Steve Cycles The World: S2 : Day 5 : Getting in to the groove ... then 4600ft

view from the mountain with no name

So we had just finished our well needed break day in Valencia, regrouping, resting our legs and cold bodies and spending a nice comfortable night in a hotel followed up by an early morning buffet. Things were really looking up as we also only had to put in 66miles. Compared to the first 3 marathon days, we thought this would be a breeze. We knew that we had a bit of elevation towards the end... we had done close to 4k a few of the other days, so banging out 4600 didnt seem like such a bad thing. What we didnt think about was that the 4600feet was gained in the last 30miles making it very extreme.

Not an elevation graph I ever want to see again. :)

Ride Statistics
Date ....................... Thursday January 11th 2018
Strava Link ................ https://www.strava.com/activities/1352202690

Departure Time ............. 7:58AM CET*
Departure Temperature ...... TBD
Time in Motion ............ 7:58:07 / 62%
Time at Rest ............... 4:50:59 / 38%
Total Time ................. 12:49:06
Arrival Time ............... 8:49 PM CET
Arrival Temperature ........ TBD

Total Miles Cycled ......... 67.5 mi
Total Elevation ............ 4,612ft

Steve Avg Pace|Max Speed ... 8.5 mi/h | 42.5 mi/h
Shruti Avg Pace|Max Speed .. 7.2 mi/h | 24.2 mi/h
Matt Avg Pace|Max Speed .... 9.4 mi/h | 31.3 mi/h **
* Central European Time

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

Full of buffet, rested and ready for an easy ride :)

As we headed out towards Banyeres de Mariola we had nice weather, no wind, sunny skies even though it was a bit chilly. There was a lot of selfie taking, we picked a few oranges and a persimmon. If you dont know what a persimmon is, like the rest of my bicycle teram, you can read about them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persimmon . I dont like them, but I figured that picking a fresh one off of a tree, maybe it would change my mind. It just made my mind up even more that persimmons are disgusting. :)

We made our first stop in Alzira, snacked on our manzana[apple] pastry, lattes and capuchino, more pastries, disgusting persimmon and blood oranges [ that freaked Shruti out a bit - she wouldnt try it. Who doesnt like blood in there fruit?? :) ] and then headed out towards our first climb of the day

The mornings in Spain had great sunrises and big skies. Was just fantastic.

sunrise Espana

Big skies and a mountain we would have to climb over

If we werent under a bit of a time constraint, i would have taken even more bike pix :)

I checked google maps to see what the first mountain was called, I was thinking it must be called mount diablo or mount destructo given how steep we thought it was. So I checked on google maps and strava and it turns out it was a good climb at 1300 ft, but no more than any other of the myriad of mountains in the area. The map is just littered with them!

heading to the first climb

Top O the mountain to ya

We came down in the city of Ontinyent. There was NO WHERE to eat in this whole town. I did a bit of a multi block scout mission and we had absolutely nothing, so we ended up at a gas station. We typically had good luck at the stations with fresh baked pastries, pretty good coffees and a place to sit, rest and replenish our supplies.

so happy eating Spanish donuts

i dont remember why we were pretending to be sad ... maybe because we knew there was a bit of elevation coming up or because these were the WORST cafe con leches we had. The lady was nice but the coffee tasted like it was a day old and filtered through a dirty sock.

After leaving Ontinyent, Shruti and I put on our **angry eyes** to pump ourselves up for our last climb. It somewhat worked and we made it over the climbv relatively ok.

Shruti's angry eyes look more like pure fear :P ...and mine look like a cross between tired and constipation :P

So we make it over the last climb and from Bocairent to Banyeres it is a bit of a downhill with some uphills sprinkled in before we have to almost climb vertically in to Banyeres and our airbnb which is basically on top of a mountain, and we hit gusting winds that stop me dead on my bike. My dad and Matt go up ahead and Shruti and I drop to the back splitting the team in to twos. I have no lights on my bike as they have both front and back have run out of power. So for the next 20kms we are basically hitting headwinds and trying to make it home. I would go about a mile and wait for Shruti, we would eat a piece of candy and then press on until the next 3 or so round abouts. We would do this for the next 90mins. At one point there was a really nice downhill and I had to pedal the bike as if I was going up a slight incline due to the winds. It was rough. I remember Shruti and I stopped and looked ahead of us and could only see a mountain and some lights and we were wondering if we would have to climb in to there to get to the hotel. Being positive I said "nahhh" ... but I was wrong and we did have an insane vertical climb. At one point it was so vertical I had to push my bike up.

Shruti and I finally made it ... the team was tired. We had a really good dinner where everyone was passing out at the table. :)

and tomorrow ...... 98miles :D

I didnt push the bike up this one. My face is for the disbelief that after such a hard day of climbing, we had to climb steep hills to get to our airbnb. I couldnt...but could believe the luck. =/

We made it ... we didnt always take finishing selfies... but this night we bonded as a team in trouble, pulled together and made it through. The smiles were that we made it. :) #adventurebug