives there.

[Wotsits]

Great story & pictures Duncan

[Blackhound]

Nice pics and some wonderful memories.

I do have a pic of Emily Chappel stuffing a malt loaf down her gob in our camper on Mont Ventoux during TCR. Didn't use the porta potty though.

[ZeroDarkBivi]

Great memory from a fantastic event - was glued to it each night, although I'm glad I'll never have to watch another advert for 'sponsors of cycling on ITV4', WristKnob.com... In contrast, this years ToB was the dullest thing I have ever watched, in fact I couldn't tolerate watching it after the first few stages.

I still not comfortable with the idea of taking a dump in a van - refused to have a portaloo in my camper, and just have a piss bottle handy for late evening relief.

swear filter (B-i-d-o-n) spot-on this time!

[pistonbroke]

The quality and usability of the toilet and shower were key factors in our choice of camper. Spain and France have a great network of free to use places where you can park a camper but they don't have toilet or shower facilities, just a chemical toilet emptying point. Our van is 6m long which makes it less of a handful on country roads and in towns but its internal space is good as the bed is raised electrically into the ceiling above the dining table. The Thetford toilet is a brilliant design, the tank is removed outside the van for emptying, it has a flush and uses fluid to avoid it smelling and to break down the sub standard. Our plan is to use the van for exploring the rest of Spain and Portugal from our base in Cataluña.

[In Reverse]

This chemical toilet is a Saniflow 33, now this little babe can cope with anything, and I mean anything.

Earlier on I put in a pound of mashed up Dundee cake, let's take a look...not a trace!

Peace of mind I'm sure, especially if you have elderly relatives on board.

[pistonbroke]

Oh bollocks, where did it all go wrong