I stumbled out of bed at five am, braved the rain and went for my run, and then dilly dallied for three hours, very slowly getting ready, hoping all the time that the rain would stop. At half past eight, I was finally packed, and gave up on waiting for clear skies. The camping ground was flooded. There was water everywhere, but luckily it hadn't encroached on my tent while I was in there. At times like these, I'm very glad I chose Ortlieb panniers. They had to sit out in the downpour while I dismantled the tent, but of course nothing inside got wet at all. The tent though, got absolutely drenched! There was no way to avoid it, but it made me rather sad because I was going to have to sleep in it that night.
Annoyingly, the rain stopped as soon as I left. Talk about great timing! If I'd just waited another ten minutes, I would've had a much drier tent to put away in my bag. But then again, maybe the act of leaving triggered a complicated 'butterfly effect' positive feedback cycle that resulted in the rain stopping. Unfortunately, the absence of rain didn't mean the weather was completely perfect. There was a strong headwind that made it feel like I had an overweight hitchhiker hiding in my pannier bags (somehow distributed across all five of them). After ten km, I hit the wall. I just had nothing left and couldn't even summon up the strength to pedal anymore.
At times like these, I find music sometimes helps, so I put on my MP3 player and listened to the two episodes of this Spanish podcast I had downloaded (that is literally all I have on there to listen to, everything else is in the wrong format). It did help a bit, but I was still really struggling. Stopping, I decided to check my front wheel and immediately saw why I was finding it so hard. The new brake pads were getting 'worn in', which meant the wheel spun for about five seconds before coming to a halt. It was scraping so much that I couldn't even hear any braking noise!
Knowing that there was a reason it was so hard made it a little easier psychologically, and I had something to eat, so even after my motivational melodies ran out, I kept going strong..at 5kph. The road was essentially one long climb, so I had three factors conspiring against me! I have to admit though, it was perfect weather for cycling though and the scenery was just stunning. I was riding through these small towns, over little grass covered mountains and the combined effect was one of undisturbed (in relative terms) beauty. At least every five minutes, I'd stop because something caught my eye (and also to try and fix the brake and to give myself a break).
At one pm, after three and a half hours of riding, I'd covered a pathetic 35km, which worked out to less than 10kph. I was really getting exasperated with the whole thing, annoyed that I wasn't able to fix the problem myself and annoyed that I wasn't able to appreciate the beautiful landscape properly. I was also a little hungry, so I stopped for lunch and after having a really good shot at fixing the wheel, I managed to get it spinning somewhat freely (still scraping but a massive improvement). There were still hills to climb, so it didn't really result in me going faster, but it felt a lot better!
Finally, I reached the 'top'. Suddenly I was going downhill and quickly! Wheehoo! Ten kilometres went by in a blur, all extraneous thoughts expelled from my mind as I concentrated completely on the curves before me. I barely used the brakes at all, which sounds dangerous, but it was a well made road with gentle bends. At one point I reached 65kph, which was an all time record! At the bottom of the descent lay the autovia. I didn't even realise until I'd actually turned onto it, and by then it was too late to go back. Oh well, only one option remained: go as fast as possible to get off it more quickly!
I think I covered 25km in the space of about 40 minutes, averaging over 40kph. Suddenly, I was back on track to make it to my planned stop for the night. The lovely roads continued, and on a high from all the speed, I kept on pushing hard. It was quite undulating terrain. I'd go up for a bit, then coast back down, usually managing to keep the momentum up enough that I never really had to climb (and if I did, I got out of the saddle).
A sign told me I'd entered Andalucia and even though you wouldn't think that it'd be much different from the coast to the North, it was definitely much prettier in my opinion. Crystal clear waters, amazing cliff faces, fascinating desert plants, it was wonderful. It pained me to stop while I was on such a roll, but I just had to take some photos.
Eventually the road turned inland and became flatter, which made it even more fun. I think I had a tailwind the whole time (you never notice until you turn around) and I was going really quite fast, enjoying the experience immeasurably. The bike actually felt like it did without panniers, like it was designed to be a vehicle that moved quickly instead of just one that could carry a lot of weight.
I still had a fair way to go, and with two hours til sunset, I'd normally be worried about making it to the camping ground before sunset, but the way I was going, there was no chance of not making it whatsoever. Having lost my way a little bit, I stopped at a service station for directions and wolfed down a loaf of bread to keep me going. Then I was back on the road, none the slower for the pause.
The route swung back to the coast, going through some very touristy towns stretched out along the beaches. I raced past, trying my best to avoid the speedbumps and other little annoyances that were meant to slow down traffic. Bump! Hmm, that didn't sound too good, I should probably slow down for my bike's sake. Then Bump! Crash! Brrr! Uh oh. The sudden arrival of the sound of the tyre rubbing against something metal told me something bad had happened. Sure enough, I'd broken a screw off the pannier rack for the third time. Bugger! At least this time the screw had come right out, so it was probably something I could fix myself, but right now I wasn't going anywhere.
Time to look for accommodation, I guessed, feeling nowhere near as despondent as I normally do when something like this happens. I asked at a few places whether there were any bike shops open, just in case, but being a Sunday evening, it was unlikely they'd be open, and it didn't sound like there were any in Almajacar, where I'd wound up. Walking the bike down back the way I came (I'd been riding gingerly, but to compound things, my front tyre developed a puncture), I found, amongst all the crappy tourist establishments, a cheap camping ground. And whaddaya know? It was the one I'd meant to stay at that night anyway! I hadn't even seen it the first time I'd gone past, or else I probably (maybe) would've stopped.
For the second time that day, I had a bit of an 'if only' moment, but I think the pannier rack situation was pretty inevitable. I'd noticed the day before that the bolt was a bit loose and wouldn't screw in properly, but hadn't done anything about it. Oh well, such is life. I'd find somewhere to fix it in the morning, for now I was ready to put up my tent, go for a run and then hit the hay. I was pretty tired after having done 110km before the accident.
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