My first Cat 1 climb experience

My getting stronger and fitter journey is involving a lot of different aspects of my life.. The riding around here as I mention in previous posts is very challenging for a heavy rider like me so on top of all the training is time to start watching what I eat as well....(but is another post coming about this topic soon) What do I mean by challenging rides?? Just look at my riding area...

Don't get me wrong..!!! I am not complaining..! I love this..! Is so challenging that every where I go I end up with a few hundred meters of climbing by the time I come back home... Today as an example I used +Strava  to monitor my school run... By the time I got home it was 4.1 km and 100+ meters of elevation!

But this is about the Saturday ride... I know is already Monday but I had a busy weekend with the family (Happy Easter!!!) So my roads on Saturday looked like this most of the time...

Like this going up or down most of the time.. Sometimes a bit more rough...

And 99% of the time my views looked like this...

At points the roads got really rough that the local authorities let you know ahead of time... And by the way can you see those antennas in the back high up? I was heading there.. Just not yet...

But before I got there I had to climb a bit more... And also go down some nice towns in between the mountains...

After making a few wrong turns here and there I was finally on the right track to conquer my first ever category 1 climb... All I had to do was follow this road.

8 km of roads that only kept going up.. And then up some more.. Along the way you could see this kind of views that would be much better on a MTB to explore...

A very narrow road to the top of my first monster climb...

As I was climbing and came out of the trees I saw the Mediterranean see in the distance..

Then it was back at going up... The gradients?? For the curious ones my +Garmin said 12% here... I don't think it ever when under 7% for the whole climb..

As you go up there is painting on the road that tells you how far you have climbed... The painting started at 5 km to go to the top... I tried to take some pics but they didn't come out any good as I was struggling to bread much less to aim at a painting on the route while riding.. Did I ever mention that all my pictures are taken from the bike while riding?? Well almost all of them..
But I was almost there at the top of the climb... But Before getting there lets just demoralize the poor fu**/r with this ramp..

That was something like 100 meters North of 14%.... The cherry on top???

But I think everything is worth it when you get to the top... Dismount your bike and hold to it as you realized that you are dizzy as hell and everything is spinning around you.... Then just then after you catch up your breath and the feeling of puking is leaving your body on that moment when you finally can look at the horizon and see how far you got up..

That I believe is the city of +Benalmadena Unica

And my trusty companion that took me all the way up there... The Mediterranean sea at the back..

For those that would like to follow this route one day here is the Strava link to my ride..

If you are ever in this part of the world drop me a line and hopefully I can take you up here for a spin.

Thanks for reading.. Hope you enjoyed the story.. If you have someone that might enjoy this share it!

See you ate the next update?

Pablo

The Weekend Report Guy