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?

A man on a mission

Last night i started to prepare my assault to the 2 big climbs of today… No I was not aiming for the KOM.. Is totally out of reach for me.. But I sure could beat my previous times..!!!

The first climb? Cerro de Hijar is a 7.1 km climb at around 5% qualifies as a cat 2 where my previous best attempt was 32:10 over that distance… Today’s effort?? 27:48 I felt like my heart was going to come out of my chest but I kept pushing.. 
It feels so good to see some improvement on my climbing… But it will be a while before I attack that climb again..

Some pics of my friends as they were getting to the top

Don Antonio… 57 years old and usually kicks my butt on every raise of the road… (also weights 63 kilos)

And the last one? This is the look of someone that gives everything on a climb…

Then we had to ride for a little while to reach the next climb… I am sure some of you will remember the climb to el Juanar… This is another climb that is not long, at least the part that I wanted to do better at… El Juanar is a Cat 3 climb at 6% where the first km probably is the worst part… My previous best time here was… 20:30 and today’s effort was… 18:50..!!!

Not bad for a 100.4 kilo rider right??

As you can see this place and me can adapt to almost any requirements.. By this I mean that if you want to ride hard when you come I can make you ride hard.. If you want to take it easy and stop to take pictures everywhere we can do that too..!! I am happier with the latest option...

Start planning your next trip to Málaga and I will make sure you have one of the best times of your life on the bike... Or at least try..

If you want to join our +Strava Club Pablo's Cycling Tours

And our +Facebook page to stay in touch Pablo's Cycling Club Page

See you next time.. Or maybe soon?

Pablo

A ride with a friend in a Tuesday morning…

My friend Jose Luis is from Colombia, as a Colombian he loves cycling but his new job cuts his time on the bike a lot..! He gets out a few times a week or less then that when busy.. But today he could so I joined him on a ride with a little bit of everything...

Empty to low traffic roads heading up? Checked..!

Someone to chase? Checked..!

Someone to drop? Checked..!

Someone catching up to you while you try to take cool pictures? Checked..!

Screaming downhills where the tiny climbers have no chance? Checked..! (70 km/h, don’t show Katja)

Crossing little towns in the middle of the Sierras? Checked..!

All done before noon… 2 hours of fun on the bike.. 50 km and 850 meters of climbing… Also this ride puts me under 1000 meters behind my goal of 10.000 km for the year.. Who knows maybe I will reach it.. But I really doubt it.. Trip to Argentina coming up and no riding over there.. Well as far as I know..

The +Strava link to the ride is HERE if you like to follow me feel free to do so..Or join the club over there..

Thanks for reading and if you want me to take you for a ride around Coin get in touch with me..!!

See you next time

Pablo 

The Weekend Report Guy

And what about Sunday?

I felt like poop this morning.. Stuffy nose, hard to breath, was awake till 2:30 in the morning and had a few beers while cooking and with the people we had over.. When the alarm went off this morning I wanted to stay in bed so bad but I managed to drag myself out of bed to join my Sunday group ride and I think they are my friends.. Or at least there is a friendship.. Well it was a good day as I pedaled I felt better..

It looked like this when we started..

The guy in green was his first road group ride.. He is a mtbiker so has plenty of stamina..

We were heading over that bump ahead..

The view as we climbed the first part…

This other guy got the visit of the man with the hammer… He was beat..!

After the long climb we stopped to fill the water bottles at Carratraca’s water fountain, it comes straight from the mountains.

And after a long downhill and some assistance to the guy that blew up… My well earned reward..

After that stop for beer and some chips with jamon serrano I headed for another few km since no one was home and I forgot my keys… At the end of the day my ride looked like THIS

I am starting to offer these kind of experience to anyone coming to Málaga.. If you would like to join me for one of my rides feel free to contact.. Comments will be the first step and we take it from there..

Hope you like this report and see you next time..

Pablo

The Weekend Report Guy

Puerto del Viento.. Viento is Ventoux??

I went for a ride with Jose this weekend since my Saturday riding group was on a trip.. The vistas during the ride looked like this..

The weather was great early in the morning since it was a bit cloudy making the ride cool during the first couple of hours.. Also the sun playing hide and seek in the clouds gave us this view..

This area of Málaga has the particular characteristic that as you ride you can see the change in the landscape.. You go from riding in a forest of pines to ride in a desertic Colorado looking area..

Is hard to imagine for anyone that during the Winter months you can see snow up here.. As most of you know this is known as Costa Del Sol... Coast of the sun... The average temps are always around 30 celsius... And as you are riding and sweating buckets this sign seems out of place here..

Remember the Colorado reference? Well I actually never been there but I am very much sure it looks similar to this...

After almost 3 hours of riding we reached our destination and turn around point.. Puerto del Viento..!!
A steady climb at 1190 meters above sea level.. Here is José and a local guy that joined for the pic..

As we turned around was a lot of downhill and time to put the camera away.. But right before I did so I found this great view of part of what we had climb to get to the summit of this local mountain..

The way back home was a hard one.. We found that the wind decided that we didn't work hard enough to get over all the mountains on the way out so it gave us a beating all the way back home... As you can see the smaller engines were spent before we got home..

But all was fixed after we got back into this town that we call home... The drink and snacks were all we needed to get some life back into us..

And since we all like happy endings.. This is me wishing you were here with us to enjoy this adventure... Cheers..!!!

For those that like to look at maps and numbers here is the +Strava Mountains, wind and more mountains and wind

Quick useful links:

* Our club in +Strava HERE

* Our pictures in +Instagram HERE

* Our page in +Facebook HERE

* Our place in +Twitter HERE

Don't forget to join us, like us and follow us to stay up to date and never miss an adventure or ride.

Thanks for reading and see you next time

Pablo

The Weekend Report Guy

Welcome to Southern Spain..!

It was so hot that we had to change out original plans… (150 km and 3000 meters) for something a bit more modest… 120 km and 2000 meters 
The average temperature for the ride? 35 C..!!! AVERAGE!! The max hit 46 according to Garmin..!! Yep it was that hot..

As per usual the routes were great..! This one is from the first climb a cat 2 of 15 km … To el Puerto de las Abejas..

The start of the second cat 2 of the day… This climb was like 9 km long of great twisting roads that went up and down.

Jose trying to catch up with me after I attacked a bump..

And he passed me..

My 3 companions for the day.. I might actually frame this one..

Wind mills to create a postcard view..

Time for the reward… I had two of those before heading home..

Some tapas (small food or snacks) chips… not very salty and jamon crudo

Oh and look..!!! It was new kit day.. (finally I got mine..!!!)

Looking forward to have you over here...If you want to contact us use this blog or you can reach me/us at our Facebook page

Thanks for reading and sharing it..

Pablo 

The Weekend Report and Retreat 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

Discovering the HC climb

What did I had in my mind? No idea..!! But sure it didn’t look like this..!!

This was my third day of climbing.. It was a while since I had 3 days in a route of riding much less of this much climbing.. It was a painful day where I had plenty of shot of my friends behinds…

At the start of the climb things looked like this… And they didn’t change much more for the next 14 km… 6% average gradients..

We even passed 2 tunnels… This one was scary..! Couldn’t see poop in there..!

I am not sure when but this climb was part of the Vuelta?? Maybe 2015?? No clue.. Kill my ignorance.. And Go Purito..!!!

As I got to the top… Antonio and Juan Diego were eating.. Texting and ready to come down… I was like 5 minutes slower then them..

No matter what my time said of me… I was in a good spirit..!! Dead but in a good mood..!

The view of Málaga and the mediterranean sea from the top of this mountain… Is great to get to the top on your own... It gives extra value to it..

And once we made it back home… Refreshments were on..!!

Great day..!! I am done..! So when are you booking your trip to Coín..?

Thanks for reading and sharing.. Don't forget to follow us in +Facebook HERE IS THE LINK

Pablo

The Weekend Report & Retreat Guy