eBike Burgos along the camino to Fromista on day 3 of my cycle tour of northern Spain

Day 3 - 76km cycled from Burgos to Villamentero de Campos, 440m of ascent

I left Burgos on Eurovelo3 and Eurovelo1 and the Camino as all 3 are on the same tracks for the first 65km of this route except for a short section

Theres a good cycle track out of the centre of Burgos and then some rougher dirt track that is the camino route and gets you under or over the motorways and rail lines to the town of Tardjaos. I stopped for an early lunch 3km further in Rabe de las Calzadas for chicken with rice and a glass of wine. Then it was back on the rough track camino through Hornillios del Camino and on to Hontanas, some 31km from my start point.

This was meant to be an easy day but a lot of the Camino surface on this stretch is badly maintained with the top layer of muck/sand washed off leaving chunky gravel poking through. At times it was hard to maintain 10km an hour on that bumpy surface and you have to concentrate hard as whacking any of the particularly large boulders could give you a pinch puncture. This concentration is quite exhausting and I was very glad I’d bought a pair of gloves with gel pads as part of my prep.

While my tyres are not skinny road bike ones they are also not gnobbled gravel ones - riders on proper gravel setup could maintain a faster pace or if your on a roads bike you are doomed to multiple pictures and square wheels.

While lacking the beauty of the mountain gorges of day 1 & 2 May is a good time to be doing this stretch as the fields are green and there’s lots of wild flowers. There aren’t really hedge rows so as you get to the top of each ridge you can see the route stretching ahead and behind for many kilometers. And every 10km or so there’s a pretty if empty town. Rural Spain is very depopulated.

From here the Eurovelo routes split off the camino as it climbs over a steep hill while they follow a straight narrow road. Both met again at the ruined Convento de San Anton a spectacular ruined monastery straddling the route just before the 37km mark and shortly after that the hillside castle and old town of Castrojerez.

Then there is another gravel section through Itero de la Vega and on to Fromista with the last 4km into town running alongside the Canal de Castillo. Eurovelo 1 follows the canal south while Eurovelo 3 and the Camino cross the canal to head into Fromista and west from there all the way to Santiago.

The restaurant I had my eye on in Fromista was closed but thankfully one pub was open doing an excellent pizza as this was my last change of food that evening,

It was about 7km from here to my hotel La Casona de Dona Petra in the village of Villamentero de Campos with a population of 15. It was in this 7km that the rain I’d seen in the distance all day finally caught up and soaked me. I was glad of a hot shower & solid sleep before facing the 109km to Leon day 4 would involve.

Instagram photos from this day at https://www.instagram.com/p/C7KaP-BrV...
Route map at https://cycle.travel/map/journey/575244

#ebikeadventures #ebikecamino #Fromista