One challenge at a time

Day 5... Breathe in... My last whole day in Monachil and I was slightly undecided what to do... as in I was so spoilt for choice that it was hard to choose just one thing! I decided to hedge my bets and threw the bike into the car. As usual first glance outside and the skies were blue... promising another astoundingly hot day. I set off back towards the forest... only again I would drive further to the parking place I had seen near the end of my last ride. I bounced around the gravel roads... taking in all the scenery... breathe in... I parked up and now came the choice... bike further down the road I had turned back on the other day... or ditch the bike for a day and head off into the foothills along one of the myriad of footpaths that dotted the hillsides. A quick glance at maps.me revealed a sign for a waterfall along a walking path (signed with a 'no bikes' sign. The waterfall won the argument and I set off one foot in front of the other along the dusty path......

Thanks to the wonderful world of technology I have had hopes raised and dashed (again) whilst watching England v Croatia on the Sky Go app.... just as well the rest of my day was much better! Once again returning to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains I decided to explore beyond the forest I cycled up to the other day. The bonus of hiring a large car means my bike can squish in the back without taking the front wheel off.... a bonus with a dynamo hub as the wires for that are zip tied to my bike meaning its a real pain to take off the front wheel. The detractions of having a car larger than the one you are used to as well as driving on the wrong side of the car... is that it is hard to judge the distance between your car and the edge of the road. Now when your sat nav leads you up the garden path... or in this case up v narrow windy gravel roads instead of the main road... it gets a bit hairy. So thats how my day started off before I ignored the sat nav... turned round ...

Day 3 made it perfectly clear to me that up till now I had just been messing around in the foothills. Given the location of my hotel... to cycle anywhere fun... I first have to slog up... and up... and up... just to get to tracks which are deserted. So today was going to be slightly different. I decided to load my bike in the car and drive up.. to Sierra Nevada itself. A small mountain town which mainly comes to life in the ski season but which also advertises bike trails for the summer months. It looked as though I could drive there, park and then throw myself around the trails up there for a bit. Fortunately the bike just made it into the car without any removal of anything and I began the short drive... up of course. The road from Monachil to Sierra Nevada literally wjnds around the mountain tops. This would normally be ok ... despite the lack of barriers on the drop side. However Im in a car that is significantly wider... driving on the wrong side of the car... which ma...

Now my title of today's blog is in no way a subtle link to my book (on Amazon) or the documentary (Available from   https://vimeo.com/ondemand/145353 ) but it was a weird day ... starting one way and ending up so different  as sometimes happens. I had looked at a map of the area to find a good place to ride and remembered the gorge I had seen the day before. A trail ran right alongside the river and led in the direction of it. So after a breakfast of toast, ham and cheese ... I set off on my bike. It was already scorching hot at around 10am and the path provided some much needed shade. The path was narrow with very steep ups and down and as I progressed along became more and more tricky to negotiate with a bike. Roots... overhanging trees... fallen trees... rock steps... just steps... You name it... this path had it!  In fact it was totally unsuitable for a bike. Several times I had to catch myself before I fell in. I resorted to pushing. In fact at a lot...

Day 1.... First thing to do today was put my bike together... easy... at least until the back wheel got stuck. After a bit of swearing.. I realised that the brake pads had no space for the disc to go in... it was then I remembered Lewis from AW Cycles showing me brake installation and I realised what was wrong... easy to fix after that... So bike working well... I sat down to breakfast. Lack of Spanish a fairly big problem (must learn more) ... I kinda got a breakfast.. at least coffee is easy... It looked a bit cool.. and I worried that i had packed enough clothes. I filled my water bottles and water bag... in fact only one bottle with the bag as I wasn't intending to do too much today... just get the lay of the land. I hadnt managed to do my usual trick of nicking food at breakfast for lunch... all I had was a packet of starburst from the airport... so my first stop was going to be the supermarket.... only I had forgotten that it was sunday ... and there were no 24 hr sh...

I got up early this morning... primarily because last night I couldn't be arsed to take my bike apart and pack it into the bike bag (soft shell from AW Cycles). So that meant that I was up and about at 0700... wielding a spanner and a bike tool to reduce my bike into a series of parts. This is easier than it sounds... especially with a little practice. First the wheels (taking care to have undone the lead for my dynamo) then the seatpost and saddle... then the pedals and finally the handlebars. These are all then carefully inserted into the bag... taking care to refix important screws... and not to drop anything down the gaps in my decking. Lastly and new to me was to unbolt the rear derailleur and tape it to my frame... making sure that my new mech hanger (important part) was then protected with packaging.  Once this had been accomplished... it was time to feed my snakes ... check passport and money... pack the car... and then wait to go... I was ready well before I h...