Category: Personal

I left Complejo Touristico La Pinada at just before 9am after breakfast. It was a fast ride down to the coast through the gorgeously scented orange groves, the small oranges are a bit sharp to eat 🙂 Valencia seems to starts miles away and has a complex series of bike paths so it was well over an hour before I finally I reached the “Do You Bike” shop.

The guy in the shop said he would replace the spoke whilst I had a coffee across the road unfortunately he didn’t have a spoke the right length 🙁 However, I’ve been carrying a spare spoke for years so one coffee later the job was done 🙂

Next on the agenda was a ferry ticket, so I biked down to the Trasmediterranea terminal to get a ferry.They had one sailing at 10pm reaching Ibiza at 5am unwisely I didn’t book a cabin 🙁

Next job was to find the closest hotel to the terminal as I will be returning with Sally (no Easyjet/Ryanair flights from Ibiza in November) so she will have to return to the UK from the mainland. The hotel closest to the port is hotel Marina Atarazanas so I booked a room for us on booking.com, the receptionist said it was cheaper that way.

I then spent some time biking around the transport terminals of Valencia to see if there is any  straightforward way of getting to the Castellon Airport, simple answer is no. Anyway I then discovered that Ryanair also flies from the main Valencia airport with its 15min bus service to the city centre! A wasted 30 minutes on the Ryanair chatline now means that Sally can either fly from Castellon in the morning or Valencia in the late evening 🙂

After all that a visit to the beach was called for and a drink to while away the time before the ferry, Fascinating fact that n Valencia there are several  river bridges which no longer cross a river. How weird.

The crossing was smooth but my sleep certainly wasn’t I arrived at 5am to a deserted town, feeling wrecked. I rode around and eventually found the catamaran terminal had a coffee shop 🙂 At 9am I thought I would give the Hotel Lai IBZ a try, amazingly they let me have my room, a quick shower and I was asleep 🙂

Later I explored the old town which is really very pleasant and I found an ironmongers shop as well to get a bolt for my light plus finding Can Manola a bike rental place so Sally can rent a bike when she is over later this month.

The place is winding down for the end of season but I discovered Pacha had a gig on starting at midnight so I bought an amazingly expensive ticket and went to bed again 🙂

The gig itself was disappointing, one thing I can’t stand are bad sound systems, having spent my youth building power amps and sand filled loudspeaker enclosures I just hate resonances when the ceiling starts rattling and putting stuff on loudspeakers so they rattle is just awful. The drinks are a staggering price too. No wonder Pacha own hotels & retail stores.

So after 48 hours I finally went to bed at 3am 🙂

The 18.6 miles to Valencia is on Strava here

A few pics are on Dropbox here

Still trying to work out how to get past heart rate data 🙁

I must have been tired! I didn’t wake up till 8.15 and then the Blaze decided it’s battery was empty after 6 days use 🙁  So I at to hang around to give it some electrons and then unbelievably after I was ready to go I discovered I had packed my cycling socks right at the bottom of the saddle bag 🙁

Eventually at 9.42 I started biking after a coffee and croissant next door. It was pretty well straight into a 500 foot climb out of Pamplona. I soon found myself with the juggernauts on the N-121 certainly not my idea of fun 🙁 DEfintley a fail on the cyclena.ps plug in routing software, obviously way to simplistic. After 10 miles I pulled in and set the maps.me app to work, it might take 5mins to grind away but it came up with a route down a stony track to a delightful village and then on quiet roads until Villafranca where I took some of the GMaps Koolaid to find myself on 10 miles of stony tracks by the river.

It wouldnt have been so bad except earlier on I suddenly though I hadn’t seen my pump for a while 🙁  I inspected the bike to find not only the pump was gone but its plastic mounting bracket had sheared off 🙁 Probably up that big hill yesterday when my foot slipped out of the cleat 🙁  So I was now really worried to be on a stony track miles from anywhere 🙁 Fortunately all went well and there is even a Specialized shop right next to the hotel in Tudela so a new pump was purchased and now kept in my bar bag 🙂

An excellent biking day overall apart from the wretched South wind in my faee all afternoon with the temperature hitting 30deg according to one sign.

The Tudela Bardenas is excellent with an awesome shower, Dinner is only served after 8.30pm the meal itself was very nouveau in portion sizes but very tasty. The price is incredibly reasonable too 🙂

Strava says I did 64.8 miles and 1598 feet of climbing

The photos on Dropbox here

and what a delight to be on real internet with 44 meg upload speeds 🙂

and nearly forgot the heart rate,the Blaze decided not to capture first hour 🙁