Well I’m nearly there now, just 2 more days riding. I sort of look at it as 1 more day riding as the next day when I pack up in the morning and set off ill be finished. Sort of mind trick that you need to do when doing a challenge as big as this.
The day started out very overcast and little after an hours riding the first specs of rain fell from the sky. Also the first sign of rain I have seen since early on in France. I did only feel a handful of them though and it wasn’t long till Mr Sun was back out and beating down on me. I did feel cold at one point before the sun came out when I was going down this hill at some speed, all the air was making my sweaty top feel really cold. Felt strange as I have been used to being so hot. I thought I had jinxed it though when I saw the clouds and the rain today, as only yesterday I sent my rain jacket home.
After about 27 miles I got to a T junction and like normal just followed the signs to Almeria, about 2 miles later I pulled over in a town called Vera. I had missed a turning, doh! I was meant to turn off somewhere a fair few miles back and had just missed the road. I know the road wasn’t that big as when I looked on google maps last night it didn’t even have a name on it. So I had a decision to make, did I try to go back the way I had came and hunt down this road, or did I carry on to the end of the road where the only road that sat nav was showing was the A-7 the Autovia. Knowing that the other way was a lot of twists and turns up into the hills and looked like it could be pretty tricky I decided to go with the motorway. Now there have been these signs at every slip road onto the Autovia, at first I didn’t know whether it meant you can go on the road or cant. I found out you cant! I realised this when I hadn’t seen a single cyclist on the other side of the road for 30 miles, also when I counted up all the beeps I got from cars (which was 8) I sort of gathered this road isn’t for cyclists. I did have no other choice though as this was literally the only road for miles. Anyway it wasn’t until I got beeped at for the 9th and final time, by the Policia! Yeah I know naughty boy getting told off. They stopped at the next exit and waited for me. When I got there I explained that I came to a T junction and the only road was the A-7, the officer said that no bicycles are allowed on the autovia. I was expecting to then be told to exit straight away and get off the motorway, but when I said I had to get to Almeria the officer said to go on for two more exits then come off. So I came off at what I thought was the 2nd exit down, only to find that this then meant a 12 mile route out of the way to get onto the N-344 into Almeria. When I used sat nav to show me this route I saw that if I went one more junction on the A-7 it would cut that 12 miles down to 4. I assume you can all guess which route I took. Zooming along the autovia again I exited and was back on track. I actually think this was the exit that the officer was talking about. I was tempted to ask the officer for a photo as it would have been good viewing on the blog, but I didn’t have the guts seeing as i had just been told off.A sort of blessing in disguise was when I got a puncture today. It happened just before the Policia incident and maybe if It hadn’t I would have missed the junction and ended up going more miles on the A-7 than I needed to. It was with 24 miles to go that I wasn’t paying full attention and went over some glass. I changed the tube and removed the piece of glass from the tyre. Put a boot patch into the tyre where it had been pierced and then pumped it back up. The new tube then popped! I didn’t lose composure and stayed calm. What I think helped here was that it had happened right by a road sign, which gave me enough shade so that I could do it all and not get too hot and bothered. I decided to put the other spare tyre I have on with another new tube, this time everything seemed to go ok. I do think though that maybe the new tube that popped might have been a fault in the tube as it didn’t puncture it had a massive hole in it. Anyway its all changed now and I’m now rocking a white tyre so back to my fully colour coordinated outfit and bike for the last 2 days!
I also just rode past a bike shop a mile away from where I’m staying, was tempted to go in and re stock up on inner tubes, but decided that I will stick with the one new one I have left and if I have to re use a tyre then well looks like the old red one will make a return. I just hope going past that shop doesn’t come back to bite me in the bum as last time I did that in Boulogne I had a disaster of a next day.
Today’s journey was 80.47 miles, riding time of 5:54:32, max speed 32.78 mph, avg speed 13.62 mph, 4712 calories, 7.5 litres so far.
I Just Felt Like Cycling 