Steve Cycles The World: S2 : Day 3

Double the packs - anything for the team!

The trip from Peniscola to Valencia started just before 8am. I had spent 2 hours the night before cleaning and lubing everyone's breaks, chains and derailleurs. I think I finished at 1am[ or later ] The start of the trip had dealt us two really tough days and I was determined to try and make my team's 3rd day as successful and painless as possible. We were in a state of survival at this point and we needed to get to Valencia in one piece for a well deserved break day and a regroup on how we tackle the rest of the trip. I figured if i could take out all the squeeks and annoyances from the machines carrying us over the finish line, it would improve the moral. At the start of the ride it absolutely worked. I kept asking them to try to drip it in their thinking, that the bikes were functioning better, and they were - after all I couldnt make it much worse after all the rain and mud. :)

Castillo de Peñíscola - was super impressive. Didnt get a chance to see it up close, but it was awesome

As we rolled out of Peniscola things were going well. We then hit Parc Natural de la Serra d'Irta which was absolutely gorgeous, but gave us an up and down start to the 3rd day that broke one of us. Before we get in to that, some of our stats:

Ride Statistics
Date ....................... Tuesday January 9th 2018
Strava Link ................ https://www.strava.com/activities/1349228802

Departure Time ............. 7:57AM CET*
Departure Temperature ...... TBD
Time in Motion ............ 9:27:51 / 70%
Time at Rest ............... 4:07:23 / 30%
Total Time ................. 13:35:14
Arrival Time ............... 9:32 PM CET
Arrival Temperature ........ TBD

Total Miles Cycled ......... 91.8 mi
Total Elevation ............ 3,350ft

Steve Avg Pace|Max Speed ... 9.7 mi/h | 28.6 mi/h
Shruti Avg Pace|Max Speed .. 6.8 mi/h | 24.4 mi/h
Matt Avg Pace|Max Speed .... 10 mi/h | 34.0 mi/h **
* Central European Time
** Matty seems to have missed about an hour on Strava

Tour Statistics
I decided to be extra nerdy and keep a cumulative running total of some key stats. :)
Total Time in Motion ....... 27:35:32 hh/mm/ss
Total Time on Road ......... 41:33:13 hh/mm/ss
Total Miles Cycled ......... 247.1 mi
Total Elevation ............ 10,881 ft

The traditional morning selfie. The tradition lasted through each day from this and the ride in India

So we started the trek through the park and immediately were hit by very big climbs in terms of gradients. A few of the hills were so vertical, and the bikes were weighed down with our gear, we had to push the bikes up. If we had not had to carry the packs, i think a few of the ones we pushed the bikes up we could have ridden through. At this point since we were going up and down, I thought it was best to teach Shruti the art of the hill climb, or as I usually hit them. I'm sure people have different strategies, but these are the ones that work for me:

1. Get as much speed as possible on the highest gear as you can prior to the hill. Momentum will help carry you at least partially up the other side. I'm not going to get in to the potential and kinetic energy equations, but you get the point.

2. As you are peddling up the incline, a bit before you feel it getting tough, flip the front big ring down to the next.

3. As you are peddling up and after you have flipped that first ring, start down shifting the rear derailuer
4. If all else fails, start zig zagging up the hill. It will reduce the gradient of the incline and make it easier to get up the hill. It will increase the overall length, but you will be able to make it.

Powering up those Spanish mountains and
cheesin' before her fencing match. Baklava :)

There are a few other techniques, but this seemed to work for Shruti as she powered up the hills consistently from that point on. Some other cool links on the park that I found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Park_of_Serra_d%27Irta

Nice article on Serra d'Irta: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/secret-garden-explore-valencias-sierra-de-irta-1667123.html

We made it out of the parc and while on our way to Torreblanca, Shruti was starting to show some signs of wear and tear due to the packs and continuous head winds. After Torreblanca, I offered to carry the majority of her bags. I was determined to get us all over the finish line and in to our rest day. On our way to Benicassim there was the largest uphill of the day, clocking in at 382ft. This combined with headwinds seemed to be the final straw for the day. We rolled in to Benicassim, a really fantastic downhill that I gopro'd, videos yet to be downloaded. Shruti made the decision to call a taxi from there, which was the right thing to do for her and for the team. We had quite a bit of mileage to go [ 93 for the day ] and with the sunlight running out, we wouldn't have made it otherwise.

After Shruti told me she was going to take a train the rest of the way I told her we have to take one "last known photo" of her, just in case. She told me we should take one of me for the same reason! =P

So we left Shruti to relax and grab a train to Valencia, I left her a bag of my stuff so I didnt have to carry it as well. My legs needed it after double packing it for about 20miles. I didnt realize how much of a toll the extra weight had on me until we rolled in to Valencia and I was wiped.

Orange poachers of Valencia!

So my dad, Matt and I put it in to overdrive and headed out of Benicassim. The goal was to shoot along the N-340, which would become our go to road for a lot of the trip, and get in to Valencia as early as possible. As we made our way out of the city, we passed tons and tons of orange groves and sampled a few oranges. As the sun was setting, we made one final stop at a gas station[ i think it was in NUles ] and pigged out on pastries, snickers bars and a red bull. We were heading in to fierce wind with loaded bikes and legs that had 2 days of pain. I checked mywindsock.com and we had 80% headwind for the day... it felt like `120% :P

mywindsock.com analysis ... damn you Headwind!!

So as we road face down in to the wind, I thought to myself, why dont we try to draft? I had never done it before, but I figured with the 3 of us, maybe we could muscle it out. Matt and I gave my dad a break [ i hate to see a man cry :) ] and we took the brunt of the rotations. Checking back at the stats from mile 40 onwards we definitely were in the range of 10-15mph the remainder of the ride. I honestly believe, and I probably always will that the combination of a snickers bar and redbull + Spanish pastries gave us the energy to power through. :)

If you are feeling extremely nerdy and would like to see the speed analysis, you can find it here: https://www.strava.com/activities/1349228802/analysis

So we finally made it to Valencia, the city proper, and we thought we were done. Little did we know that the hotel was on the opposite side on the outskirts/suburbs. I had to drag my body the remaining 6-10miles, i dont even know at this point to the hotel. It was painful to say the least, between the morning climbs, carrying the extra bags and then taking a long session of the wind breaking during the draft, I was wasted. It is probably the most tired physically I have ever been from riding a bicycle. When i did 104miles in India that was a pain too, but there was no elevations, just insane wind that would stop me in place!

I dont think i had ever been so hungry
or tired. I was wiped out
and the buffet in Valencia
was a perfect ending.

We roll in to the hotel finally and find out that Shruti is still not there! We left her about 5.5 hours earlier and assumed she would be there. So now we had the added worry of navigating her back to the hotel. She had multiple train tickets that got cancelled and she finally made it to the city. Cabs wouldnt take her because of the bike so she managed to recreate our trek through the city and made it to us safe and sound! We were all there, safe and sound and filled up from a buffet. I dont think I have ever been so hungry, ate so much and still not been full. We all slept well that night and would be enjoying a nice, well deserved break day the next day. We needed to get mentally ready, physically ready, tend to our wounds as we had 5 days of cycling until the next break!