DAY 6 - LAUJAR DE ANDARAX to Capileira: Bikepacking the South of Spain
Destination: Capileira
Proposed distance: 97.4km, elevation gain: 2847, surface: 45% unpaved
In case you missed the previous episodes in this series:
Day 5 - Gergal to Laujar de Andarax
It was an excitinig morning in the south of Spain. Today I would finally get my hands on actual bike tools to fix Jocelyne’s loose cassette. Not the tiny, foldable, pocket-sized ones we were carrying, but tools with full handles allowing us to use actual leverage. There was even going to be a bike stand! I could hardly wait!! This was the only bike shop we encountered the entire seven days, and it wasn’t even a bike shop. It was the home of two British expats who moved to Cadiar, Spain and started a cycling tour company. Vamos Cycling guides groups of keen cyclists on local tours by day, and hosts their tired bodies in their guest room rentals by night. Sarah and her husband Gary are avid cyclists themselves, dedicating a room in their home to function as a bike shop, a necessity if you like riding bikes in the bike garage desert that is the south of Spain. We watched the sun come up from our balcony. It was going to be another glorious day.
We packed up and got the bikes ready, a ritual now well established and tweaked only once to include the olive oil chain baths. Since discovering this messy but pleasantly scented ritual, Care Bear’s gears are now silent, though we were tempting fate having her continue riding with a loose cassette. But we were so close now, salvation lay waiting in Cadiar. The plan was to meet Sarah at her home around noon. According to our route that was 50km and 1400m elevation away (that’s so much elevation for 50km).
There was an option for a more direct route, cutting off some gravel and a notable amount of climbing. Care Bear was still sick, but stable, slowly working her way through our stash of IMODIUM coated Advil Cold and Sinus. She was well enough to face the day, but thought it best to take the short cut to Cadiar. I can’t lie, I was disappointed at the prospect of cutting out another chunk of our journey. I felt like we were cheating the trip. However, I am self aware enough to know that I am irritatingly goal-oriented and incessantly inflexible. I understood why the short cut was the right call. The gravel sections of this route had been predictably unpredictable for technical demands and speed of travel. Often on seemingly short sections, we were caught unaware, slogging it out for hours. If we didn’t reach the shop for noon we may miss our opportunity for bike tools all together. We had already chanced our luck, riding with a loose cassette for the last two days. Fine. Let’s draw up the short cut.
Modified distance: 80km, elevation gain: 2235meters, surface: 22% unpaved. Still no slouch of a day.
Cadiar was now 34km and 835m elevation away with zero gravel. We had settled on a route, destination, and timeline, none of which had not really been our forte. We hustled down for breakfast.
Mr. Owner Chef was back in the kitchen and in good form, serving us another fantastic meal.
Shortly after, we said goodbye to our Russian hosts and were back on the pavement. The ride into Cadiar was relatively uneventful, upholding South Spain’s customary rugged beauty along quiet roads, with a view of the Sierra Nevada to our right. When we did encounter vehicles, they adhered to the Spanish courtesy of providing a wide birth for cyclists. It was smooth sailing.
We reached Vamos Cycling, just as Care Bear received an email from Sarah. She was out and wouldn’t be home for another hour. Great, not much we can do about that. Just as we were debating what to eat, the cleaner emerged from Sarah’s house. Thankfully, she spoke English. We explained our situation and without hesitation she unlocked Sarah’s house and granted two perfect strangers access to her employer’s bike room. I found the required tools and brought them outside to where a bike stand was mounted to the exterior wall of their house (awesome touch, I have to say). We secured the chain whip in place and cranked on the lockring. It didn’t budge. The cassette was tightened perfectly. WTF? “Why?” Care Bear asked, looking at me puzzled. “I guess we just keep going?” I said looking just as confused, then disappeared back in the house to replace the tooIs. We thanked the cleaner while she locked up and left. Care Bear reinstalled her back wheel. “Maybe I should give it a test ride before we leave,” she suggested smartly, mounting her now seemingly more stable house of cards. She pedalled and tried shifting through the gears. I could hear the problem even before she said anything. “It’s not shifting at all now.” Floooooocon de neiiiiiige. Care Bear’s house of cards had finally collapsed and she was now riding a single speed. We threw her bike back on the house’s externally mounted bike stand. I saw the problem instantly. “Your shifting cable let go from the derailleur.” Then, like I had stepped out of the matrix, everything became fully clear, though this didn’t bring us much further forward. “Oooooohhhhh, snap.” I turned to Jocelyne and explained our newest problem.
“How do we fix it?” She asked.
“It’s impossible without pliers, you can’t grip the derailleur cable to pull it tight without them.” Which we didn’t have, but definitely existed on the other side of this wall we were locked on the wrong side of. The cleaner who had left only a few minutes ago was now nowhere to be seen. Uuuuuuugh. Why?!?! I rubbed my eyes, the frustration was mounting.
“Ok,” I said, “we can wait here until Sarah comes home, whenever that will be. She’s British, but currently living on Spanish time. Or we can walk our bikes up hill 2kms in our bike shoes to the car mechanic shop we passed on our way into town, they will have pliers too.”
Hanger was settling in. After a quick conference we settled on Care Bear sticking around to wait for Sarah, while I ventured out in search of food.
As I navigated my way through the labyrinth toward the town’s centre, I suddenly realized this was the first moment of the trip I was officially off exploring on my own. It felt foreign, like I had to be extra careful. When I found a grocery store, I realized I was without a bike lock (stupid missing pannier). The last thing I needed right now was to emerge from the store with an arm full of snacks to find my bike stolen. Keeping one foot out the door, I managed to pay for juice, cookies, and a Snickers bar. I snapped this pic of Capier’s town monument before I headed back to shove cookies in Care Bear’s face.
Shortly thereafter, Sarah showed up and let us back into her bike shop. Once I located the elusive pliers it was a quick fix. We tightened the hell outta that anchor bolt. “That should hold,” I joked. Care Bear did not laugh.
We had a pleasant conversation with Sarah. Her partner Gary was out on a ride. Apparently they retired to Spain, and now Gary spends 18 hours a day riding his bikes. She asked us about our route so we explained our remaining grand finale, climbing up and over the Sierra Nevada and submitting Pico de Veleta before returning back to Granada. “ Oh,” she said, “you're riding the Carretera.” She knew it, and she didn’t sound excited for us. I was aware that the north side of the mountain, our descent into Granda, was fully paved, but the climb up the south side was rugged and technical for gravel bikes. One mistake could land you a fall off the steep cliff edge. I wasn’t confident we had the skills, especially considering our bikes were weighed down with gear. I was desperate for affirmation.
“Can you just take a look at our bikes, let us know if we are making a huge mistake?”
She explained the Carretera had originally been part of the Badlands race (established 2020), but in 2022 it snowed, and the temperature dropped down to -5 degrees overnight. Tired, sweaty bodies were summiting Pico de Veleta in the dark, snow, and cold. “No one died,” she said none too reaffirmingly. Great, well at least no one died. She looked at our rigs. “You guys will be fine, you aren’t weighed down with too much gear, so long as the weather holds it’s totally doable.” This didn’t reassure me. I lost my protective weather layers with my damned pannier. No rain jacket, no wind layer, and no gloves. I must have looked uneasy as she promised to double check with Gary when he returned and send us an email regarding his thoughts. Good enough for now. We thanked her for all she had done and were on our way. What was supposed to be a 15 minute stop turned into 1.5 hours.
And so began our unrelenting climb for the next four hours on now cold legs. We knew this middle chunk of the day would be hard, and we were expecting the impending periods of demoralization, but graciously these never seemed to occur for both of us at the same time. We held form, with one of us upfront keeping pace, moving the duo forward, the other suffering quietly in the back.
Amy in a good mood…
(This video makes me laugh. You can hear the sickness rasping in Care Bear’s voice. Earlier that morning, when I asked her how she was feeling, she replied “L’espy told me once so long as the illness isn’t in your lungs you should be ok to ride, and I don’t think it’s in my lungs yet.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was delusional. She sounded terrible. You should have heard her cough (Will pointed it out instantly when he met us at the airport back in Canada). But I also knew she was determined to finish, we could almost throw a stone to Granada from here. So instead I let her make funny videos like this one so I could point out reality to her later :)
Care Bear in a good mood…
We climbed for hours. Up and down on roads so steep they were terrifying to descend, even the paved ones. Pico de Veleta loomed in the distance, daring us to envision what tomorrow could bring.
Pico de Veleta.
Somehow, we managed to keep morale high.
The week’s struggles were exposing cracks in our minds and bodies. In the 24kms between Cadiar and Trevelez we climbed only 850m, but it felt like much more. I was struggling, weak, and drained both mentally and physically. My body was not tolerating this level of load so soon out of surgery. I was battling to keep my energy and effort up, but my heart rate issue was worsening. I didn’t have much left in the tank, so I tucked in behind Care Bear, willing the draft to help pull me along. My mind went dark.
It took all I had to keep going. Then, like the lost city of Atlantis surfacing from the depths, Travelez came into view, the white houses appearing snow-capped in the afternoon sun.
I couldn’t have been more elated! Maybe we could find Coke!!!
Trevelez was gorgeous, tucked high into the mountain pass, with more cured ham than one could consume in a lifetime.
We passed a cute little restaurant on the main strip. “We’re stopping,” I said and got off my bike. I approached the bartender. “Excuse me, do you have any Coke?” Of course they had Coke.
“OMG, that’s amazing!” I cried in relief, and rested my head on the bar wood.
“Do you want some ice with your Coke?”
I lifted my head, my eyes widened. “Yes! That would be incredible! Thank you!!!”
He laughed and handed over our 10 euros worth of Coke. I didn’t care. I ran out to show Care Bear our prize.
Not two minutes later, a plate of tapas appeared - open faced cured ham sandwiches (7/9) and olives. We were in heaven.
Rejuvenated, we said adios to the lost city of Trevelez, and continued on our journey.
View from the climb out of Trevelez.
With bellies full of Coke and ham, and my spirits lifted, we climbed out of town, past the most beautiful wall of red foliage. The caffeine high and sugar rush kicked in at just the right moment for this. Woah, cool textures! Picture time!
We had 20kms left for the day and only 500m of climbing before Capileira, our final destination before we returned to Granada. Riding the combined elation of caffeine, sugar, and endurance activity lightheadedness, I was suddenly euphoric about setting pace up front.
The gravel roads were in good shape. Yay! More champagne gravel! Until they weren’t. One section of road had completely collapsed and we had to make several trips, hiking our bikes and belongings into the abyss.
Our final few kilometres were sprinkled with herds of long horned cattle roaming freely. There were no fences or people in sight. Apparently, we were in their territory. Care Bear got a little worried, and fair enough, the Andalusia region is known for breeding Toro de Lidia or Spanish Fighting Cattle. However, I spent the first two decades of my life around various breeds of cattle, and these didn’t look particularly temperamental. They mostly just stood there, unmoving, watching us with a sort of detached interest, though I must admit their horns were a bit intimidating. I considered it may be possible that a farmer’s call to get their cows moving is sort of a universal thing, and I bellowed the call used by my farming uncles to summon their dairy cows in for milking. Care Bear found this particularly amusing. A few of the cattle feigned movement, enough for us to nervously find a path through their impenetrable wall. If these were fighting cattle, they didn’t seem to be in the mood for a brawl. Good. It was much better this way, no need to test which of us was a faster sprinter. ;)
The ride peaked before it dropped down into Capileria. I turned back to check in with Care Bear.
At last, Capileria was in our sights. I couldn’t have been happier to see this town.
Perched a cool 1436m above sea level, Capileria is a fascinating blend of history, art, and nature. It was the last stop on what has shaped up to be our Moorish history tour. The town offers a decisive nod to the Moorish inhabitants who used it as a sanctuary after the Reconquista until they were expelled by King Philip II in the 16th century. These days, streets are line with paintings, sculptures, woven rugs, and textiles inspired by views of the Poqueira Gorge and Mediterranean Sea that make Capileria a worthy muse. These unique landscapes have Capileria rightfully crowned the gateway to the Sierra Nevada, rendering it as the basecamp of choice for inspiring cyclists and hikers on their quest to summit Pico de Veleta, now looming over us with its considerable presence.
Day 6 was in the bag and we were wrecked. The trip was certainly taking its toll on us. My heart rate issue was worsening, with my heart rate max reaching only 148 beats per minute even with all the climbing (Day 1 it reached 173 beats per minute). And this is how Care Bear felt about it…
I told you this picture would come back ;)
Hold on, here’s the happy Day 1 comparison picture…
We cleaned up, grabbed some snacks and fuel for our final day, then went out for pizza and debated tomorrow’s options.
Pizzzzzzaaaaaa…..
At Sarah’s suggested good sense we searched the forecast for the summit of Pica del Veleta (luckily there is a weather station up there). The summit sits at an astounding 3,396 meters above sea level. I knew we had 2000 meters of climb to get up and over the Sierra Nevada on Day 7, but I didn’t realize we would be starting from such a significant elevation. I have enough experience with mountain summits to uphold a healthy respect for their foreboding danger. Storms at high altitudes can blow in without warning, suddenly consuming you in a fury of winds and water, and I was without my most protective layers. Rain jackets have sheltered me in many previous backcountry squalls, and I was uneasy to be without one. I checked the forcast. Cloudy, 25km per hour winds, .1 inch of rain, wind chill -2 degrees Celsius. I was not convinced. Care Bear however, in all her optimistic glory, was optimistic.
“Maybe we can make you a rain jacket out of a garbage bag?”
Sigh. This wouldn’t even be the first time I wore a garbage bag as a rain jacket this season. Having been through it once, I knew the garbage bag would be better than nothing. Fine, I’ll wear the stupid garbage bag. We dumped the trash out of the garbage bin to fit me with a somewhat wind and rainproof outer layer. I stared at my reflexion in the mirror, analyzing my newly fashioned excessively white vest. It did not make me feel any better about our situation, but I didn’t want to miss the climax of this week. To bypass Pico de Veleta was a failure I didn’t think I could stomach. We settled on checking the forecast tomorrow morning before making the final call. If it did not change for the worse, we would venture into the clouds. But until then, sleep.
Today’s Shout Out goes to Sarah at Vamos Cycling for the use of her bike tools, stand, and knowledge of the area. And one to my friend, Lukasz, for teaching me how to fix bikes, sort of.
Nerdy bike packing stuff:
I know what you are curious about. What exactly happened with Care Bear’s bike?
Jocelyne had her wheel set custom built for this trip, including new carbon rims and a large 42T cassette. Though her trusted bike mechanic had consulted on this project, he must have handed the bike to one of his lesser-skilled shop guys to do at the actual assembly of parts. Who knows what happened there, maybe the guy was having an off day, but whoever put on her new cassette neglected to add a spacer, which is why the cassette could be both wobbly and fully secured to the hub (honestly, I didn’t mess around with this much when we originally noticed the wobble as I was terrified of having her cassette fall off the hub completely while we lacked the tools to secure it). To accommodate Jocelyne’s new larger 42T cassette, the shop would have also changed the derailleur cable to allow for longer derailleur movement to the larger cassette rings, but as it turns out, whoever did the work neglected to tighten the derailleur anchor bolt enough to secure the derailleur cable in place. When Jocelyn removed then reinstalled her back wheel, it finally knocked the derailleur cable free, rescinding her ability to shift gears entirely. This explained why tightening the barrel adjuster each morning had helped a little, because each day the cable was slipping a little more throughout the day. 3-star bike mechanic, that’s 3.1 stars now thank-you very much.
The cassette spacer wasn’t a huge deal. It affects the sharpness of shifting, so if it’s loose it’s annoying, but we could have rode the entire trip without it being a major issue if the cable had not come loose. However, the real lesson here can be paralleled to Keith Richards’ words of experiential wisdom as a drug addict: "the first thing you learn as a drug addict is to have a trustworthy dealer." I have a similar sentiment about bike mechanics, and refuse to hand my multi-thousand dollar bikes over to teenagers. I did this exactly once before a mountain bike race, surrendering my bike to a 15-year-old kid who clearly didn’t care much. I had one thought as I looked that kid in the eyes, “I’m definitely smarter than yooooou, so I must be able to do this.” Shortly after, I had my friend Lukasz teach me a few skills for maintenance and mid-ride repairs. I purchased tools, and from then on handled simple fixes myself. Any major jobs such as bottom bracket or shock work I take into a shop where I personally know and trust the mechanic. However, this is not always a fool proof plan. I knew exactly what happened to Jocelyne’s derailleur cable because it once happened to my derailleur cable after I personally installed a new derailleur on my mountain bike. I didn’t tighten the anchor bolt enough and the cable let go while I was out on a group ride. Luckily one of the guys was in the habit of carrying an excessive amount of tools, and we were able to tighten it on site with his backpack pliers. I’m judgy, but you know….. ¯\_(ツ)_/`
I’ll catch you on the next and final blog of this series. Until then, thanks for reading!
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