May 2: Day 5, Cordoba-Las Infantas
The Cordoba hotel I’m staying at has made efforts to look like a museum. There’s paintings on every spare wall, and a collection of antiques around the place, but it puts me in mind of a house of a villain from an Indiana Jones movie.
Breakfast is an underwhelming buffet where everything came out of a packet. There’s sad croissants, so far from an actual croissant that if the French guests rioted I’d join in. The only remaining yogurt flavor is lemon; which means people have been taking the good flavours for quite a long time. There’s some other pastries but they’re still in their packets. There’s some fruit arranged like a still life painting; it probably looked great a few days ago but it hasn’t been touched since then and that’s not changing now. But I can make a decent breakfast out of it.
Komoot estimated today’s route as 7.5 hours, so I didn’t push to get out as early as possible, and I also stopped for provisions.
I was keen to pick up some Lucozade or something for rehydration. The temperature is consistently in the high 20s and shows no sign of coming down, and just drinking water isn’t enough. I went to a nearby supermarket on the way out: park bike, lock bike, visit supermarket. No Lucozade, no sports drinks, no decent snacks, no bananas. Unlock bike, saddle up…
…. give up and get on the road.
From left to right: breakfast buffeh. The water bag, over 8kg of water here; the temperature is forecast to hit 31 and average 28 so I’m playing it very, very safe. The bike, just before departure. Full credit to Cordoba’s cyclepaths - the innercity ones are pretty good. Backstreets on the way out of town.
I did stop at a bikeshop and got my back brake cable tightened, using only sign language.
One of the fun parts about cycling in Spain is that the street names are really long. Sometimes I’m nearly at the intersection by the time Komoot finishes reading it out, which can make things complicated. But with the iPhone on the handlebar and fingerprint unlock I can see the route within seconds, and sometimes that’s faster than waiting for Komoot to finish reading out “Calle Nuestra Señor de la Esperanza”.
From left to right: the new motorway bridge, seen from the old bridge. More rural roads. I started crossing this bridge… then realized there was a nicer one next to it! I had to back up for several minutes to do this - no regrets. There’s a lot of cyclists on the roads here, seems like long-distance cycling is a common pursuit.
From left to right: lunch view. The temperature; the sooner this heatwave is over the better. Appertivo!
Today’s the first time I really ran into siesta problems at lunchtime. I deliberately looked for lunch a bit later than usual, about 1215, thinking maybe that’d make it easier. The first place was closed from 1230-1330 so that was no good. The second one was OK; I think maybe they didn’t shut for a siesta at all. (I saw many places closing doors and bringing in signs around this time, so it’s still a thing.) The menu didn’t have anything terribly exciting so I went for pizza, it took so long to make that they started bringing me appetizers. I drank three lemonades while waiting (I’m becoming hooked on them), but it eventually arrived; I was not fussed about the slow lunch because today was supposed to be a short ride, and I was already halfway there.
From left to right: a selfie while I roll through the Spanish countryside; there’s a mix of steep slopes and camera tilt in this picture and I’m unwilling to guess how much of each. The view from the driver’s seat. I started craving lemonade so I stopped at a supermarket: this was my favorite area. And they take their meat seriously!
My water wasn’t tasting good and I started having very specific cravings for Schweppes Lemonade, so I stopped at a supermarket in the next town to get some. It disappeared really quickly, probably a sign of dehydration - and no one is surprised. I had indeed picked up some isotonic drink as well - not Lucozade, but some sort of local thing called Aquarius which vaguely followed their trade dress and was the exact same offputting yellow, a specific color that evokes another liquid’s color for me … which makes me wonder if someone read the focus group test results backwards.
Anyway, it was too sweet, but it did hit the spot so I cut it 50/50 with water and felt much better. I’m going to try to keep supplied with this stuff as long as I need it.
From left to right: Me in the Spanish countryside, doing my thing. The road ahead, I like it when it’s flat. The road behind, I did not like: a downhill so steep I had to brake; an uphill so hard I had to work.
From left to right: A quiet street in Arjona, just before the route turned onto a 45 degree slope. The castle at the top: I didn’t want to be there, but I’d earned the view so I got the photo. The road out; you can’t tell but it drops out of sight onto a steep downhill - the tightened brake cable is already worthwhile.
Arjona. I do not have happy memories of you. You are an innocent town on the top of a high and steep hill. You are hardly to blame, but Komoot decided to put the route right through the center. I didn’t see the trouble when I checked the 2D map: but I think I climbed 100m when I could have just gone around you. I took some photos to remember this special time. But it’s not special-good.
From left to right: 1810 and 25km to go. 1905 and 13km to go. 1930 and about 6km to go. Finally arrive at 2015! The room, for 49 euros; it’s got everything I want.
It was now getting past the time I should have arrived - this was supposed to be a 7.5 hour route, and Komoot has been pretty good with estimates so far. But there was still a long way to go, which was worrying… was I slowed down by the heat? Hopefully not, I felt pretty good with the 50/50 isotonic drink. I pressed on, but this was turning into another long hot day and I’d had enough. After two hours the gravel roads end at Mengibar; I was thinking of visiting a supermarket there to get more isotonic drinks but it’s so late I’m not interested any more; I’ll get some along the way tomorrow. The route comes to a blocked road, but I don’t have the temperance to even think of backing up: I thread through, I got offroad tyres for situations like this.
It was mostly downhill from there, which I was very happy about. I got to the hotel at 2015, which is 11 hours on the road - 3.5 hours longer than expected. This should have been an easy day…
I later checked the route on Komoot, and it thought the whole thing was on asphalt! That’s 18km/h instead of the 12km/h I seem to do on gravel; no wonder it thought it’d be faster.
Tomorrow’s ride is going to be more of the same, but with a 1000m climb. Probably best to make an early start, with the expectation that it’ll be a long day...
What I’m listening to: Pirates of the Caribbean / Cover by Patrik Pietschmann, of the original movie soundtrack by Klaus Badelt and Hans Zimmer: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2aBtDz87UK0
Not just audio, but also visual fireworks now! Fistfuls of double octaves, at great speed; multi-octave arpeggios at great speed, huge jumps, the works. Which does make me wonder how these are recorded: at full speed, hitting every note at full speed in one take? Or can he film at slower speed, and use audio+video editing to speed it up? Because this is fearsomely quick.
