April 1, 2012

Day 12

Travel day 1 of this two day journey home. I was woken at 6:30am by the group who have to take the early shuttle to the airport, but I honestly wasn't really asleep anyway. My legs are killing me and I've been tossing and turning all night. I had said goodbye to most of them last night so I lay there until there was daylight. It wasn't that relaxing though, because I knew I still had to pack. I also wasn't looking forward to another cold breakfast - I miss bacon and eggs.

At least I had time to have a shower and shave without sharing the washroom with Erika and Tim, not that they've been bad flatmates, they've actually been really great, but it's just different if I don't have to think about someone else waiting to use the washroom. It wasn't long that I was in the shower before I realized that I was at the end of the butane tank. Better hurry up or I would be having a very cold shower very shortly. I needed a shave too, that was full on cold, but at least I was starting to look presentable.

I raided the fridge for what was left of the carne and queso that we had bought in Rosario, so I wouldn't have just cereal for breakfast. Coffee and yogurt and I was starting to come alive. Gather my clothes off the line and get packing. 

Before I knew it I was done. Hit the cabana and get on the internet to send off my blog, get my luggage out by the van, and I was ready... 2 more hours before it was time to leave. Francine went for a run and got back, Colin and Gerrad went for a run and got back, haven't seen Heather yet. But at least the sun was coming out. It looked like it was going to be our warmest day in Spain. Last year almost every day was like this, that was probably my only disappointment of the trip, the weather did not cooperate. 

 

 View from the camp - Idle Breaks

 Gerrad and Colin finishing their run

After awhile Heather was up and packed and ready to go. A few of us took tours of the other cabins/rooms that we had not seen. They were all pretty well equipped. Then we filled the van and Andy took us to the airport. Francine was going to be dropped at a hotel since her flight leaves tomorrow, and Gerrad was heading to the railway station since his flight is out of Madrid tomorrow. We said our goodbyes and Colin, Heather and I headed for check-in. There we parted ways. I found the counter for Brussels Air, it didn't open for another hour. I sat on my suitcase, first in the Business class line, and read a magazine. Once I got checked in I had to go through the convoluted process of paying for my bike at a different counter, checking it through another counter, then coming back to the original counter to get my boarding pass. Nothing like making you run all around the airport and charging you 150 Euros for the privilege.

Finally got in through security and headed up the VIP lounge. It was a huge room that looked like it could accommodate 500 people, but only had snacks for about 30. Lucky there was only about 30 of us there. It was about 1:30 and I was starved. 

Munchies

The usual snacks were there plus coffee, beer, wine, spirits to mix drinks, a toaster, cookies, and olives. I worked my way through about half the list then settled down. No free wifi so I just worked on my blog. It was almost time to board so got myself uncomfortable and headed back out to where the rest of the folks wait.

I saw Colin on the way to the gate, he had to wait an hour before he could check in as well. And he still didn't have a gate number, 30 minutes before scheduled departure. Boarding was late because the arriving plane was late. We got out of there 30 minutes behind schedule. There is only one business class row on this flight, right at the bulkhead. I usually don't like those, but since there was no movie to watch it didn't matter. It was roomier. The seats were 3 and 3, but the middle in each row is kept empty. Lots of elbow room.

 

Departing Malaga

 Now that's a lunch!

They served a full meal on the flight, so I expect I will probably get more food on the next leg from Brussels to London as well. Arrival in Brussels was uneventful, had to take a bus to the terminal from the ramp, then transfer to the other terminal and go through border control and back in through security before finding the lounge where I could sit and munch on snacks, cheese and beer before the next flight, three hours before that one. I was in Belgium, so I had to have a Leffe beer, they had Stella but you can get that at every bar at home.

 

 Beer and cheese? Don't mind if I do.

Chocolate in Brussels

I took my time getting to my gate only to hear my name being called "Mr. Aspinall please proceed to gate 92 immediately..." And then I was running. The gate was to a bus, 15 minute commute to the plane! It was a quick one hour flight to London then ... wait. Lined up at customs about two rows back and watched the 2 customs agents check us through. 2 agents, about 100 travellers, before long some former resident Brit was complaining out loud and asking for a supervisor. Out comes the supervisor to give his "nightly speech" about how he can't change anything, everyone he's been given for the evening are working, if you want to complain there are cards here, or write you MP.

I wasn't supposed to get my luggage here as I had checked them through, but I went by the carousel anyway and there they were. I hauled my suitcase and bikebox over to the luggage counter who seemed a little surprised I wasn't looking for lost luggage, I wanted them to take my luggage! They took them to forward for tomorrow's flight, and I looked at my bags for what I hoped wasn't the last time...

Then the long walk began, "where can I get a bus to Travelodge Terminal 5?" "well first you have to get to Terminal 5" walking.... subway.... walking. Waiting for a bus, fast check in to the Travelodge, which is a very basic hotel. The room doesn't have a phone and the TV doesn't work. No bath, just a shower. What do you expect from a hotel crammed into the corner of an industrial park near the airport? Anyway, good enough for sleeping. 

 London at night, some exciting...

While waiting between flights I added up my total activity while riding in Spain: 861 kms, 36 hours and 20 minutes, 15,750 metres of climbing - almost 52000 feet of climbing!

Tomorrow is my last travel day, then home and back to reality. I hope the weather is decent, can't wait to ride again!

March 31, 2012

Day 11

This morning started like every other, except we were faced with our bike boxes outside the bike room, meaning they were ready for us to pack up at the end of the day. Sad to see those bike boxes...

Today we had planned a signature ride, head all the way into Malaga then climb back out on the Fuente de la Reina. A 16k climb that has appeared in the Vuelta a Espana and the Vuelta de Andalucia. There are names painted on the road, as we've seen on some other roads here in Spain. We certainly don't see that at home. It was a beautiful ride into Malaga, the sun showed a few glimpses, at least it wasn't very cold. The last 20 km into Malaga we saw all kinds of mountain bikers going up the hill and down, with race numbers on their bikes. There was a place where they were pulling off the road and hitting what I hoped were trails. It would have been pretty awful to do a race on mountain bikes that only hit pavement. 

 View on the road

Andy

We took our time during the descent knowing that the hard work was to come. I saw lots of views that deserved pictures but I didn't think taking pictures while descending at 40kph was a very good idea. We did see lots of cyclists on the road besides the mountain bikers. We probably saw more cyclists today than we have since we've been here. Just a couple of K before we got to the roundabout at the bottom where the climb starts we saw a group of cyclists who were all wearing the same jerseys. They looked kind of cool all together and looking like a team, we didn't think we'd see them again since they were already on their way up. Josh, a rider that Andy hires to ride with us, said they were Swedish.

We gathered at the roundabout and started seperately, Heather didn't even stop, she just went around and headed right back up. It didn't seem like it was a very long road coming down, but it was a whole different road on the way up. We sometimes worked together, but the climb was pretty long to do at someone else's pace, so there was a lot of yoyo-ing going on. Before we knew it we started to catch the Swedish riders, then we had passed them all. At least that made me feel good. The 16k climb conveniently ended at a coffee shop. We grabbed a couple of tables and Rick went in to order the coffees. 

 

 Cafe con leche

 Andy, Josh and Tim

 More coffee, with friendly service

The van was there too so we ate sandwiches too. Before long the Swedish riders pulled in and I went over to talk to them. They had just started riding in Spain two days ago, I had 10 days of riding in my legs, now I really felt good that I could climb faster then them.

Before long we were back on the road heading towards Colmenar. It was a beautiful ride along a rolling crestline, but it was getting cooler. There had been a few mentions of riding around the mountain on the way back, but the door was open for whoever wanted to do the ride or head straight home from Colmenar. I caught up to the rest of the riders at the fork in the road where we had to make the choice of less than an hour to get home, or about an hour forty five minutes. I was more than happy to head straight home, I already had 4 hours in today. But Rick wouldn't let me get away with it, and Jamie said "Last Day!" Before I knew it, I was doing the longer ride. Rick, Jamie, Colin and myself headed out for the ride around the mountain. Andy, who had been there with the van at the intersection, said he would take the van and whoever was in it home, then come out and meet us part way.

Rick promised it would be an easy pace, and for a while he kept his word. The biggest problem was that Colin had all kinds of energy. Jamie commented that the ride felt a little like a death march. We knew we signed up for more than we wanted. Around the mountain was a pretty nice ride, with a road that followed the contours, and had a very slight climb. Right up until we got to a climb called Lactate Hill. It hit me pretty hard. The name seemed to make sense, we had been slowly building lactic acid in our legs on grades of 1-4%, then the hill started and we were doing 8-9% for much longer than I wanted. It hurt, bad. Finally we were heading downhill, or more than we had been doing.  Soon we met up with Andy and hit a section of road we had done before, 22k downhill. I didn't feel like pushing it, and I knew the way home from here, so I let them go on ahead. They waited up for me after a bit and we took a little road through an orchard that brought us the back way into Rio Frio, and we thankfully stopped for another coffee.  Andy bought us coffee and some sweets, the energy stores were getting pretty low.

When we headed out from there Rick and Colin wanted to do more, MORE! I just wanted to be done. There was a choice of finishing with a flat or hilly ride, nobody wanted to hear from me, and we were on our way towards the quarry, down in and up and out. More climbing, wonderful. Andy held up a little so that I wasn't too far behind, but he also asked if I knew the way home from here. I would have been more than happy to let him go, but I still had something left so kept up, sort of.

Finally the end was in sight, I knew we were approaching Trabuca, just about 10k left. After we left Trabuca the speed picked up a bit and I knew Colin, Jamie and Rick were going to challenge for the gas station sprint. Rick, Andy and I got caught behind a bus leaving Rosaria, but Rick was able to gain some ground on the other two after the bus pulled away. I gave it what I could but finished fourth about 10 metres behind Rick. Four more K and we were home. 164.4 kms, 6:30 hours ride time, 25.1 kph average, 2950 metres of climbing, our biggest day. I was glad I did it, but more glad that I was home.

The happy gang

Shower, recovery drink, recovery beer, do some laundry, clean and pack my bike, then supper, with multi-tasking it was just enough time to get ready before supper. Supper was great: BBQ steaks and ribs with salad and bread. Wine with dinner of course as well. Dessert was some kind of tart/pie with ice cream. Andy had dinner with us which was a nice treat. 

 

 Ribs

 BBQ Steak

 Big salad

 Put it all together

 How embarrassing, same top!

 Dessert

 Richard auctioning off leftovers

We said our thank you's to Andy, Tracy and their daughter, and he thanked us for being such a great group. 

Tracy 

We weren't done yet, so we retired to the cabana and stayed up talking for a while and organizing the next day. This blog would definitely be lacking without some mention of the gas attacks being emitted by Dan, but closely followed by Tim this evening. Rick had been rooming with Dan and he could identify Dan's farts by the aroma since he had been exposed to them so much over the last ten days. Andy had earlier mentioned to me how much I owed Stephanie for not coming, because if she had come I would have had to room with Dan... I was very thankful.

So that's it, time for bed. Tomorrow is travel day. Yay.

March 30, 2012

Day 10

This morning some of us got to take it easy while the swimmers went to the pool in Trabuco. By the time they got back at 10, hitting the road at 11, it was much later than usual. For me it seemed to be just the ticket. I had a great day. We did a ride that was called the Express. It was a "Spain Flat" meaning not really flat, but as flat as you can get around here. We spent the first 55 minutes getting about 21 kms, all of it uphill and some headwind. We knew it would probably be a long day so we took it easy. When we came out of this little rural road onto a major road we turned left and went downhill for 22km - it was awesome!

We chugged along for another 25kms of rolling hills before we stopped for lunch and cafe con leche. Finally it was warming up and we were able to shed arm and knee warmers and jackets. 

 First stop - needed coffee

Chowing down

After lunch we formed a group and took our time. We formed a paceline and basically just kept a steady pace. I had passed Gerrad to grab onto the group of Roxanne, Dan, Jamie, Tim and myself. At some point we realized Rick wasn't with us, but we had seen that he was ready to go... Oh well, we were sure he'd get together with Gerrad for the ride to the next stop.

 Always hills

Andy was leap frogging us and had Colin, Erika and Francine in the van with him. Once we got close to Archidona, Andy directed us up a side street and said "Church of Pain." Francine and Erika had gotten out of the van to ride up the Church of Pain, and we could just see them ahead of us. Roxanne decided not to do it, she started the ride back home right away. The Church of Pain is a 2km climb up to a convent with an ascent of more than 200 metres, most of the grade was around 10-11% reaching as high as 18%. There are 8 switchbacks so you have a few chances to try different tactics to speed up your climb: Cut the corner and stand, sweep wide and try to flatten the corner, it was relentless. But it is essentially a driveway so there is no traffic and the pavement is in great shape. The views from the top are pretty spectacular. 

 Church of Pain

Erika finishing strong on the Church of Pain

After the Church of Pain, Tim climbed in the van. Francine and Erika headed home through the quarry and Andy held Dan, Jamie and myself back so they could get a lead on us. Once the three of us headed out through the quarry, which is a steep downhill then a long chug back uphill. On the way up we caught the girls and we held up at a pace that they could stay with us. This was a very nice change, I saw that my heart rate was 140 doing a 6% climb. If it was just the guys we would have been trying way harder. I wasn't the only one who noticed this, so we kept Francine and Erika with us until we got to Rosaria where Andy was waving them over to the van.  I knew that the gas station sprint was coming up, Dan signalled me "you want to do the sprint?" So we went for it. As it happened I was at the front until we were out of town, but I wasn't trying too hard. Dan came around me as we crossed the bridge on the edge of town and put the gas on, before I knew it he had 15 metres on me. I slowly reeled him in and just as we got to about 100 metres out I came up next to him and tried my best, but couldn't quite do it, Dan beat me by less than a foot. That was probably the last chance we had to do that sprint since we are going the other way tomorrow. Today's ride 105kms, 1800 metres of climbing, 4:15 ride time, about 25kph average. To thank us for pulling her back, Erika made tea for Dan, Jamie and I. It was a nice perk.

After we got back I still felt good enough to do the hot tub/cold tub thing to flush my legs, then a van load of us went into Trabuca to do a little shopping. 

 Tub of Pain

We went to the local Olive Oil factory and bought various items at ridiculously low prices, then went to the grocer to see what we could find. It was fun buying foreign junk food, wine and cheese among other things. The prices were pretty cheap compared to what we see at home.

Olive Oil Superstore

 

  My beer is bigger than your beer

Dinner was lasagna, or Tracy's version of it which is almost shepherd's pie with a few noodles thrown in, served with bread and salad. Dessert was apple crisp, pretty darn tasty. 

 Lasagna... ish

 Apple Crisp

Afterwards we sat around discussing our last day's planned ride. As it turned out Rick held a grudge with us for not waiting for him, so he wants to punish us with a six hour ride. We'll do the Malaga climb, then do Around The Mountain on the way back. Potentially it will be our biggest day. I better rest up.

March 29, 2012

Day 9

Today we are riding the Puerto Del Sol, a 7km climb that is a local riders test. There are about 23 turns on the way up the hill, and there are 1k markers painted on the road. As we were getting ready to go I heard some laughter from the girls' cabin, then all 4 of them came out wearing white lace stockings with little hearts on them, with their riding kit. Lots of posing commenced and the girls started their ride dressed just like that.

As we passed the gas station on the way to Rosario, Andy waved us in and said that we have company: The Spaniards had come out to play. Andy said their A team was here: I recognized all three of them from last year, including the one guy in the Spanish National Team kit with the Zipp 404s. We set off and the pace was already pretty high climbing out of the valley. I was in the third row and was thinking that this was too fast to have a decent climb later, so I sat up and let the other five pull away. That's when I realized that everyone behind me had already cut it back and we're spinning along a little easier. The weather was beautiful, lots of sun and very little wind. Soon I caught up with Dan who had drifted off the Spaniards as well. We rode together for a while until we caught up Gerrad, then we waited for the rest of the group since we were at an intersection. A few Kms later the Spaniards were waiting for us and we rode together at a much more accommodating pace until we approached the Puerto climb. 

The Spaniards didn't wait, they just took off and I never saw them again. We took a few minutes to strip off warmers and jackets to make the most of our climb, and we started separately and each timed our climbs ourselves. It was quite a climb, most of the grade was around 9%. It seemed to favour those who knew the climb, since you could gain some advantage by making the most of the lower grade areas. After what seemed like a never ending series of switchbacks I finally saw the 1k mark. So I turned it up and then saw the 500m mark, then before I knew it there was the van and it was over: 29 minutes 30 seconds. Not spectacular. Others were around the same time, most were better :(

 

After the climb we went looking for a coffee shop. The little town at the bottom of the hill was very small. We found the cafe at the town square but it was closed, participating in the general strike. We wandered the little streets and found another cafe/bar that was open. It was also very small, no room for us to sit inside, so we sat on the sidewalk and waited for our coffees. 

Gerrad went in to use the washroom and came out with the news that it was kind of a two man operation: the washroom door opened outward and the catch was on the outside, so if you wanted privacy you had to have someone guard the door for you. And the washroom had only a little sink and a little urinal - no toilet, no good for the women. But the girls had to go so they asked the barmaid; she took them next door to her house to use her washroom... small towns, amazing. As we sat outside we could hear a commotion from around the corner, next thing there was a herd of goats being walked down the narrow streets. Really small town.

The sky clouded over and the ride home was filled with cold descents and hot climbs. But it was a pretty good day. 101.5 kms, 1800 metres of climbing, average speed around 25kph, total ride time 4:05.

Dinner was my favourite from last year: Lamb Hocks. Great big knuckles of fall off the bone meat served with mashed potatoes, corn and green beans. My friends helped me out with the green beans, I just can't eat those things. Apple pie with custard for dessert. It was very good, everything I remembered.

 Lamb Hock dinner

Colin's dessert with double custard

After dinner we did the nickname choosing for the little wall plaques, and apparently if you already had a nickname it didn't matter, you get a new one every time you set a personal best. There was lots of fun, and a few bruised egos, but in the end what happens in Spain stays in Spain. So no nicknames will appear on this blog. I make no promises about Facebook :)

Tomorrows route will be another 100 plus day, with maybe 5000 feet of climbing, also known as "Spain flat." It's hard to believe that we are down to our last two days of riding, looking back it all seems so fast.

 Our little kitchen at Idle Breaks

March 28, 2012

Day 8

Today is our rest day. We stuck with our last plan from yesterday, which had us going to Malaga. It's only a 40 minute drive to downtown from here, so it's the easiest trip we could do anyway. Richard pointed out Paul Allen's big boat in the harbour, and we walked in to the shopping area of downtown and grabbed a couple of tables to start with cafe con leche before going our own way. The pastries looked pretty good so I had some of those as well. 

The plan was to meet back by the carpark at 2pm, it's now 11:30. I left my money for the coffee and headed off on my own. I had a tourist map and wondered how far I could get while still doing some shopping for souvenirs. Got lots of pictures of narrow streets, churches, a roman amphitheatre, and whatever else I felt like pointing my camera at. 

 

 Roman Amphitheatre

Got my intended shopping done, and was on schedule to meet everyone at 2pm. I was pretty thirsty for some beer, but I knew table service wasn't the quickest, so I just headed for the meeting spot. No one was there when I go there, I checked to see if the vehicles were still there, and they were, so I looked for beer.

There was a little cafe right nearby that had self-service beer and food plates. I got in line and was joined by Roxanne who just got there. Beer was 1 euro for a bottle or a draft, and food was 6 euros a plate. We sat down with beer first, then Roxanne got a plate of thinly sliced ham, then we were joined by Heather. I got more beer for us and a plate of breaded and spiced chicken, there still wasn't anyone else there at 2:30. At some point we realized that there was a beer special: bucket of 5 bottles for 3 euros! Roxanne went and got a bucket. Just then most of the others showed up and we shared the beers.

Next up was a drive to a coastal area called Torremolinos. We walked for about an hour on this big empty beach. It occurred to me that the weather today at the beach was the best you could hope for at Queensland beach, and it would be packed there. Here it was like a ghost town. Then the drive back home and a little more relaxation before our planned evening out for dinner in Villenuava del Trabuca, a little town about 7kms away. Some of us had a lot of sun, Heather had a very interesting pattern on her chest from a necklace that she had been wearing, she acted more than a little embarassed about it, but considering the biker tans that most of us will have, hers was more of a novelty than an aberration.

On the way to dinner we stopped at the local bike shop for some more roadie specific shopping. This bike shop is in a guy's garage, has about 20 bikes in it, and everything else behind the counter in his work stand area. Two carloads of us showed up at once and Pepe essentially let us have the run of his shop. We were all behind his counter, pulling jerseys out from under his counters, trying stuff on, handing it around, doing the best we could to find a few deals, or at least find something to buy that wasn't identical to something we could get at our LBS. By the time we were done we probably bought 25% of his clothing stock, and he'd paid his bills for the week.

Taking over Pepe's bike shop

Dinner was in a local restaurant where you ordered drinks at the bar first and had tapas before sitting down for the meal. 

 Tapas and beer

 Appetizers

We had reserved a table, but being Wednesday night we were pretty well the only guests. When it came time to order dinner we needed help from Nathalie, Andy's daughter, as the menu wasn't completely bilingual. Colin, Jamie and I ordered Paella to share, and we ordered a couple of platters of mixed starters. 

 Paella

Real Boar's Head

Needless to say there was wine flowing at the table. There was a lot of food, by God there was a lot of food. Everyone was sharing food from others plate's as they took a while to arrive. We were done eating all we could of Paella before Roxanne and Heather got there dinners at all. Roxanne had wild boar steak and Heather had roast chicken. No one ordered the meatballs made with pig brains... not sure why.

Andy had a little task for us during dinner: Since our little time plaques for his wall needed nicknames for everyone he handed out little pieces of paper and pens to all of us to come up with names. It got going kind of slowly, but as the wine flowed more and more little cards were filled out and stuffed in Andy's box. All to be voted on by best reaction on one of the following nights. Apparently our old nicknames won't do, we need new ones that mean more to people from the current camp.

Rick had taken a collection before dinner to pay for all of our meals and also for Andy, Tracy and Nathalie. He also warned us that Andy would insist on paying his own way. To settle the matter Rick challenged Andy to an arm wrestle; it was hard fought but Rick managed to take Andy down in a show of resounding inevitability - he wore him out.

It was midnight by the time we got back, and I hit the sack. Tomorrow is supposed to be another "flattish" ride, but we'll be climbing Puerto Del Sol which we can time if we want. It is also a general strike day in Spain, so we might see some local riders out, something we haven't seen much of since we've been here. Nothing like another timed climb!