I had a day off the bike yesterday. The legs were feeling a bit tired and sore so I decided to give them a rest and rehydrate them with some 6.6% IPA in the afternoon while they baked in the sun. Had to be done. It worked though because I woke up this morning quite refreshed and keen to get out.
The raging wind from the past couple of days had eased off too so that was an excuse to do a bit of a longer ride back in time for lunch.
I rolled away from the hotel just after 9am straight into the wind but you could physical feel the difference to two days ago. No leaning into it or blowing out my arse in the first few hundred metres, it was just nice so I decided I wasn’t going to push too hard today, just enjoy it.
I rode out of town via the dunes with hardly any cars parked up. The road was quite quiet and for long sections I had it myself and able to soak up the scenery a bit. The Corelejo dunes are a strange phenomenum. You basically ride into a desert and as quickly as they appear, they disappear when you pop out the other end about 12km later. The tailwind was helpful as the road kicks up as you leave them and then there is a nice, fast descent to the Parque Holandes roundabout where you turn back on yourself and back into the wind.
The first section of road from Parque Holandes used to be a nice gravel road but it has been upgraded to a fully-fledged tarmac road now that snakes up away from the coast to the motorway. I preferred the gravel version but I have to say the tarmac is pristine and is like riding on carpet.
Over the motorway I’d plotted a new route right rather than climb up to the village of Villaverde. My new route took me off-piste on some new gravel that climbed back over the motorway again and briefly disappeared into the wilderness before popping out way above the dunes looking North.
Eventually I picked up some tarmac again and climbed back over the motorway to arrive at the main road to La Oliva just below Villaverde. I was straight into the headwind here but descending all the way past the wind turbines. At the bottom, I crossed the motorway junction and headed into La Capellania on what was the old main road. Now a dead-end to traffic but bikes can pick their way through into what is effectively a housing estate. Now a few years ago, we popped in here when they were building the motorway and it was pretty shabby with derelict buildings but it’s definitely had some investment. It looks nice now with a supermarket and I saw a cafe too.
Out the otherside of town and I followed the road back to motorway junction sitting north and then I went off-piste again to follow an ‘unofficial’ track back to Coralejo which runs parallel to the motorway. You see, when they upgraded the old A road to a motorway they forgot to provide something for cyclists and left them with only one official road in and out of town via the dunes. There is talk of creating a dedicated path/route but for now it’s an unofficial trail where the locals have even broke through the fence in places. However the end was properly closed off and I had to get off and hike-a-bike briefly around a post to get around the fence that had obviously been re-closed.
I was in Geofond now, a little enclave that sits south of Coralejo. I was going to hit the road again but the brand new yellow path was a dream to ride on.
I passed the world’s biggest Santa Hat at the entrance to the exclusive Bahiazul resort and then found a path that seemed to skirt the whole urban area. It looked like it was built a while ago as it was quite broken now, meant for more development that never happened. I did nearly fall down a big hole though that caught me offguard.
I eventually popped out on the outskirts of town so I pedalled back to the hotel via the main street and harbour area to bag 47km and a couple of hours.
