Spain Pilgrimage and Bike Tour: Bike Ride Day 5

June 2, 2016

Today was our most scenic day of riding, but also our hardest, as we rode across the Sierra Morena mountains and through the Parque Natural Sierra Norte de Sevilla. I have no idea what our total elevation gain was for the day, but some of our climbs were on roads with at least a 7% grade.

After breakfast this morning we shuttled to Guadalcanal, about a 2 hour drive from Merida, which meant we didn't start riding until @ 10:30. Our daily route sheet estimated it would take us 5.5 hours to ride 40 miles at an average pace of 7.5 mph (for those non-riders out there, a pace this slow means one is going to be climbing some significant hills!).

Our ride started off with an exhilarating 5.5 mile descent only to turn into a 2.5 mile ascent back to the same elevation (to paraphrase the old saying.....what goes down must come back up). Add to this the fact that by now it was already in the mid-eighties and it all made for a GRUELING ride (and this was just the first, albeit the steepest, but not the longest, hill climb of the day)! The only reward was that we now had rolling hills and another long downhill to our picnic lunch at shady Isla Margarita alongside a cool river. After lunch, it was back out to the blazing afternoon sun for a 10 mile climb along an old train right of way, which made for a fairly easy climb.

I had thought after this last climb we had a few rolling hills, but that the terrain was mostly downhill. WRONG! We had two long, steep hill climbs that just about did me in. The whole time I was climbing I was sure Rich would end up walking these last hills. He was a trooper, though, and stayed on his bike for both hills. Not sure if it was all the hill climbing or the heat or simply that we've been on our bikes for 5 days straight (or a combination of all three), but everyone was done in by the time we all got to our destination. Hope tomorrow's ride is a little easier.