Off the road again

Day 9 - Monday 13/09/2010 - Matillas to Aranjuez - 92 Miles

Breakfast at the hotel was as good as supper the night before, most left around 8:30 while it was cool, but I set off last (that's a surprise) at around 9 with Guy, Tim S, Andy B (now affectionally known as Brown Bear) and Hannah, who had been given the morning off by David as the first place to shop was at the stop in Guadalajara. We had a reasonably hard but very pleasurable climb out of the valley, getting great views of the surrounding area, although we did then come upon a switchback climb, where we could call out to those quite a way ahead of us as they were only a few hundred feet above us.

After the climb, the route pointed us down a closed road, there was a car coming the other way, at one stage it looked like it was going to drive into us, then it slowed down, but just not enough to stop it tapping the plastic barriers in the middle of the road and then stalling. It was a scene out of some comedy programme, we almost expected smoke to come out in the engine bay and one of the doors to fall off.

We continued along the "closed" road, for a few miles, enjoying a sweeping decent where we all got to speeds of well over 40mph, Andy B getting over 50 !! However, at the end of this decent we came upon a workman who informed us the road ahead was closed and we had to got 8km back the way we came. We had a little think and then decided to dash through as a group, which did not seem to please the young lad too much there you go. The road was not too bad initially, we came across some heavy machinery blocking the road, but the workmen pointed us onto a ramp and we were off again, until a man in a white van stopped, got out and waved us down then gave us a lecture in the finer points of Spanish. We thought this was the end, but he then drove off leaving us to carry on !!

Andy rides Hannah's bike

The going was a bit muddy, as the builders were there was some tricky riding, we had to stop at one stage to clear clay off Andy B's bike but no real issues until 20 just meters before we got onto the proper road, when Andy B had a blow out. We were just outside a village, as Hannah was wearing trainers, she carried Andy B's bike into the town while we found a park that had a tap where we could fix the bike in the shade and wash the clay off all our bikes.

This delay cost us an hour and by the time we got to the van, the rest had left over half an hour before us. After a short stop. we left Hannah with David and travelled at speed to try and make up time, running four in a row, we averaged 21/22mph eventually passing Caroline about 5 miles out, just before we hit a nasty climb with some vicious switchbacks, when combined with the heat it was really hard work and we got well spread out, with Tim bringing up the rear.

Back on the relative flat, we were again four in a row, travelling at speed, passed Caroline about 5 miles out of the lunch stop, where we arrived at about 3:30, finding most of the group there, with the others (save Caroline) turning up a few minutes later after they had taken a wrong turn in the town.

This was all the shade we could find - almost 40 degrees !!

Norm has an idea for
keeping out of the sun

At lunch it was very hot, so the four of us did not stay too long, but less then a mile out we again hit some dirt tracks, fortunately these only lasted for a mile or so and we were back on proper roads. We came across Mike S fixing a puncture, plus Pete, David P, Barnaby and Jamie, plus Roger Brooks who had cycled from the airport, having got Derek Noble to take his bike bag and cases to the hotel for him!!

Mike's puncture fixed, we set off along with Mike, Jamie and Roger, having a nice ride to a bar, where we got some cold drinks before setting off for the final run to the hotel.

Roger was leading us out and we caught a Spanish rider who joined our group, we were making a solid pace, averaging around going 21/22mph, but when this Spanish guy took the lead, he took us up to 27/28 mph, some of us were hanging on by a thread and the group split just before we got to a turning where he left us with a smile and a wave, we regrouped and rode the last 4 miles to the hotel .