After a day of resting, and seeing bikes only on the television, I hit the road again on Friday. The plan was simple: bike around the island. This does not give you too much freedom of choice, because there is basically only one way to do this. I decided to go in the ant-clockwise direction, so I could complete the hardest parts first, and by the time I get tired, only the easy climbs or downhill sections are left to be done. I left around nine (if I remember correctly), and took the LP-1 road towards the North. The weather was not too nice, but based on the satellite pictures I have seen in the morning, I was expecting some sunshine on the western part of the island later on. After a short climb and descent, I have arrived to the first categorized section of the day, starting at the 4.05 km mark, it was:

7.01 km @ 5.1% with a maximum over 100 meters of 11.8% (3rd category)

Basically the first 4 kilometers are hard, with an average of 8% (and some tunnels through the ridges), then the rest is almost flat. But to make it more difficult, halfway into the hard part the rain started to fall, so I had to stop and put on my rain-cover. It lasted for only a quarter of an hour, and luckily this was also the last part I have encountered precipitation during the day. From here, there was a nice descent with views to the sea, with a short climb somewhere in between. There were also road works here and there, so sometimes I had to wait at the red light, because half of the road was closed down. Then starting in Los Sauces, at km 23.7 came the longest climb of the day:

18.6 km @ 4.9% with a maximum over 100 meters of 12.4% (1st category)

It is a long climb, but not too hard (the steepest kilometer is only 7.8%, and there is no other over 7%). I knew the rod till Barloveneto from last year, but back then I continued on LP-1, and now I took a smaller road (LP-111) which goes a bit higher up. This was a really nice part, with perfect road quality, only one lane, small and dark tunnels through the steep ridges, and with a real rainforest around.

At least it looked like a rainforest while I was riding in the cloud layer, with near 100% humidity, wet road, and water dripping from the trees. I even made a small video at this point :) Oh, and there were basically no cars here! After I have reached the top of the climb, there were still thee shorter uphill sections (with short descents in between), with gradients of 13-15%… The third (and last one) of them even got categorized, starting at 55.75 km:

5.6 km @ 4.9% with a maximum over 100 meters of 10.1% (3rd category)

So soon after hitting the 60 km mark, I already had more than 2000 meters of elevation gain in my legs, which was pretty reassuring given that it was almost 2/3 of the total, while I was not even halfway into the total distance. (Yes, the first part was pretty hard.) I passed the point where last year and two days earlier I turned left to climb (or continue to climb) up to the Roque, but this time I continued straight on. Soon the highly anticipated descent started (with lots of curves in the first part, where my brakes were really loud for some reason), and the sun appeared from behind the clouds too!

It was almost continuous descent from an elevation of 1200 meter to 100 meter (except for that tricky climb gaining ~200 meters in elevation in the middle), through really nice landscapes, and really great views down towards the sea in the valleys.

One of the most interesting sights was the El Time lookout point, on the edge of a huge canyon which connects the port of Tazacorte with the Caldera de Taburiente. In optimal conditions, I could have just looked up all the way to the Roque de los Muchachos, but unluckily now it was hiding behind a massive layer of clouds. Still the view to the canyon and the curvy road down to its bottom was quite spectacular.

It really is a shame, that the weather was not better. I bough some water in the restaurant here, then started the descent. It was a really great roll down, with the road cutting through the steep rocks which were standing high along the sides and in the bottom of the canyon. Then immediately after reaching the lowest point, the next climb started at the 94.32 km mark:

22.3 km @ 3.1% with a maximum over 100 meters of 8.6% (2nd category)

With only the first 4 kilometers having a steeper gradient than 5%, and the rest typically around 3%, it was an easy climb, though the headwind and the fact that I already had lots of kilometer and climbs in my leg made it slightly harder than it might seem to be from the plain numbers. I biked through banana fields, then the colorful city of Los Llanos, from where I continued my journey on the LP-2 road. At the final kilometers of the climb, I reached the famous lava flows (of course they are not really flowing anymore) of this (southwestern) side of the island.

This was again a memorable part of the day, with not just the grey volcanic rivers of rock, but also the rich vegetation around.

Pine trees, cacti and colorful flowers everywhere. Also the road quality was nice, and the car traffic was extremely low (as it is in general on La Palma). It was really interesting to see how the lava flows solidified, preserving the shape of collapsed channels all the way down towards the sea. Then the road turned downhills towards Fuencaliente. From there, I took the same road back to Santa Cruz as on my first ride. I even had a bit of sunshine at one point!

Then I stopped once in Villa de Mazo, because there was a nice view towards Santa Cruz, from just below the cloud layer. It is shocking how deep blue the ocean looked as the clods were only staying above the island, so the reflection of the sky was visible on the open waters – and the fact that the water surface was lit by sunlight made the contrast even bigger.

Also the airport was well visible from this point. Then on the last descent (the curvy road along the remnants of an old caldera just above Santa Cruz – I have climbed it on Day 1, and then on Day 4 again), when I was already happy about accomplishing another big ride, in one curve three dogs started running towards me while barking loudly, so I got a half heart attack meanwhile I was trying to avoid running into the dogs… It was a quite close call (and I can only hope that the Spanish lady was shouting “leave him alone” to her dogs, and not “catch the cyclist” :D).

So I arrived back to La Palma after 154.1 km and 3246 m of elevation gain. It is really amazing, that I just rode around the island and still I had more than three kilometers of elevation gain. No wonder La Palma is known as the steepest island of the world. Even if you go around, you can not just follow the shoreline, because sometimes even the lowest road has to go over a 1000 meters in elevation, to make it through a lava flow, or a gorge, or a ridge… But again, it was an epic day! (And again, I had company from the NOT for dinner, so no eating alone!) GPS data of the day can be found here.

To be continued…

The second day brought madness all over my mind ;) I decided to ride up to the Roque de los Muchachos, but from both sides to make it a bit more difficult. Ok, I have to admit it was not an instantaneous decision, but a plan made already a long time ago… As I knew it would take me a long time to accomplish my idea, I got up at 7 and left around half past eight. The morning was beautiful and sunny. Last autumn I rode up from Santa Cruz once already, so I knew the route, except for the first kilometers, where I had to take different (and very steep) streets due to ongoing (pre-election) roadworks. Now this was the menu for the first half of the day (till reaching the Roque for the first time):

34.61 km @ 6.5% with a maximum over 100 meters of 12.3% (HC)
3.69 km @ 7.3% with a maximum over 100 meters of 11.6% (3rd category)

I tried not to push myself too much, because after arriving to the top, I knew I would still have almost half the elevation gain to be done… Still, I felt it much easier than last time (though I have reached the summit almost exactly as fast as last time), so I felt very confident about the rest of the day while taking a short break on top of La Palma. (The Omega-Pharma Lotto colours fit me pretty well, don’t they?)

I also refilled my hydration pack with water (and Isostar) here – although my two 0.75 liter bottles were still full. (It is so nice to climb with some excess weight, isn’t it? :D) As the weather was really chilly (and cloudy towards the north side of the island), I got my knee and arm warmers, my wind west and even my rain jacket (still only against the cold wind) on, before I started my descent towards Garafia. Still, I was honestly freezing downhills. Cutting through 13°C air with 50 km/h feels really cold… It was a real revival when I finally reached to the lowest possible point on this side of the island (a lookout point on the edge of the cliffs below Garafia), where the temperature was 25°C. And the view (plus the plants; bushes, flowers and cacti) was also quite spectacular.

I did not spend too much time here (although I really liked this spot), as I still had a lot of climbing to do… So, here is the menu for the second part of the day (the second climb is already after the top, on the way ‘down’):

30.88 km @ 7.3% with a maximum over 100 meters of 16.8% (HC)
3.06 km @ 5.0% with a maximum over 100 meters of 8.7% (4th category)

The first section back up was really painful (the 16.8% – and this is an average over 100 meters, the peak gradient was around 20% – was right there at the beginning – definitely out of the saddle pedaling there), then the slope became significantly less brutal (but much more humid entering the cloud layer pretty soon). Then after km 15, the steepest kilometers came with 10.2% and 11.2%, but I already knew that part from last year… I think expecting this section really mad it less painful – at least now I had to stop only once. (Look at the picture below, it is so steep looking down the road, that the horizontal level is outside the top of the frame, though it is a 28 mm wide angle shot!)

At this point I got really fed up with the energy bars and gels. Now I have to explain this situation a bit more, because my non-cyclist readers might not get the full picture without this. So first of all, I could not carry enough normal food for a full day of intensive cycling. Moreover, I could not even eat normal food on the bike after some hours, because I completely loose my appetite in the saddle. But this is normal, when you do sports intensively for an extended period of time. So what can you do? You still need to refill you energy reserves, so you have to eat, no matter how. To fulfill this fuel requirement of the body, cyclists usually eat energy bars and gels (while riding, not for dinner). They have an excellent weight to useful energy content ratio (most importantly carbohydrates), but they can get very boring really quickly, and they are just damn sweet and sticky, and that’s what I really hate. But there is no better solution… This is not a sponsored post, but here are some details. I usually buy Isostar products (and I had their Long Energy isotonic drink with me also this time), but now I bought (along with some other goods via internet) PowerBar items. I had their Banana Punch Bars (203 kcal in 55 g) and the Caffeinated Green Apple Gels (107 kcal in 41 g along with 50 mg of caffeine – a half cup of instant coffee if you wish). I really hated the latter first, but now I think it is really good (and especially very effective – the taste is still so-so, but at least it goes down very easily). Just to give you something to hold onto, I consumed 6 bars and 5 gels during this ride (while I have burnt ~6000 kcal of energy)… So eating is my biggest concern, and when I get fed up with these things, that is not healthy for my mind either…

Anyway back to the climb. I kept pedaling (though my pace really fell after the two very steep kilometers and my psychological food problem), first escaping from the cloud layer, then passing the last trees and finally I arrived to the vast volcanic landscape of the Observatory. I took a final nap laying down at one of the helicopter landing sites (on the nice, warm asphalt, bathing in sunshine – I really enjoyed those minutes there) before I rode the last kilometers to the top. Near the peak the wind got very strong, so the last hundreds of meters were again damn hard. But then I was very happy when I finally arrived, though it was very cold (I put my warm clothes on right after the picture below was taken), but it was clearly a huge success to ride up from sea level to the top of La Palma for the second time on the same day. I think my happiness is evident on the picture below :)

The way down (with still a 4th category climb soon after leaving the territory of the Observatory) was cold (again) and uneventful (no torrential rain or dogs attacking), but beautifully clear and sunny, with nice views onto Santa Cruz from the hillside. I could even ride onto the fresh asphalt (where the road was still blocked on the morning) and enjoy a smooth roll during the final kilometers. On the evening I had dinner with a colleague from the Nordic Optical Telescope, then I went to bed after watching the Tour of California for a while on TV… It was a really crazy but awesome and epic day of 147.4 km with an elevation gain of 5069 meters! GPS data of the day is here. The next day I did not go anywhere, just stayed at home, watched the Giro and ate a lot :D Oh, and on the evening, I had dinner with now all the people from the NOT!

To be continued!

First of all, during my observing run, I rode my bike 25 times up and 25 times down between the ORM Residencia (the place where my room was and the food got served before the work nights), which – at a height of 2300 meters ASL – was a quite good warm-up (climbs of 2.7 km @ 7%) for this week’s cycling. This year, my best time uphills was a half minute better than last autumn! And on average, I was also much faster. Still, I have to face the fact that I am not a very good climber… After my last night at the telescope, I quickly packed everything, and immediately came down to Santa Cruz, to have a day of sleeping and eating (and switching back to a normal day/night rhythm).

So the first day of real holidays – meaning real cycling – was Tuesday, the 17th of May. I only wanted a relatively easy and short ride (keeping my bigger plans for the coming days in mind), so I rode to the south of the island to visit one of the youngest volcanic formations, the Volcán de San Antonio. After a short but really curvy 3rd category climb from Santa Cruz (6.53 km @ 5.4% with a maximum over 100 meters of 9.0%), the rest of the road was only hilly, with slight climb towards Fuencaliente.

The weather was not the best, I rode through low clouds and even got a bit of rain, but with temperatures around 20°C, you can not really complain about it. And anyway, I was prepared for everything ;) I even walked along the rim of the crater (after paying the 3.5 € entrance fee), but I had only my smartphone with me to take pictures with – though for blog-sized images, the quality is still OK, as you can see. It was very interesting, and the view was also great from the top. After the short, but – as I was still wearing cycling shoes – not that comfortable walk, I rode back home, so the day was over after only 67.3 km and an elevation gain of 1058 meters. On-line data from the day can be seen here. Then later that day I was just watching the Giro d’Italia (with English commentary, oh yeah!), and eating a lot to have energy the coming day. Of course I had dinner at my favorite place, the Pizzeria Piccolo, which is just on the other side of the street ;)

To be continued…