Camino de Santiago - Day 4 - Belorado to Burgos

Biking Day 4

• Belorado ---> Burgos
• 51.5 km (32 miles)
• Highest Incline: 370 meters (1,214 feet)
• 4 hours (with stops and breakfast)
• Total Distance Traveled: 222.6 km (138.3 miles)

I woke up this morning, had breakfast and left around 8:30 am. I was cold for the first 15 minutes, then the sun came out over the mountains and it was clear and warm. Luckily I spent most of the first part of the day in the forest climbing up from Belorado to Alto de la Pedraja, which was mainly all trees. I biked a few miles to the start of the incline and from there on it was up up into the mountains.

Heading towards the mountains

My guid book has a graph with the altitude vs. distance and it looked like it was going to be brutal, but I had enough sleep and wasn´t sore so the ride was not too bad. I got to the top of the mountain and from there until Burgos was mainly downhill.

up and down, up and down

I woke up last night to 3 people snoring and my arm itching like crazy. The skin is starting to scab over and tighten up, which made it really itchy. I swear I was up for an hour until I grabbed my ear plugs and went back to sleep. I biked 24 km (14.9 miles) to a town called San Juan de Ortega where I had breakfast and rested. The next 27.5 km (17 miles) was really easy, except for one section that had a large hill climb and the terrain was really rocky and rough. Once I made it up the last climb you could see Burgos off in the distance. It was a nice easy ride down a dirt road to a small town and from there on it was all pavement into Burgos.

Last climb and then down hill from there

Burgos in the distance

I got in around 12:30 pm and decided to bike into the center to an albergue next to the cathedral. This place is massive; 5 floors and very clean. Hopefully the beds are too. I checked in, showered and cleaned my wound up then walked around and had some lunch.


After I attempted to fix my bike. All the rocky bumby riding has made my disc brakes come out of line. I have never had disc breaks and fixing them has been a challenge. Im going to try again but if I can´t fix it I will hang out in Burgos until 10:00 am when a bike shop opens and try to fix them there. After messing around with the bike for a while I took a break and went on a tour that the albergue had set up around the center of Burgos. It was alright, but I felt like I could have seen more without having 10 other people stopping every 5 seconds to take photos. The cathedral in Burgos is large really impressive.

So many peregrino statues along the way

Cathedral of Burgos

Facade of the Cathedral

Side view

My distance I will travel tomorrow depends on how my attempt at fixing my bike goes. I imagine it will be hot, so if I dont fix it and have to go to the bike shop I probably will not go as far as planned.