I got good feedback from the pictures I posted the other day about the climb up the Pico Veleta in Spain, so to help with the winter blues (I’m stuck back in Pennsylvania now) here are some more pictures from the 2009 Strong Like Bull training camp in Malaga, Spain Feb 5-15th.
The first 2-3 days started out a little rough. Weather was cold and rainy, yet we still managed 3-5 hrs each day. It helps when you are climbing all the time and your avg speed is ~13mph for long rides:
Day 1 was an easy warmup. Day 2 included my first real climb. A 7 mile 2,300’ ascent up to the town of Zaffaraya, that was followed by a windy 5 mile flat stretch with another 1,000 foot climb.
The road is used by the Vuelta race and there was still a ton of markings from last year’s race on the road. I was in 3rd of our group going up and had just re-joined the top 2 when my sunglasses fell, so I took the last 1.5 miles easy and snapped a picture of the road we had just climbed:
The ride profile showing the big climb at about mile 30.
Days 3 and 4 were more long rides, with lots of climbing and the weather slowly started to improve.
A nice climb out of an olive grove (there were olive trees as far as the eye could see:
Taking a break at the halfway point of a ride:
The group climbs:
Cruising through town:
Local ‘fans’ were abundant on every ride:
Day 4 was the ‘time trial’ up the Porta Del Sol, a beautiful 7 kilometer 2,000 foot ascent with many, many switchbacks. I was in 3rd and John H went off from the lead group around 2k in. I passed 2nd and stayed about 30-40 seconds behind him but couldn’t gain on him in the last 3-4k.
Ride profile of Porta Del Sol. Gotta love that you climb over 1,000 feet in 20 miles to get to the start of the ‘race’. Then there’s a wicked 15 mile descent (ok, there’s a little bump in there at 10 miles) after the race to the top:
At Idlebreaks, where we stayed and were treated to some great meals every night, they keep your time on a ‘leaderboard’ for both the Porta Del Sol climb and the Pico Veleta (I was top 10 overall on Porta, and proud to be 5th on the much longer Pico climb):
Day 5 was supposed to be a rest day, so we rode 2 hrs, climbed about 2,500 feet and had 3-4 Cafe Con Leches at various stops.
Here we are stopping on the last and final day of the camp for another cafe:
The final day was El Torcal. About 30 miles of easy riding along some flats with one 1,000 foot bonus climb for good measures. Here we cruise towards the ‘gypsy head’ mountain:
Finally at about mile 32 we started the 3 mile climb to the climb. The group was going easy as it was fairly windy and one rider who had a week full of mechanicals went off the front right away. I figured this was my last day in Spain so after no one went for a mile or so I had a go and tried to chase him down. I caught him right at the base of El Torcal at about mile 35. We rode the first 1/2 of the steep, gravely 6 mile 2,000 foot climb together until I finally put about 100 yards on him in the last mile. Here’s the profile of what I thought was the hardest climb we did, although it could have been fatigue from 7 days of hard riding:
At the top of El Torcal there are strange rock formations and it’s like you are riding on the moon:
We took a breather to re-group and I got a picture of the town of Concepcion. It was an 8 mile long wicked descent down to the town (with another 1,000 foot steep climb thrown in afterwards just to get home):
Not everyone in camp did the final climb, but those that did bundled up and headed down for the long, cool descent:
Won’t be quite as scenic though (although more elevation!)