Tell us about your cycle today part III

Thanks, i'll throw that on the 'listen to' list

you've been taken in by the pro-Buzzard mainstream media. Buzzards would kill you and everyone you love without giving it a second thought!

There are a few different types of crows, but the crow which is partially black/grey (referred to locally as scall crow) do take eyes out of lambs.

They used to be killed using traps; but the fcukers are pretty smart.

The buzzard population in my location north west Waterford/South Tipperary has exploded in the last 5 years or so. It's rare I go out that I don't see at least one. Recently one entered this canopy "tunnel" for a couple of hundred meters while i cycled along.

I couldn't get away from a pair of buzzards out around here one day

https://goo.gl/maps/L3hzjVNFtkakWPdn7

The roads turn and twist a bit but for a few km they were nearly constantly there.

Their battles with crows are interesting; I've seen a couple of times 2-3 crows "intercept" them and escort them away from the flock. Risky enough for all parties and if you believe Dawkins and increased chance of sex for the crows once they head home 😀

Went out for a quick spin yesterday.

32km at 30.1kph

200m climbing

Had three strava segments lined up along the route and managed two KOMs, which is always nice. Just 3 secs off the third one, which we'll try another day

I was out on the (no longer) clean summer bike as the hack is awaiting a replacement crankset (original is cracking). First 20 mins was drizzly and damp and headed out to NCD where the farmers were very busy mucking up the roads, bike and rider destroyed but it was nice enough once the rain stopped and I resigned myself to having a filthy bike. Washed the bike as soon as I got out of the shower, the summer bike has seen very little dirt (ever). Think I'll emigrate :-)

I must've passed 2,000 cars today between Bray and D2.

I had a few days cycling in Asturias.

Tl;dr- 5 lads went cycling, had a blast

Flew from Dublin at 11.45, 90 minute flight. Landed in Santander and had the bikes and bags in the van and on the road before 3.30 local time. Arrived at the apartments in Cangas Di Onis for 5 and without a scrap of food we got the bikes together and went for a spin by 6.

Decided to do an hour uphill towards Lagos de Covadonga just to spin the legs and wherever we were by 7 we'd turn around and descend back before the dusk kicked in.

The first 10km was a false flat at about 2%, then things got tasty. Went up at a fair auld crack for another 3 or 4km averaging nearly 10, then turned and swung on down. Except for yours truly, who tried stopping to take a picture. Made a balls of unclipping and toppled head first over the crash barrier. I went down into some rough ground about 8 foot down and got a nice clatter on my lower ribs that really knocked the wind from me for my troubles. The lads honestly didn't know if I was killed as there was a bigger drop only a few feet farther away and I had just disappeared. Once I climbed out of the mini ravine, dusted myself off and got my breath back we were able to laugh it off.

20 minutes later back in the apartment and I started feeling weak and then came out in cold sweats and proceeded to pee a dark almost red colour.

Trouble

Panic set in, have I burst a kidney? Is the trip over? I'm basically the tour guide so what will the lads do? If I survive the fall, the wife will surely finish me off. I tried getting something to eat but my stomach was nauseous and I was as white as a ghost.

So the lads got me into the car and off to hospital. In just over an hour I had blood pressure checked, urine and blood tests, an ultrasound and an MRI.

No damage whatsoever other than a bruised back and road rash. The doctor said "so you've eaten and drank nothing since 10am, you did a hard hour cycling on Covadonga. You're dehydrated and blood sugar is low. Go home , eat , drink and rest"

And he may as well have said "you fcking eejit "

So day 0.5 over and done with 30 km, 430m climbed and allegedly the fastest descent on the segment at the viewing area!

Day 1 proper- Parque Ponga.

After my brush with death and subsequent miraculous recovery it was time to do some proper cycling. We headed out from Cangas up through the start of the spectacular Desfiladero de los Beyos (Beyos Gorge to you and me). It was cool enough starting off but once the sun rose a bit it got up into the low 20s. Perfect cycling weather.

About 20km up there we turned off the road and did the Cassielles climb. It's short, brutal and brilliant. Just under 3km at 14% and hitting 20% in places with 23 hairpin corners. The surface isn't great and it's just a dead end at the top but the views are fantastic. Once we caught our breath we came back down and had a very large ham bicadillo in a cafe a few km away. The owner was as cute as a fox, he spotted our Clonard club jerseys and straight away put on the replay of the Ras Naoimh Finian from YouTube on the TV along with a bit of trad music in the background.

After that we entered the Ponga National park and climbed the Collado Llomeno and the Collado Mohandi, following the route the Vuelta took last year where Roglic and Bernal attacked long range before they climbed Covadonga. Llomeno was definitely the tougher of the two, 7.5km at just over 9% whereas Mohandi was a little under 6km @7.5 %. Both were pretty much single lane roads and I don't think we passed a dozen cars for the whole day. The descents were fast but technical and tight, surfaces were good but no one pushed too hard as the didn't want to end up repeating my trek to the A&E despite the great service I received.

Finished with 107km and just over the 2000m climbed

https://strava.app.link/3DrmZNXOfub

Day 2- Loop of the Picos De Europa

This was a big one, 200km with over 2500m, a real bucket list ride. I'd toyed with the idea of doing this for a long time. It's a route that regularly features on lists of the best driving or motorcycling routes in Europe. We decided to go clockwise, putting the big climb in the middle of the day and a long descent to finish it off. I knew if we averaged 25km we'd have enough daylight. So we duly faffed around until 9.30 before leaving. The first 20km were a very gentle 1-2%, followed by about 3km @5% and then a cracking descent with amazing views of the Picos and another 20 odd km at -1 or -2% down to the town of Panes for a very quick coffee. Then we crossed from Asturias into Cantabria and cycled up through the Hermida Gorge for 20km to Potes for proper lunch. The Hermida Gorge is just breath taking. You're following the Deva river up through a canyon with sheer walls rising up to 500m in places. No photos can ever do it justice when you're in the middle of something on that scale. There are big steel nets hanging over the road to catch falling rocks and plenty of smashed barriers as reminders that the nets don't catch everything! By the time we stopped for grub everyone was in agreement that it was up there with the most jaw dropping section of road any of us had ever cycled.

After lunch came the big daddy, Puerto San Glorio. It featured in this year's Vuelta with a few posters on here commenting on the magic scenery down the long valley. I've done it a few times before and knew what to expect. There's nothing too steep, it barely hits 10% on the toughest corners but a 27km long climb at 5% with 80km already in the legs is a tough climb! I was allowing myself a little over 2 hours, I did it in 2.07 but one of the lads was really struggling and he was almost half an hour longer. He was completely broken at the top and had to be helped off the bike, given some jellies and put sitting down for a few minutes. Once he was okay we crossed the border into Leon and stopped in the tiny village of Portilla De La Reina for a good feed of ice cream and Coca cola. The barmaid asked where we had come from and when we told her what we had left, she raised her eyebrows and looked at her watch. We'd be cutting it close.

Asturias and Cantabria are wealthy provinces and their roads are pretty much top notch but Leon is a different kettle of fish. The landscape is harsher, the bleached white limestone and green pastures of the northern Picos gives way to a much more bleak red sandstone. Being about 1500m up on the plateau probably added to things. The couple of tiny villages are almost like something from a western and with the sun just beginning to dip, the long shadows left a real feeling of loneliness. Apart from the passing tourists and sheep farming, there was absolutely nothing I could see for anyone up there. I'm originally from a remote spot but this was on a different level.

From there we continued past the gorgeous but very depleted reservoir at Riano with its background of bare mountain peaks and then began the process of getting up the long drag to the top of Puerto Ponton to start our descent. For some reason I misjudged the distance by about 10 km so there was a lot of "Are we nearly there yet" going on. I got a real gut punch when I saw a sign pointing us toward the crest in the road only to be followed by another sign saying we still had 5km to go. It was only about 2% average but it took forever and now the accumulation of small delays meant the sun had gone behind the hills and we had nearly 50km left.

The descent of Puerto Ponton and Desfiladero de los Beyos will stay with me for a long time. It's every bit stunning as the Hermida Gorge we'd done earlier. The 5 of us tearing down the mountain chasing the last scraps of daylight, a deer and a goat bouncing across the road, one particular bend with a drop of hundreds of feet straight down. Then the tunnels. Only about 100m long but pitch black. I knew they were on the route so I had my trusty Aldi light and it did the trick but the others got a bit of a fright. The locals in the villages we shot through were giving us some fairly serious eyes. We covered the steepest 15km under 20minutes and then had nearly 30km to go on about -2%.

By now it was actually dark so I went to the front with my Aldi headlight. I got myself into TT mode and rode on the white line at the edge of the road for the last 20km. I figured I'd have a better chance seeing any fallen rocks, debris or potholes against the white than out in the darkness of the lane. We finally got into the apartments at 8.30, shattered, looked at each other and laughed. A bunch of men in their 40s and 50s acting worse than kids. It was fcking marvellous. A definite contender for the best day ever on the road.

207km, 2988m , exactly 25kmh

https://strava.app.link/RFuJHDnSfub

Day 3 - A trip to the beach

After the big day yesterday and a couple of cervezas, a few of the group were feeling somewhat tender so plans for the Angliru and Gamonitiero were benched and we had a lie in. We headed off instead up across Collado de Torno. This is a hidden gem. We'd done it when we were here in 2019 and all agreed it was worth doing again. Strava says it's 14km @4% but really it's 3 separate climbs of about 3 or 4km with descents of a km or so in between. The middle part is tough, regularly hitting double figures and rarely going below 8 or 9% but the views after that all the way to the top are fantastic. You can see all the way back through the valley one side, right across the Picos on the other and even out to the Bay of Biscay. The local council workers were doing some kind of boar cull with hounds and guns and they had one monster of a thing on the back of a pick up. You wouldn't want to hit that thing on a descent!

That was followed by lunch in Ribadasella and then back via the Mirador Del Fito. That's another good climb. 7.5km at an average of 8% with the last 4km about 10%. Another fast descent back to Cangas and we were home for 92km and 1734m climbed

https://strava.app.link/ZrCqQPZ2fub

Day 4- Lagos de Covadonga

You can't come to Cangas without going up to the Lake so, badly hungover, we headed up. There was a bit of a breeze at the bottom and it only got worse as we went up. On the steepest part, La Huesera (The Boneyard) cyclists whizzing down were alternating between encouraging shouts of "Animo Animo" and waving at us to turn back. That was a bit peculiar but as we hit the last kilometer and began to come through the more exposed areas, the gusts of wind hit like a hurricane. I've been up on Kippure in some silly weather but nothing remotely close to this. The front wheel was nearly blown clean out from underneath me and it took all my strength to stay upright. The lad who had gone ahead made it to the shore of the lake about 250m farther on and he turned back to meet us saying it was even worse around the shoulder of the hill. So with one hospital trip already in the bag we decided we didn't need any more and made our way very carefully back down the mountain, safely navigated my corner from the first day, back to the lodgings, packed our bags and hit the road.

42km, 1100m climbed https://strava.app.link/swCT79hpgub

The weather stayed perfect ,apart from the windy last day, with no rain for the whole trip and temps on the low 20s.

Ate like a horse, drank plenty and clocked 478km with 8311m climbed, not bad for a long weekend away. I'd go back in the morning if could

Kept putting off going for a spin today, mostly due to a hangover (not that I drank all that much last night, but I'm old now).

Anyway, finally convinced myself to go out for an hour, but I went out at exactly the wrong time. 5pm on a Friday evening, on winding regional roads, cue plenty of **** overtaking manoeuvres, including a particularly memorable one where one car overtook me coming up to a blind bend, and the car behind them decided to overtake both me and the car already overtaking.

On the plus side, I saw a buzzard.

Dipping the toe back into the water today after a dose of COVID 3 weeks ago. I got a light dose, but energy levels have been quite low since, and for whatever it's worth, the Garmin body battery has been too and down like a rollercoaster for no good reason and not going back up with sleep.

I've been reluctant to head out on the road having had the bonk from hell a few weeks out of a probable (never tested positive, but waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck etc.) COVID dose last February. So got up on the turbo and did an easy hours endurance session on trainer road today. Happy with the result as was still fresh at the end. Average HR had climbed about 20bpm over the duration but I'd put that mostly down to not having set the fan up for this one, and I was noticing the lack of ventilation.

So on the back of that I'll ease myself back into it, probably mostly on the turbo, over the next couple of weeks. I might even get round to that ramp test I'd been promising myself on the weekend I actually came down with the plague 😅

0km with 0m in 60 minute