Day 89: El Escorial (Drive/Cycle)

Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial:

Well, what can I say? Perhaps, not the best of cycling days, but not all bad!

Maybe it was a play in four quarters:

Quarter 1: Cycling out of the pueblo. I'd not paid much attention to the changing nature of the gradient of the main climb of the day: Puerto de Abantos. The climbing started from the get go and, initially was not too steep, but I was soon tackling 10% gradients, which is perfectly managable given the bikes gear ratios.

However, on turning left into a narrow lane, the steepness shot up to a ridiculous gradient. There were a couple of occasions when the front wheel was attempting to lift up off of the road. To make things worse a small van was right behind me all off the way and, in addition, there were crossroads to navigate. All-in-all, not the best start to a ride.

If I was to do the ride again, which is unlikely, I'd try and find a better route out of town. The route I'd used was that which was "recommended" by two different sources!

Quarter 2: Once out of town, the gradients eased and at first the road surface, although not perfect, was not too bad. And I did stop to take this photo of the town's monastery:

However, the road's surface progressively deteriorated as I progressed up the climb until, with roughly 6 kilometres to go, effectively there was no pavement left: just short bits of pavement, gravel, stones, sand and pot holes!

The going was slow, and just to make matters worse, a cold headwind decided to join the party! In the end, in an effort to stay warm, I had to put on my supplementary descending clothes! (Possibly the first time I've had to do so on a climb!).

Anyhow, eventually I arrived at the summit, where I stopped to take this photo:

Quarter 3: The descent! Boy-oh-boy was it cold: The Garmin (navigational aid) was indicating a temperature of 5°C. I'm not sure whether this fully took account the wind chill factor, but the wind was at least a moderate breeze and was coming from the north! Also, there was no warmth from the sun, which was being blocked by high clouds.

Soon I was pretty cold, especially my hands and feet. Fortunately, the descent was interrupted by two climbs: roughly 3 and 6 kilometre in length. Both of which I pushed myself on, in the hope of creating some excess heat that would flow to my hands and feet.

I can report that by the time I'd descended to the Puerto de Cruz Verde, ...

... a few kilometres after the 6 kilometre climb, the combination of hard climbing and the sun coming out, I'd warmed up!

Quarter 4: A mostly enjoyable, warm, 17 kilometre cycle back in to El Escorial.

Not the best of days but, neither was it one of the worst! So it goes.

.... As I write this, I can hear the wind is picking up!

• Distance driven: 39 miles
• Distance cycled: 58 kilometres
• Weather:-
  • General conditions: Mostly high clouds with the sun occasionally breaking through the cloud cover.
  • Temperature: Reaching 14°C in El Elscorial; 5°c at the pueto
  • Wind (Beaufort): Very cold northerly wind.

Today's route: