Andalucia Bike Race day 4

Once the bus stopped, we all huddled in a blue collar morning place for coffee cause it was cold and windy. With only minutes to spare we rode to the start line, but snapped the first self photo, which turned out to be prescient. We essentially rode a straight shot up to the left behind us, across, then through that pass.

The little town pictured was 45 minutes of climbing into the race, then we just worked our way across the back of that mountain after going through the pass. Kept climbing till we got to snow line, then went up from there (and that's even with 500m cut out due to snow).

Really beauty day. More road riding at start, which I'm fine with. Spreads it out. I push Cindy, but not so much that we "go faster", it's more that we can both exercise hard that way and be close. We have funny moments out there and have good laughs. Confusion on who's bike is who's, standing or sitting, and she laughs at herself for just rolling over obstacles and bouncing all over (usually a good start is just going for it).

Cindy had a little wipeout on the snow doubletrack. I kept joking a few weeks back that our weekend ice rides would get us ready for the icy sections here. It turned out be true... So she scratched up her other knee. Better than ripping out stitches. But she didn't wipe out from incompetence really, she was trying to bunny hop the center snow of the double track to pass slow Fredericos. I'm amazed at the aggression coming out.

Last descent was awesome. Long technical singtrack with bermed corners and jumps. What a gem. Except for the 5k climb after to get out of that valley before coasting into the finish.

Today was another day of what I expected it to be like. No bottlenecks (other than a bridge a minute in) due to the straight up climb off the start... But none of consequence. Maybe not complete "mountain biking" all day, but a great fitness test + singletrack. Heavenly scenery, little Spanish mountain towns, hotel with plenty of carbonera and bolognesa. Cindy's rocket booster is getting tired, pasta helps though.

We're getting a lot of use out of electrical tape, mostly to tape plastic over Cindy's stitches for the shower. Our hotel seems quite nice to be annihilating thee bathroom with muddy kits every day... oh well.

Sounds like Shawn's partner is done due to the cracked rib. I didn't see Kate/Jon/Thomas/Dave yet to hear their days.