The final day of a 1,400km ride with just shy of 21,000m ascent. Will it be an emotional end to an epic trip? Will Amanda throw her bike into the ocean?
Catch-up:
Granada – Torrox Costa
- 105km
- 1,500m
Today is the roadie equivalent of an uplift day, only there was no lift, we just did the ascent yesterday. In some circumstances I’d dread a 100km descendulation, but we’re headed for the south coast of Spain so I doubt my usual worries of being too cold are an issue.
The part of today that I’m most excited about is riding down Carretera de la Cabra. I’ve ridden this road before, but I naively made sure it was an impossibly hard ride that time. On a previous trip to the south coast we headed out for a ride with local ex-pats cycle club that call themselves The Coasters. Party pace social riding unless otherwise stated, and this was a party pace ride to a cafe in Almunécar via the old coast road. One of these guys is 76 years old with a heart condition, so when I ordered myself a salad I wasn’t concerned about the 20km return ride, I was more focussed on staying hydrated as temperatures were approaching the mid-thirties. My salad didn’t prepare me for Brad (triathlete trained up for an Ironman) and Rhys (you know all about him) taking me on a detour up a 36.7km road with 1,304m height gain. I can honestly say I don’t remember the descent back down it that day.
Anyway, back to the task in hand: Getting Angry John and Happy John packed up and back on their bikes with slight hangovers from their big day out in Granada yesterday. After a lot of faff, we’re on our way. Our ride begins with a steep descent away from the apartment, navigating one way systems through the city and trying our best to stick together. Me and Rhys are in sync after a fortnight of riding together. He can predict which roundabouts I’ll hesitate at, which corners I’ll want to take slower, and he’s well aware that I forget to drop my gears on approach to red lights, so he can’t set off from them too fast as I’m using my full body weight to force the cranks around, shouting ‘ahh I forgot to change down again’ whilst he shakes his head. The Johns are finding their place, either forming a nice sensible 2 x 2 formation, or blitzing off ahead, forgetting we’ve ridden over 1,200km at this point.
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We’ve only just left Granada when we decide to stop for espressos. There’s no urgency today and it’s the most wonderful feeling after two weeks of stressing about falling behind schedule.
From the espresso stop, there’s roughly 30km of ascent that I hadn’t accounted for, but the added company and nearing the end makes it seem achievable. We have an American called Josh join us for a while, who has a jersey that says Live, Laugh, Lose across the back. Me and Angry John are sharing a really tasty packet of sweets he bought yesterday, but they’re in my snack pouch so he can’t stray too far from me, meaning we’ve buddied up for the day and it’s really nice being able to talk about the trip whilst it’s still happening. Maybe him being a part of it will inspire him to do more credit card bike packing with all his free time.
We finally make it to Carretera de la Cabra and it’s as beautiful as I remember it being. The most significant view is the sea, which despite still being a long way away actually looks within reach.
We take our time on the descent, riding sections and then regrouping to gawp at the view and adjust our layers. Once we’ve reached sea level it’s just a 20km coastal ride to the apartment, and what I had imagined would be an emotional moment is quite an anticlimax. I think the familiar roads for the past couple of hours have made the trip end in my mind before we actually reached the end. Maybe I just need a big sleep and a few days to reflect on what we’ve achieved.
