We don't get climbs like these in the UK

Blimey, pooped.
125 k. That's all.
Span down the highway towards Motril and turned off
just before I fell into the sea.
38 minutes later was at the top of the first climb.
A super quick descent got me to the t junction at
the bottom just 4 minutes later. Wow.
So then to business. The climb up to 1200m doesn't
half go on a bit - one hour thirty nine minutes in
fact. Sod Crag Vale, this is the new test when you're
next down this way.
The descent off the other side wasn't as descendy as
would've liked. Though the last bit down to the
motorway was long and swoopy.
Caught up with a Spanish chap from Pinos after much
effort after Durcal. He was riding a lovely gold
Orbea - that's about as far as it went as neither
of us spoke each others language. I must try harder.
Got taken back to Si & Em's for tea which was nice
and saved me from cooking.
Will see if my thumb is useable tomorrow before
helping out with the Irish downhillers on Sunday.
Fingers crossed.

Spanish exploration

Day 9 - off relatively early towards Granada. Turned off a while before
getting there and headed up into the countryside. Past the sound of
shooting and keep on climbing. All the way to 1200m or thereabouts
between Sierra de Chaparral and the stunning spiky peaks of de Sierra
de Tejida. We lost most of the mornings climbing shortly after that as
we hurtled towards the sea, turning off before Motril to grunt over a
super steep but thankfuly short climb towards Molivar. Short by Spanish
standards that is. Dropped down to the main road to hit a coffee stop
before a steady 'undulating' route back to Motril. Another ice cream steeled
us for the last few k back to the cortijo. Tomorrow we'll continue the search
for more routes to quell the rumour that this area doesn't have enough riding!

sunny days!

Before we go any further we must announce that this ride is sponsored by the stoats of the doldrums, or maybe that's too local a reference... or maybe it's not even a stoat but he was very cute and not camera shy at all!


In view of all the sunshine bouncing around we abandoned the planned road ride in favour of a spin to the ice cream van in Todmorden. We'll always ride for ice cream. Another nail in the road ride's coffin was the arrival of a new camera. Haven't had any retail therapy in ages and cracked big time.

Even though I was glad of the gears on Monday's epic with Jon there's nothing like the grunt and grind of a good singlespeed ride. Especially around the cobbles of Todmorden...



Here's Shona looking for a repeat of the stoat show, one rider and her bike...



B-Side on the moor after Littleborough...



Ice creams in Walsden. Probably the only place someone would shout 'nice bike, love!' out of a white van to someone on a singlespeed, 650b bike. We were only 50 yards or so from Brant Richards' house though, that could explain a lot. Me, AKA Mr Whippy.

As ever we did the ride the wrong way round. Either we need to think about gradients a bit more or councils should just sign the trails correctly!Nearly home now,