to ride up into the mountains the other day. The day was another warm,
sunny Spanish winter day.
We rode from the beach in Benicassim on the Costa Alzahar of Spain to the
El Desierto de las Palmas natural park, an area of historical
significance in Catalonia because of the religious and geographic
importance of the area. The major attraction is a late 17th century
Carmelite monastery in the mountains.
The climb was 11km long with 1350ft of elevation gain and a very
different sort of climb than the ones I did with Kevin back in October.
This one started with a long grade passing a beautiful old hacienda, had
six or seven short switchbacks in the middle followed by another long
grade along a ridge top and just below the summit ridge. Very few trees,
mostly scrub similar to the chaparal in Southern California, some nice
rock outcroppings and even a few names painted on the road. Remove the
paint on the road and one could almost be convinced they were riding in
the hills above Santa Barbara, California.
Unfortunately the new monastery was closed for the midday siesta and the
old, 14th century, abbey, just a few walls still standing, was gated off.
Some of the old chaples from a pilgramage route to the abbey were still
present,as were the terraces and water works. Fortunately from above the
old abbey we had a sweeping panaroma and a nice picnic lunch in the sun.
From our vantage point we could see almost all of the climb and all the
way to the seemingly ever present highrises gaurding the coast.
Perhaps the best part of th ride was being away from the overdeveloped
coast and into an area that may be more typical of Spain away from the
coast. As warm as it was sitting there in the sun at the top we still had
to put on clothes for the descent back to the beach. What took us an hour
to go up we descended in less than 20 minutes.
This was Erich's and my first long climb on our Rodriguez Nickel and I
can confidently state that the Nickel rides equally well as a single and
a tandem.
No comments:
Post a Comment