Europe Archives - Page 7 of 15

Motril Beach to Malaga – Living the dream day 25,314

Posted on November 16, 2016November 16, 2016

Living the dream I certainly am 🙂 Waking up, packing, having a toasted baguette covered in liquidised tomatoes and a long black coffee. Hoping on the bike in warm sunshine and away for another day in the saddle.

The day started as it usually does with a roller coaster of 400 foot+ hills then straight down to a beach and up again! rinse and repeat for 27 miles and you have your 1 mile of ascent 🙂

The road was quite busy with traffic since the coast is now getting built up, the greenhouses have been replaced with thousands of white houses all soaking up the sun on this the Costa del Sol. None of the places I went through took my fancy at all, just huge holiday towns.

The Acueducto del Águila (Eagle Aqueduct) at Nerja, is truly amazing to see, just think of all those bricklayers 🙂 there is its history here

Lots of cyclists out today including families, on the flat section near Malaga and I saw my first tourers, but going the other way 🙁 so no time for a chat.

I’m at the Hotel Zeus tonight in Malaga centre close to the rather posh train station. The WiFi doesnt quite make it to my room so I’m in the lobby listening to some weird Spanish comedy show.

Strava on the iPhone worked perfectly today, whether it was the recent iOS update or the maps.me recent track feature that was causingthe problems I don’t know 🙁

So I rode 59.3 miles and climbed 5,238 feet most of it in the first 25 miles. The average speed was 11.2mph, pulled down by all the traffic lights and stops in the town centres.

The pictures of the day are on Dropbox here

Aquadulce to Motril (El Varadero) – Lifeday 25,313

Posted on November 15, 2016

Another glorious day and a 600 foot hill climb to start with. However, today the North wind blew me along 🙂 still amazes me how much the wind helps against gravity.

I love Spanish roundabouts featuring sculptures and works of art. Todays had a very Moorish feel to them, the Moors were kicked out in 1492 apparently 🙂 The road quietened down after Adra and became a gorgeous coast road with lots of short climbs and swooping descents and a few tunnels. I couldn’t help thinking about the vast cost building it only to be redundant once the A-7 motorway was built. Anyway it makes a great cycle track 🙂 Also fascinating to see the sequence of bridges with the various road reconstructions, certainly pleased it’s all finished must have been hell during construction,

The other fascination for me was that there are no orange groves anymore, replaced with thousands of acres covered in mesh greenhouses growing tomatoes, peppers etc etc They have even terraced the hills with them. Exporting the Spanish sun in tomato paste 🙂

I arrived in Motril to find there is a ferry to Tangier here leaving at 4pm costing €24 for me and the bike. However, it arrives at 1am which is a strange hour to arrive in a new place. So I continued to my hotel.

I thought I was going to have a similar problem to last night 🙁 I think it’s my pronunciation of ‘reservation’ thats doing it. However, The Hotel Estrella Del Mar quickly sorted it out, for the price its good although I think what you pay for in more upmarket places are thicker walls & ceilings 🙂

Strava makes it 63.3 miles and 3,108 feet of ascent at 11.7mph

The Dropbox pics are here

track_2016-11-15-160819

Carboneras to Aquadulce – Lifeday 25,312

Posted on November 14, 2016November 14, 2016

First picture of me on the trip - thanks Cyclist Mag — First picture of me on the trip – thanks Cyclist Mag

The first 17 miles or so were pretty tortuous for me with seemingly a never ending climb to 900 feet made worse because I had forgotten to fill up my water bottles 🙁 Excellent scenery though, once you leave the cement works & power station behind in Carboneras, and quiet roads

Just after Fernan Perez I heard a group of cyclists behind me (first time on this trip) and unbelievably they were speaking English 🙂 It turned out it was a group from the Cyclists magazine in London out on a jolly with a local cyclists club. I had a very interesting chat with Pete Muir their Editor, they then all shot of on their uber lightweight bikes. I continued on up the hill that had a 10% sign on it, although t felt way steeper. Imagine my surprise as I started down the other side to find the group having a group shot at the Mirador Las Amatistas, they cooly invited me into the shot, so who knows I might make a guest appearance in Cyclists Mag 🙂

The day wore on a bit after that excitement but eventually a Repsol petrol station hoved into view so I could get a drink and fill the water bottle up, then it was on to Almeria where I stuck to the lovely cyclepath along the sea front so didn’t see the city at all. It was a bit of a shock to get on the exceptionally busy road out of town, compounded by the right lane I was in peeling of to a motorway thus making me cross it to get on the coast road, times like that make me realise why I like biking on my own!

The coast road has loads of tunnels 🙁 but no steep gradients so pretty good except for the traffic. I eventually found the Hotel Mirablau and its very miserable guy who refused to believe I had a booking, even after showing him the email from booking.com. Eventually I phoned booking.com where upon he miracolously found his printed email.

I didnt have much success with food in the evening either, with my first attempt turning into nouveau cuisine – tasty but very small dishes. My second attempt was worse as I failed to pick up on the Spanish word lomo – another word for bacon (loin) so the menu now has bacon, jamon and beicon, work that out.

Strava made it a 58.8 mile day with 2,895 feet of ascent all done at 11.2mph 🙁

The pictures on dropbox are here

Lorca to Carboneras. Lifeday 25,311

Posted on November 13, 2016November 13, 2016

Yet another excellent days biking. I must be getting fitter or the going is easier as I seemed to be going over 16mph most of the time and I only had to go into lowest gear once for one of the hills. OK the first 30 miles I lost 1000 feet in altitude so maybe it was gravity making me feel fit 🙁

The breakfast at Hotel Felix was very basic a coffee and croissant only 🙁 The roads were very quiet and I only saw a couple of cyclists all day. Just outside Purias there was a white van pop up market so I grabbed myself a banana later on I found a cafe and had a bocadillo & queso (I had to write it on a napkin because they just laugh at my attempt at saying it).

If your camper van isnt big enough get a trailer

I eventually hit the sea at Playa Quitapellejos where I had a smile at the enormous camper homes parked with their huge trailers. I will now be doing the ‘Costa’ all the way to Tarifa. My first experience of meeting the ex-pats (UK represent 0.6% of Spains population apparently) where a couple where doing their sunday shopping – a bag of ice, litre of gin and litre of tonic water, maybe they had lemons in the garden! I don’t think I could ever live in an estate like Los Marinas but a flat in Garrucha city centre…

After Macenas the climbing began with a couple of peaks over 500 feet, I love these climbs 🙂 the only problem for me is getting down my mind is constantly working out what would happen if the brakes failed going around the hairpins 🙁 Fortunately I made it down OK into the quiet pretty village of Carboneras and the Pension Las Palmas and its very jolly lady who had a good laugh as I tried to follow her Spanish instructions where to put the bike.

The Garmin Etrex and Strava made it 58.2 miles and 1,757 feet of climbing all done at an average of 12.9mph, understated as I pushed the bike around the market and beach car park.

The Strava app and the Moves app just do not like each other at all, Strava cuts itself off and then draws a straight line whilst the Moves app cuts off at very frequent intervals. But who do you report it too? impossible to get email addresses to file reports too 🙁 I guess it’s beginning to expose the limits of having one device do everything.

The days pics are on Dropbox here more to follow, its a painful WiFi connection