The next few days of riding were fantastic. Gorgeous weather, great roads, and good riding. As I mentioned before, I haven’t done a lot of long rides, but both Glenn and John commented that this was some of the best scenic riding that they’d ever done. Along the route from Cadiz to Ronda on day 3, we stopped in a small town called Algar. It may have been one mile from one end to the other, but it was nothing but bumpy European streets and sharp turns, so we left as quickly as possible.
Ronda is a great little town, with good food and great scenic views of the Spanish countryside. We made the unfortunate unmistake of riding to the bottom of the valley along a cobblestone road that was so worn by the weather that the stones were almost too smooth to walk on. Getting out of there was some of the toughest riding we’d done (aside from going the wrong way down one-way uphill streets in Gibraltar), and when we finally got to the hotel, we were all mentally exhausted and ready for drinks. Fortunately, I’d been to Ronda a few months prior, so I was able to find us a great outdoor bar with cheap beer.
Despite the fact that we weren’t riding too much each day, by the end of day 3, we were pretty tired. Being on a bike takes extra mental and physical effort that you don’t deal with in a car. I can do 8-12 hours on a long car ride and need nothing more than a good stretch and a shower at the end of it. On a bike, it’s a whole different animal. We looked at the weather forecast for day 4 and noticed that not only was it going to be raining in the morning, but the rain would be moving in the same direction as we were heading, meaning we’d be riding in the rain for several hours. By this time, my confidence on my bike was better than day 1, but I was still hesitant to do an extended ride in the rain. We discussed the pros and cons and came up with an alternate plan.
Instead of riding to Granada as planned, we rode from Ronda south, back to Gibraltar. We got a slightly later start than planned, timing it so that the rain had stopped and the roads were mostly dry before we hit the road. Along the route from Ronda to Gibraltar, we had some of the best riding of the trip. We spent about an hour riding the winding mountain roads, with the mountains on our right and the valleys extending off to the left. These winding roads were nonstop S-curves, some slow and lazy, some sharp and a little frightening. Fortunately there was little traffic along the road, but there was one curve that I took a little too wide and came close to clipping a car coming in the opposite direction. In reality, I may have been several feet away, but at the time, I felt like I could have stuck my arm out and touched the car.
After a quick stop in Gibraltar to run a quick errand and admire the rock again, we rode back to Malaga a day earlier than originally planned and checked into the hotel. On the morning of the 5th day, we rode the short distance from the city center to the warehouse district to return the bikes. Bikes and equipment returned, we were soon on our way back to Malaga to explore, eat, and drink without worrying about riding the next day.
In the end, our route had changed to this. Not quite the loop that we’d planned, but still a fantastic and scenic ride. I can imagine that it would be a great trip in a car, but on two wheels, it’s something to experience.
