By / 25th August, 2013 / Uncategorized / Off

Woke early in order to load a bike into our car and drive to our local town to meet my cycling chums for our twice weekly ride. We start at 8am because by 11 it’s too hot to ride with any comfort.
The cafe wasn’t open so we set off without a caffeine fix…not sure it actually improves our performance but it’s certainly a help psychologically. We had decided to ride around the local lake which is always testing but offers wonderful views and the dam at the far end of the lake offers interest either from the nature of the detritus washed up against it, the numerous fish that can be spied in the water and the power of the vibrations that can be felt when the turbine is operating.
It’s then a fair climb up to the next town but we know we’ll be rewarded by a cafe that’s open and the wonderfully long downhill on the way back to the start of our ride where we enjoy speeds of over 60kph! This is followed by a road closed to all but the traffic of folk who have no other way of reaching the few houses on this stretch of road…..but bikes can easily navigate the barriers and the partial subsidence of the road which is the reason for it’s closure to ‘regular’ traffic.
We get back to the now open cafe having ridden nearly 40kms and avoided the main heat of the day.
Later I walk to my nearest village which has a municipal swimming pool and cafe for lunch. I struggle to make myself understood in my very limited Spanish but beer and ham egg and chips arrive at my table so my vocab’ and pronunciation must be improving.
On the way back home I walk past a quite large snake on the road basking in the mid afternoon sun and I pick and eat some ripe figs from a tree at the roadside but seemingly not on private property.
I arrive back at the house tired with a full belly and content