Janno bikepacking Spain @jann0k-blog - Tumblr Blog

Home, some statististics

Today I landed in Helsinki with my bike and rode home using Helsinki->Tallinn ferry.

Some important statistics:

Total days cycled in Spain: 25

Total km: 1147km

Total ascent: 20063m

Average km/ascent per day 45.9km/802.5m

Average moving speed 10.9kmh

Some rain in morning and navigating through Valencia. Done.

Trail dog

Long day, almost 1400m ascent. Did small shortcut to Cofrentes using boring MTB trails. Highlight of a day, racing mountain deer’s when coming down the mountains. The road was empty, because it was in passable for cars as some of road was washed away by rain. I was doing 45-50kmh, when around corner there was suddenly 3 deers on road. They decided to run away same direction as I was going. So instead of breaking I decided to race them. Theirs max speed was about same as I was going, but they biggest and wisest was able to keep this speed when jumping up the road edge. Road edge is ~70 degrees. Smaller deers continued in front of me until road turned. I was able to watch their moves from ~10m.

Cycle road out of city, fun single track next to Rio Jucar. Today was hot. Used all my 2.5L of water in 4h/50km. Restocking of water and energy (late lunch in local bar) in Jorquera. Further 25km. According to my calculations I have now cycled over 1000km in Spain.

Downhill, tunnels and rabbits. Today’s route followed ex railroad and there was slight but constant downhill. I felt like cycling god. Tunnels are surreal especially when you don’t turn light on and cycle towards light at the end of the tunnel. It’s like cycling your eyes closed, going over 20kmh. They are also scary, because although tunnel is about 3m wide, you can’t see the walls so you can’t be sure if you are in middle or the wall is next to you. Or somebody might just dig a hole or put some other obstacle into tunnel. Some tunnels were illuminated, but lights were turned on by movement. Sometimes there were delays, so for couple seconds tunnel was not visible. One time lights didn’t turn on, so I had to find my own light. Before today I had seen 2 rabbits in Spain. Today I saw about 20 from close. At km ~65 I saw 3 rabbits, then 100m later 3 foxes and 200m later 3 more rabbits. I also saw a field squirrel. No trees just some pine bushes next to road.

300m elevation loss over 80km - easy pedaling

Tunnels and rabbit holes

Ex railroad

Scouts notified that single track after Riopar is very heavy pushing and should be avoided. So today was mostly touring on car roads. Komoot (routing app) still found some beautiful locations. But it also directed me to dead end so I had to ride some fields.

Valley of Rio de Segura

First some climbing and downhill between rocks, descending into valley of Rio Segura. I lost stability, unclipped, but still fell against big rock with my front wheel. Broke Salsa Anything Cage cable ties. I had lost spare cable ties long time ago, so I had to improvise - I had some spare Velcro straps and these worked fine. At the end of descent there was awesome cave Cueva del Agua followed by almost cycleable hiking track next to cliff.

Then climb back from 1000 to 1600m on asphalt and gravel roads. Plan was to reach second Refugio which was 41km from start. When I reached there I had ~1L of water left and spring was 250m away with unclear instructions, so I decided to go Siles camping that promised good food and was 600m lower. Road to Siles was interesting single track that ended with several switchbacks. I can’t ride those. After last switchback my rear brake oil was boiling as brake lever was completely soft (no brake) - later it covered.

Camping turned out to be almost closed - no food and I checked in over telephone with Spanish only speaking lady. Probably I understand enough Spanish for that now.

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Janno bikepacking Spain