Granada day ride

November 5, 2022

Hilly and beautiful

It turns out that our neighbourhood full of bars and restaurants is busy and noisy on the weekends. The note on the bedroom window says to close it to help manage noise. I guess that should’ve been a clue! Earplugs did the trick, and I slept fine. Gail reported hearing people singing happy birthday at 4 am. We had a breakfast of tostadas con tomate, queso, and two avocados we’ve been carrying around since Priego. They’re finally ripe. Burning the toast didn’t set off the smoke alarm. Phew.

We left shortly after 10 o'clock for a 38 km, 900 m loop ride into the Sierra Nevada. First, we headed to a neighborhood bike shop to pump up our tires. Also lubed my chain. And a nice guy at the shop adjusted the engagement point on my brake levers - I was squeezing right to the bars. My small multi tool wouldn’t reach far enough into the grips. We bought some more empanadas to take with us, from the same bakery as yesterday.

Our spectacular ride into the Sierra Nevada mountains was pretty much all uphill for the first half, then all downhill for the second half. The uphill route had spray-painted encouragement on the road for past road racers.

Once again, there was no puerto sign at the top. I'm not sure why they don't celebrate the passes in this part of Andalucia. There were lots of Saturday riders on the same route as us - both mountain bikers and road bikers, and a few e-bikes too. It was a beautiful day - clear blue sky, and no wind. Some locals had long cycling pants on, but it was still near 20 C. We saw one paraglider. We didn't make it to the nearby highest point in Spain, but we did reach the highest elevation of our trip, at 1500 m. I had to scramble up a hill for a couple of metres to get to the magic 1500 m mark.

Beginning our climb up into the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Perfect day for a ride. There were lots of cyclists enjoying this route.

Not sure what this cliff structure is. It didn't seem to be occupied.

Finally, we made it to the top and into the park.

There was a sign at the col, but it didn't mark the col itself.

On the descent, we had views of another water reservoir in need of a refill.

The entry and exit from Granada were pretty easy, but we couldn’t figure out the bike lane system. There is a bike lane marked right in the middle of the car lane. We stuck to the right side anyway. Once again, we made it in and out of the apartment without encountering anti-bike man. Hurray.

After getting cleaned up, we headed out for a post-ride ice cream. Then cañas and very good tapas - the best Russian salad of the trip. Then a trip to Carrefour to get things for a dinner on our apartment. We made ourselves a salad and spinach ricotta ravioli. Not bad at all! And we enjoyed a 3 euro bottle of Verdejo.

Today's ride: 38 km (24 miles)
Total: 1,033 km (641 miles)

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Rachael AndersonWhat a great ride!
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8 months ago