cycling
27. September, 16:48 Uhr
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Rio Negro Newspaper
I GO TOURISM IN PATAGONIA
Gabriel, the 67-year-old retiree who travels Route 40 by bicycle from north to south and inspires
On July 8, Gabriel Leone, a 67-year-old retiree from the Pampas, left La Quiaca by bicycle with the goal of reaching Cabo Vírgenes and traveling 5,080 km. During these days he passed through Junín de los Andes and recounted his adventure.
Lorena Vincenty
BY LORENA VINCENTY
09/27/2023 05:00 | UPDATED 09/27/2023 11:28
From La Quiaca by bicycle with the aim of reaching Cabo Vírgenes and traveling 5080 km.
From La Quiaca by bicycle with the aim of reaching Cabo Vírgenes and traveling 5080 km.
He waited a lifetime for this trip. Gabriel Leone dreamed a thousand times that he got on his motorcycle and traveled along Route 40 from north to south. That he crossed towns, met people, discovered landscapes. But work, raising children, the short and insufficient vacation time that an employment contract provides, postponed things. He has now retired and instead of accelerating the motorcycle, at 67 years old he rides a bicycle, with the wind in his face and adventure in his blood .
He was born in Morón, province of Buenos Aires, but at the age of two he was already in General Pico, La Pampa. He considers himself a true Pampeano because “the place one chose to stay is worth more than the one where he was born,” he confesses.
“When I had 10 or 15 days of vacation I went out with my wife, and she didn't like such a journey. She was procrastinating. I was a carpenter and then I started as a traveling salesman. I worked for 38 years as a traveling salesman, I did well, I became a zone supervisor and when I retired I said 'why not do Route 40 by bicycle and pedal alone?'"
I had been doing some cycling. He went out around the city on the country roads. Little by little, he began to perform better, first he did 20, 30, 50 kilometers, he reached 100 and in conversations with other cyclists he heard about adventures like the ones he dreamed of doing.
He decided to leave Tucumán. He was taken by a friend in a motorhome, who was going on vacation up north. On the morning of July 8, he began filming his mission: to reach La Quiaca, to take a 5,080 mile route along Route 40.
“I'm making it descend. Some leave through Cafayate to avoid the gravel or avoid the Puna. I arrived at the northernmost town in Argentina, which is Santa Catalina, and from there I go down,” he says from the south, just after crossing the halfway point, during these days in which Junín de los Andes passed by.
The routine is to average 40 to 50 kilometers per day. There are days when it reaches 90 or 100, depending on the distance between the towns. Currently he has passed half of the way, he has already cycled about 2,600 kilometers.
He travels with a tent, cooking supplies, clothes, food, the heater and spare parts for the bicycle. The loaded bicycle weighs 68 kilos, plus its weight is 150 kilos.
«You can stop at hotels, but I am retired and the cost in tourist areas is very expensive. What I always look for is a municipal campsite, and if not, sometimes I stop in the middle of nowhere and set up the tent. But someone sees me enter a city on a bicycle and says to me 'Do you want to come home?' I have invitations in San Martín, in Villa La Angostura. In Bariloche I have the house of one of my wife's cousins and things are happening," he says.
The biggest challenges of doing Route 40
The path traveled has different difficulties and attractions. There are very famous slopes that left you breathless. For example, leaving Humahuaca, the one from Los Chorrillos says that it cost her a lot.
Windy days also represent great difficulty, and now that it begins to enter Patagonia, they are beginning to be felt. "But I think the hardest thing is not being able to breathe, I didn't sign up at any time but you notice the lack of oxygen, that's hard, I walked, I did ten, fifteen meters and I had to rest so that my heart rate would go down."
It was not adapted and it went up and up. «They say that when you climb more than 500 meters one day the ideal is to spend another quiet day resting. The slope between Quiaca and Cieneguillas and the Abra del Acay, 5000 meters high, is the roof of Route 40. I walked for 7 hours, with the bicycle at my side to climb it, there was no way to pedal it. They come from the world to take that route. “It is the second highest national route in the world,” he says.
The bicycle is not the best for those roads, but it is what there was. One of the things that he will not forget about the pedal roads is the people from the north, with whom he crossed paths.
«She is very good, very kind, very open. You go to ask something or have them explain it to you and they take their time. Afterwards the beautiful places, the landscapes, the Cuesta de Miranda, there are so many beautiful places..."
Now he is in the south and there is air in his lungs. There is half of the journey ahead and in a short time you will find yourself on solitary routes, with cities that are very distant , perhaps 300 kilometers from one city to another, which means that it is very likely that you will have to spend the night alone in the middle. of nothing.
When he arrives in Bariloche he will join his wife. Once again he will go to the crossroads, he has already gone to Mendoza and he will give him a push to undertake what remains. While he was in Zapala, he said that the desire is intact and he said that when he returns, at home, four children and six grandchildren who are fans from his city are waiting for him.
Gabriel Leone shares his adventure on Instagram: @gabrielleone7477 and Facebook: Gabriel A. Leone. If you are in the south and want to invite him to your house to eat, sleep or have something warm, write to him, he has 2,600 kilometers to count and the same distance, which remains to dream.
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