Thursday's ride from Montefiore to Alhama
Last night's stay in Montefiore was unmemorable; the hotel was OK, nothing in the town. We all ate dinner at the hotel; it was a night off from dinners included in the trip. OK, today's ride was unbelievable. It started with a 3.5 k climb; most of the people stopped after .5k to take a picture from a viewpoint. I kept going. I need a warm up time! It was hard to do this first thing in the morning. Then came the 9k descent. I was not the last one in, but close. But, I am getting more comfortable. It was really quite stunning, as long s I didn't look over the side of the road! We then rode through some ugly industrial areas, which sort of reminded me of Mexico. But it was sorta flat. We got on a service road of a freeway and were going to eat a a highway rest stop, but it was closed. On we went, to a little cantina in a gas station; the woman ran out of bread making us sandwiches. Then the fun began. We did a *17k*, (10 mile?) climb. Not super steep, but still. The first 6 were harder and then it flattened out a bit. We used our strategy of slow but steady. At 15k I felt a little nauseous and my sit bones were screaming, but, I got to the top and then there was a 5-6 mile descent. At one point, I felt water hit my glasses and realized it had just stopped raining. The roads were wet, so I slowed. But the cloudiness and breeze made the climb bearable.
We rode up a 14% grade street to get to our hotel; this is the comapny's headquarters, so we left our bikes there.
Off to dinner.
