Summary so far: Jake's perspective

Jake’s roundup so far

Day1 San Seb to Pamps

The first day of riding started out much like the first moments of something like this do, rammed in the back of an over-packed car with no room to move at all sat next to the bloke that broke my satnav. Looking at northern Spain it’s not the rolling countryside I imagined but more like something from Apocalypse Now. A solid saddle was a bad choice as was a campsite on top of a hill to finish the day.

Day2 Pamps to Jaca

Heading towards the Pyrenees is a daunting task as snow covered mountains come into view. 

Day3 The Pyrenees,  Jaca to Ainsa

Absolutely ridiculous. Who thought this was a good idea?! With a perfectly good flat valley to the south we turn north, out of our way, into a massive mountain range. Needless to say the competition for which bit hurts most is a close run thing between legs, back, knees, feet, hands, lungs and the ever present perineum pain.

Day4 Ainsa to Fraga

So by this point I’m in a significant amount of pain just about everywhere. The ideal way for me to spend this pain was by watching James and Steve cruising away from me over “Devon flat” ground, known to everyone else as hills. Loads and loads of hills over and over again. 80 miles of it was about enough.

Day5 Fraga to Peniscola

With a long day planned the mood was a little somber in the morning but after 111 miles things could have been much worse. We’ve ridden coast to coast and had no major issues beyond massive fatigue, niggling injuries and a few bits of broken bike. 

Day6 Peniscola to Valencia

It turns out Spain is pretty weird. Today’s 93 miles turned into 107 miles because after the economic crash they just stopped building roads so they lead to nowhere. It’s a really odd feeling to cycle through towns with no one at all in

Day7 Valencia

After a bit of a lie in and some bike faff I had a nice time in Valencia. I could have flown here in 2 hours for 40 quid though.

Day8 Valencia to Bocairent

Hot. Ludicrously hot. With temperatures in the shade in the high 30s and the ambient temperature hitting the mid 40s quite comfortably the heat was the main problem today. I still had air in the lungs and energy in the legs but whenever I pushed the pedals hard my head would throb and pins and needles spread across my body. It was slow painful progress to a much needed hotel.

Day9 Bocairent to Moratalla

Fear of the heat dictated that we set off earlier so with 6am alarms we cruised out and 7am and put the miles down. The afternoon flew by thanks in no small part to the Steve engine, always good to have a ginger desperate to avoid the midday heat leading the peloton. A bit of end of the day faff meant that we ended up staying in Calasparra instead.