I can see the finish line..

As we are on the straight away I can see it already.. Yes the finish line..!

The year is coming to an end soon and with the weather changing I don't see my numbers taking a huge drop or a huge increase..

As I woke up this morning I felt sort of melancholic and went reading old posts and a lot of comments from them, till I got to the post that give me the idea for this one.. Do you remember the What your goals are? Well if you don't, just follow the link and it will bring you to it..

So mine were extremely ambitious and involved huge changes in my life and my family life.. Did I accomplish any of them? Did anything change from the day I wrote them to now? Lets find out..!

My goals for 2016:

- Moving to Malaga with the family. DONE!
- Get a job that allows me to follow my dream. (wait for iit is coming) Working on it.
- Buy a nice BIG house in Malaga. Discarded, at least for now
- Start our own B&B. Discarded
- Start offering my cycling guide services in Malaga. I started..!!
- Go back to Argentina to get my older son, Pablito. Leaving on the 25th for Argentina
- Ride 15.000 Km for the year. Have you seen where I live? Not this year..!
- Climb 150.000 meters in a year. Will be close..! Stay tuned for this one
- Lower my weight to 85 kilos. Ha..! Not even close..!
- Write more in my blog. And better should I add. Ons and offs.. I like interaction and the blog doesn't give me that
- Become financially independent. Working on it every day

- Meet more PdC members. Yes..! Yeehoo, thebongolian, maratsafin and Paul from Scotland

-And the most important one….. TO BE AND MAKE MAKE FAMILY HAPPIER..!!! We are HAPPIER!

So to me has been a nice mix of yes and nos but I will take it as us (family and me) finishing ahead with all the changes that we faced..

The Pablo's Cycling Tours Facebook page is running and I am looking forward to this business to take off.. by the way if you didn't like the page yet please do.. If you already did.. Thank you very much..! Feel free to suggest anything that might help.. Good and bad critics are the only way to move forward.

But enough about me.. Tell me, tell us...

What your finish line looks like?

La Vuelta a España, trip to Alicante "Day 2"

If you read the first report, the one from day 1 you will just follow up the story... If you didn't you might want to go and read the first one... Up to you..

 After a good night of sleep was time for day 2

And here are some pictures….

So we started the day making our way to the start of the stage… Look around everyone soaking in the race environment..

Me? Well I was looking for a friend…

And the moment they were finish with team meeting and he was the last one out of the bus… (I yelled at him "are wtf are you doing in there sleeping?") But we finally saw each other after 3 years or so..

Then we talked for a little bit.. He seemed in good spirits.. And happy to see a familiar face.. (and yeehoo FFS next time let me know you are taking pictures…!!!)

And the pics don’t get any better.. But is not about me is about Sergey.. (yeehoo I am going to kill you)

We spoke about life, cycling and old friends U.S and Spain… You can see the pics don’t get any better either.. Me Sergey looks great..!

After the last shot it was time for us to make it up the climb of the day.. the last climb to the finish line.. We agree with Sergey that we will try to stay in touch a bit more and not let so much time go in between visits..

Now it was time to start climbing… T-Bong and Tom leading the way..

The spirits were great at the start of the climb…

This one is about 2 km from the top.. Where thanks to the police I caught up to the rest of the group.. We were stopped at least 5 times while climbing to show our VIPpasses.. Thanks again Marat..!!! Without this we couldn’t make it to the finish line..

For this shot I actually attacked ant told T-Bong not to follow…!!! Sweat and clouds didn’t help with the image.

And we made it to the finish line..!!!

Latour launches his final attack of the day.. I was sure Atapuma had this one..

He had enough by this point.. El Puma..!!!

Felline going for 3rd..

Bobo..!!! Right?

Quintana out sprinting a very tired Froome..

Remember Froome clapping at Nairo’s win? Well this is what it looked like from behind..

Froome heading back down.. He had such a disappointed face

Hola Valverde..!

Dani Moreno..! Very nice guy..

And that was all from day 2 in Alicante… Aitana is a great climb.. Hard as hard gets but really nice.. The only reason we could get all the way to the top is because Marat got his hands on this very useful invitations…

Oh the Strava link is here we are on the top 100 for the final climb segment..!!

Also let me recommend Julian to you all for any trips that you might want to do... Here is his Facebook page

Thanks for reading..!! Is one more day after this one.. Stay tuned for the last one..

Pablo

The Weekend Report Guy

La Vuelta a España, trip to Alicante "Day 1"

So here is a few pics.. Day 1:

Our rides started like this every morning… Riding by the marina taking in some sun… ( I was accused of sun doping)

But someone else got accused of sock doping… Prove??

Villajoyosa has some good bumps all around it..

And the weather was amazing..! OK hot but amazing.. Look at thebongolian smile..!!! The kids is having fun..!

Yeehoo was keeping me company for a while till I send him looking for the others as I was soaking in my sweat surroundings..

I do not understand this pic… I am sure he was ahead of me.. He went around twice??

And there was socializing over German lunch in Spain… And plenty of water and other fluids… T-Bong the only brave one to have a beer..

My only KOM of the day came at the "who finish lunch first"

Best image of the TT??? Yeehoo taking a nap in the shade..!!!

Ice cream, smoothies and plenty of other fluids were extremely necessary…

We found Oleg..!!!!

Awesome view by the beach…

And that was it from me on day 1 in pictures in Spain.. And the strava link for the first day.. There was Team beer and Team sangria at night.. Remember those names for day 2… No pics of this.. I left the camera at home..

Hope you enjoyed this adventure and stay tuned for day 2 and 3 that are to come shortly...

Pablo

The Weekend Report guy

Almost 3 weeks off is a long time...

As my wife and daughter came back from the U.S yesterday I was ready to head out of the door for a ride today.. But let me tell you this.. 3 weeks or almost is waay too long off the bike.. I was suffering in many different way today... as the post progresses I will explain this a bit more..

Let me tell you that my route selection for the day was a bit challenging... Even if I was in great shape for it..! Never a good sign when you start your ride like this..

If you can't make the gradient marked there it says 9%... No is not for the whole 15 km climb.. I believe is at 4% the average since it has a few downhill sections in it..

Jose was loving it today..! If he spoke English the best way to translate the way he was feeling would be... Pay back bitch..! Since most of the time I am putting the pain into him.. He loved the route..!!!
How can you not love this views??

Andalucia is full of picturesque little towns.. El Burgo is one of them...

Before we headed out of town we had to stop and take a pic of the monument of it.. I am guessing that high in the mountains you can find this ones running in the wild..

From El Burgo we started heading to the next town in between mountains and valleys.. Something that I came to value a lot is the shaded roads.. There is not many around here..

This road was extremely rough, but since we were going up the hill it didn't really matter... There was a good 15 km of almost no traffic...  Seriously we saw 2 cars, a scooter and one tractor... Almost perfect to soak under the sun surrounded by this views... Can you see Jose there??

Remember the traffic? It was heavy traffic for sure...

After the last picture I went into a stage were all I wanted to do was to get home... I was exhausted.. In pain ( my bad knee doesn't like breaks in my riding) so I put the camera away and just pushed all the way home.. By push I mean I dragged my butt on the roads...

By the end of the day +Strava says we did 93 km.. and 1700 meters of climbing..

And this is me at home showing my new jersey.. Thanks to Joy and Pieter from Pittsburgh, PA for the present.. Loved it..! And it passed a good test today..

Look..!!!

Thanks for reading and giving us a thumbs up in +Facebook here is the link

Pablo

The Weekend Report and Retreat Guy

One more for the Giro challenge

I was out by 10 am after dropping Felix ( my son to school) had no time to get back since he was having a play date so that means no rush getting back..

But what to do? Where to go? So I wanted a calm and easy climb.. As calm goes this climb was calm.. Now as easy goes.... Well wasn't all that easy... Maybe the first time up but when you are doing repeats the story changes...

I picked the Juanar as my playground of the day.. is a 5 km or so climb that finish at a hotel on the top of the mountain.. a Nice calm climb.. Looked like this..

The views are great and you can really enjoy this climb because the traffic is very little.. During all the time I spent going up and down I maybe saw 10 cars... And when you get to the top is this hotel..

Coming down from it you have to be careful.. Is little traffic but you never know what could be around the switchbacks..

My second trip up? Oh yes.. I went up again... I saw this sign.. That told me I was 3 km away from my second summit.. I believe is one at the start of the climb as well..

This guy spooked me as he flew by me..! (skinny young bastard!!!)

I even went off road a little...(nature break) but the view was really peaceful

On my third time up to the Juanar I was too busy trying not to collapse to take pictures.. Went I got to the top I ate and drank everything I got before I head down.. After this time I was bored and not feeling like another trip up the mountain..

From here I headed in Marbellas direction... That is the opposite side of my house.. So a bit more riding before heading home...
That part of the ride is great and mostly downhill... Really fast and in between traffic... If you do this please take it easy since there is a cross wind coming from the ocean that can scare you a bit if distracted...
Well I wasn't planning to get to Marbella so in the exit to Ojen I got out of the main route and into the little town before my final big climb of the day... I felt like I was going backwards here.. 6 km/h 7..8... Almost never double digits.. Painful experience but the views totally worth it..!!!

And they were quiet as well.. Those rock walls are impressive..!

The ramps were progressing the wrong way for my legs... But they still looked great...

That was my morning ride.. And the +Strava file if you want to look at it is HERE

On the second part of the day I did a group ride where I didn't take many pictures because I was fighting with my legs to keep turning the pedals.. It was a pain fest.. Well actually I was not in pain but there was no strength in my legs and I could see my companions disappear any time that the route went up..

So the only nice picture of the day was when we run into local traffic...

Unfortunately my GPS decided not to record this ride that was another 75 km and around 1000 meters of climbing... I am still trying to get the file from some of the other guys... That by the way thanks to the guys for waiting for me in every bump of the route...

Thanks for reading and sharing

Stay tuned because I am planning to start the guide business soon..

See you next time..

Pablo

The Weekend Report Guy