I recently received an email from my mate Karl (of Ride Tribe) asking if we could accommodate, at Trailbase Lodge, a group of clients/friends he was guiding on a traverse of the Sierras. So to cut a long story short we put them up for a night and then I jumped on the trip with them to lend a hand wherever possible (or go on a 5 day jolly around the Sierras, it depends on your point of view!). Anyway on the first day I headed out cross country and they, coming from the other direction, knocked out a fairly stiff little road climb and we meet at Puerto De La Ragua. All good. That is until we started to head back to Trailbase Lodge at which point the weather turned epic. Lashing hail storms and freezing temperatures (sorry no pics, too bloody cold!) sent moral into freefall and a beer and a sun lounger was replaced by a much needed cup of tea and a hot shower when we arrived back at the lodge. Not exactly what you expect of Spain in mid June! Still hopefully tomorrow normal service would be resumed.
The next day dawned a little better with I guess what could best be described as British summer riding conditions, ie sun, clouds, rain, and neither hot or cold. A mixed bag. After breakfast we headed out starting with a fair old climb straight out the door of about 400 vertical metres. We headed west mostly on jeep tracks with a little singletrack thrown in and finished up with a long road drag into Trevelez (the highest village in Spain) our final destination for today and with some 7+ hours in the saddle behind us. After some well earned coffees and beers in the first bar we came to we found our hotel for the night and checked in. Jack our logistics man had played a blinder ensuring our bags were already at the hotel and had smoothed the way for us to store the bikes in the lobby. A successful day.
After a great little carb heavy breakfast we headed out initially taking in some road as we'd been tipped off that the track we had intended on using was blocked by a land slide. Similar weather prevailed today with one particularly hard shower holing us up in Bubion while we waited it out. Only minutes earlier we had been enjoying the sunshine while tanking down some great singletrack thanks to Karls local knowledge. More jeep tracks and techy singletrack followed with the day ending up being pretty epic (10+ hours) with some stiff climbs the, last of which was a monster. The Grit & Determination award was definitely picked up by Paul (Radders), Murray, and Callum for making it up this beast of a climb. The Most Wise Thinking award being taken by Bob and iPaul who took the shorter and flatter road option. When we finally rolled into the hotel in Lanjaron very late in the evening they were sunning themselves on the roof terrace with a crate of beers. Smart thinking!
Once in Lanjaron we had to make a judgement call. The original plan had been to ride to Monachil the following day then up and over the Veleta Pass the day after that. We had however been reliably informed (Jack again) that there was too much snow up high and the pass was closed. Arse! So over a few beers we made the decision to do a short(ish) loop out of Lanjaron the next day and then hole up there for another night before taking an alternative route back to Bubion where we had originally intended on finishing. So with the sunshine finally out in force we had an easier day with a nice little loop out of Lanjaron, lunch at a local restaurant, and then some of the lads took in the Spain World Cup match in the afternoon in a local bar. Then out for dinner in the evening and by now it was big smiles all round after a fairly relaxing day, in fact it almost started to feel like a holiday!
However as the morning dawned on our last day everyone snapped straight back out of holiday mode as the realisation set in that there was still a fair bit of pedalling to be done. It was to be a day of 2 climbs. The first was a bit of a monster mainly on jeep tracks straight out of Lanjaron. There after followed a mix of sweet singletrack and jeep track descents before the final long road climb up to Bubion. After 4 hard days in the saddle everyone turned in stunning performances to finish the trip with all making it back to Bubion under there own steam. After a quick sprint up the road to Capillera to find a bar that was open the beer flowed and everything was once again good in the world. So thanks to Karl, Murray, Paul (Radders), Callum, Bob and iPaul for a great few days biking, beering, and lessons in cockney rhyming slang (cheers Radders), hopefully we'll hook up again some time.
The Veleta Pass remains unfinished business......
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