Last 2 races

I've just done my last 2 races of the the year and managed 2nd place master 40 in both of them. The first was our clubs own pico de Estrella (tip of the star) a race straight uphill with a hilltop finish. A real tough one, you find yourself in the red the whole way just trying to stay with any kind of group. The second race was the VI copa De Dalias, a 14km climb followed by a very fast technical 14km descent, right up my street. I found myself climbing much better in this one and in a great position for the descent. I gained a couple of places on the way down but also lost a couple due to crashing quite heavily, but adrenalin got me down nicely to 9th o\a and 2nd master 40 with €30 prize money as a bonus.

Vamos tour

I have started the first steps planning our week tour (mini Vuelta, Andalucian raid, a week in hell) any name suggestions will be considered.

Day 1 will be a fairly flat run out of the eastern end of Las Alpujarras to Gador, a small town in the foothills of the Sierra Gador.

Day 2 is where we start climbing taking in 2 well used Vuelta ascents of Velefique and Calar Alto. Velefique is known as the alp du'huez of Andalucia due to the massive amount of hairpins, with both climbs being classed as cat 1 this will be a great day for climbing fans.

Day 3 will take us to Ubeda, a town well visited by Spanish and foreign tourists alike.

Day 4 Brings us from Jaen province back into Granada. A ride across the flattish plains of Granada

Day 5 We leave Guadix for a ride over the mighty 2000m Puerto De La Ragua before working our way back up the Alpujarra valley to Cadiar.

These are the firsts steps to planning our tour. When it appears on the main website it will be active.


day 5 guadix/cadiar 87.46 kms 1,960 meters climbed
day 4 ubeda/guadix 113.46 kms 1,745 meters
day 3 caniles/ubeda 129.61 kms 1,630 meters
day 2 gador/caniles 101.43 kms 2,624 meters
day 1 cadiar/gador 81.31 kms 1,170 meters

At last

I've been a bit slack on the blog front lately having been a bit busy. We are getting ready for a fairly quiet November and a bit of a rest before a busy Christmas and then a few months of winter training in the sun. We have more than doubled our numbers from last year which is great considering the current climate. I've got one more race this year which is put on by my club and involves racing up hill for 46km on a Mountain bike without the enjoyment of racing back down, very Spanish. We are trying to get another bedroom ready when we get a minute so we can sleep two more. We are also thinking of putting on a couple of tours next year as soon as I can search out the routes which will go out towards Almeria and maybe out around the Sierra Nevada to Granada.
I've also been busy loading a few photos to Flikr.

flikr

Sierra nevada climbs

Here are a few of my favorite climbs we do around the Sierra nevada, part of a new web page I'm compiling for our site, vamoscycling

Andalucian road race champs

Myself and my long time training and racing partner Tim decided to enter a round of the Andalucian road race champs a few weeks ago to try and take our racing up a level. The event was for master 30 with master 40 being invited. It was only a 60km race but included two large climbs which made staying together with any kind of peleton impossible. I tried to stay with the main group on the first climb but faded badly and had to start riding in survival mode far sooner than I would have liked. I finished as one of the stragglers with Tim not far behind realizing I would need a lot more work on my speed if I ever do another round. With free entry and closed roads for a 60km loop an event not to be sniffed at and well supported.

Sierra nevada limite road 2009

Myself and a few guests went to Granada last week to take part in the first limite road, a new sportive in Granada. The Saturday had us riding 202 km and 50 km up the pico veleta on the Sunday. One of our guests (Will, team synergy)rode the slightly shorter 95km route on the Sunday and got himself 4th o/a for the 2 day combined time. I got myself 11th o/a with Andy getting 16th and Paul coming in 30th which we all decided we thoroughly deserved. Sarah had another go at the Sunday and got herself as far as the ski resort before joining us for some paella. I am still undecided whether to take part in the long ride next year as it was very brutal with 15% ramps after cycling 180km but that will soon be forgotten. I'm off to do a round of the Andalucian road race champs tomorrow so will see how that goes.http://vueltaalconjuro.blogspot.com/

More Mtb'n

We are off to the 3rd round of the marathon champs this weekend to try and get some more points, which ain't easy. After that its only one week to the Sierrnevadalimiteroad which I think is going to be my toughest day on a bike yet.

Puerto De La Ragua report

I was feeling a bit to confident going into the race and didn't really allow for how much time I'd had off over the last few weeks and went off far to quick at the start and payed for it halfway up the first climb. I managed to calm down and get it back together getting in a descent size bunch to help me back to the finish and get home 6th in my category and 34th o/a so not all bad. I'm off to another round of the Andalusian mtb champs this weekend where I got 14th in the masters last year which I will be happy with again.

XIII SUBIDA AL PUERTO DE LA RAGUA

XIII SUBIDA AL PUERTO DE LA RAGUA
We are off to Guadix for the above race on Sunday. I had quite a good result last year so hoping for better this year. We ride over Puerto de la Ragua twice so its quite a tough one. I've got myself a new video camera to play with as well, so here's the first attempt coming down the Contraviesa.

11th Gran fondo La Sufrida

I took part in La Sufrida (the suffering) at the weekend in Ronda to see if we could take guests there next year. With 4,300 mts of climbing and 196km in length it was never going to be easy. 435 riders took to the line with nearly half doing the 117 km and the rest of us doing the longer 196 km. I got to the start line with 4 of my club mates to get our race passports stamped. We set off to a barrage of fireworks into the 20km neutral zone only for Andreas to get a massive slash in the sidewall of his tyre. As we where all together we all stopped to help but had to wait for the backup car which wasted us a good 20 mins. We worked together to try and catch the bunch but had to keep waiting for directions as the neutral zone wasn't signed. During a fast descent I was the only one who noticed an arrow off to the left which my club decided to ignore, as well as my shouts, and went straight on, at this point I decided to go it alone and just get my head down. I was ticking the miles off nicely passing people all the time but never catching any group to work with as the climbs had already split the pack. The heat was proving to be the usual problem as I was tipping more water over my head than down my throat which was giving me massive headaches on every descent, the fastest being 83km. At around 50km into the race we triggered another timing mat for the cronoescalada (uphill time trial), 13 km with 809 mts of height gain, very tough when you try and commit having never seen the climb. After that we had a huge descent before the relentless climbs back to the finish. I got home 64th o/a and 31st in my catagory not even achieving a bronze time, so unfinished buisness and back next year hopefully with a full house of guests to suffer with. 8000 calories burnt and 8 lts of fluid drunk and around 3kilos of weight lost told me how tough it was. The winning average speed of 32kmh also explains only half a dozen gold times.