I had to take an unplanned day off the bike yesterday. This is my 7th visit to Corralejo, six visits of which, I have either brought my own or hired a bike. I’m used to the strong winds here and until yesterday I thought I was used to the sun too but I found out the hard way.
My ride on Friday was not the longest one I’ve done, less than 2hrs, but my arms literally got baked. I got back and the tan lines were evident but as the night wore on they were so sore they kept me awake that night and I had to keep them out of the sun yesterday too so a ride just wasn’t sensible.
We have come about a month later than normal and I’m wondering whether the UV is significantly stronger. I haven’t had sun burn like that since I was a kid. The question is did I have sun tan lotion on? Well no. I haven’t had to for decades. Today I did though and the arms have calmed down now but I did get caught out good and proper.
Keen to ride today but avoid the height of the sun I decided to go early. I woke before 8am despite a late one and lots of alcohol yesterday. No inkling of a hangover so I was good to go. I left just before 9am, no breakfast needed as I was stuffed from yesterday’s massive bowl of Nachos in the afternoon followed by Chicken Fajitas last night while enjoying some live music in the square again.
As I rolled out of town a couple of things became very clear. 1. the famous wind was back with a vengeance and 2. the sit bones in my arse were still sore from the pummeling on Friday. I didn’t fancy making my arse any worse so I settled on a simple blast south down the coast via the dunes and back.
As I entered the dunes on the outskirts of town, the tailwind blew me along so quick I literally ran out of gears in places and this is on an MTB with 2.3″ knobbly tyres. I was heading for a turn at Parque Hollandes about 12 miles away before an inevitable slog back home.
The coast road isn’t flat. It’s peppered with snappy ups and downs just to make things interesting enough in either direction. The road was quiet though. I almost had it to myself. Any cars or buses that did pass me waited patiently and passed nice and wide too.
At the turn I was surprised to find an old gravel road I’ve ridden so many times up into the hills had been converted into a tarmac road. It wasn’t there last August when I was last here and the jet black carpet-like surface showed it hadn’t had much sun either. I was a bit miffed the gravel was gone, it is a road I can explore later this week to see if it goes the five miles up to Lajares or not, or does it just peter out?
I rode up a bit of the first ramp but decided to just head back so I dropped back down the roundabout and turned left and got smacked in the face. Woof! The wind was harder than I expected. I’d literally floated there and now it was time to put a bit of work in so I settled into a manageable tempo and got my head down. 15mph was probably as fast as I could muster on the downhills. I tried to break the route back into sections. Pre-dunes, dunes, RIU hotels, back into town.
My back was complaining by the time I got back to the outskirts of town. 30+ mins of pushing a heavy gear was enough to give my dodgy back a test.
As I turned west and skirted Corralejo, the headwind was tempered by the buildings. I had a couple of km left into it when I turned North again to roll around the back towards the harbour where we were are staying and then I was home and done.
Just under 25 mile, a decent 90 mins and my arse felt ok too.
Tonight is Italian
Adios