After ten days blasting up the Costa Del Sol, we have made it to Barcelona. Really put in the hours to get here so fast, mostly motorway bashing to be honest which is a bit disappointing, but the fitness has reached a new peak! We can now cruise happily at 28 to 30, with pushes at faster speeds. In Valencia last Saturday, we encountered lots of very enthusiastic Spanish Club Cyclists, who generally went around in pelatons at 28 or so. We felt great overtaking them all with our panniers and bottom-end Sora groupsets! One lad looked fast and was cruising at 35kph, so we drafted him for a while. Serious pace!
Shortly after, a fourth member joined our little group. We couldn´t really see him, but I tried to talk to him a bit to encourage him to maintain the pace. Turns out my chat was wholely unneccesary because he burnt past us a bit later on. He must have been at least 45, maybe 15 stone too, but he could produce a significant number of watts! He was very impressed with our speed with our panniers and offered to buy us lunch. We dealt!
A good opportunity for me to practice my spanish, a tour of the city, a couple of beers, and two portions (each) of paella later we felt like heroes once again. A cheap lunch.
Now, 1,800kms since Casablanca, good fortune finds us coinciding with the Tour de France. You may have heard of this little race. At a mere 3,500km, it is about half the length of Leg One of our tour, but these guys are incredibly fast and we will be here in Barcelona for the end of Stage 6. We hope to see Lance in the Yellow Jersey schooling all the other competitors once again!
We will be home in about 10 days.
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