It’s now been 4 days of riding and 1 day off for being tourist. On the off day typically everyone rents cars and heads off into their direction of choice depending on what they want to do. Some look for the shops, others like the architecture found in the small untouched towns built many, many years ago. Others stay close to home and enjoy a truly relaxing day around the resort and down onto the near by beach. Wednesday was everyone’s first taste of climbing with a ~ 6km climb near the town of Betlam.

Safe to say there is always a beautiful church at the top of every big climb. Back in Alberta one needs to remember that this doesn’t mean the rest of the rides have been flat. You are always going up and down in this country when riding so the only thing to justify getting nervous about is when a climb is significant enough to last 20 minutes or longer. (20 minutes being the shortest long climb around here). With tomorrow bringing the group a very challenging ride of 140 km and an 11 km climb up the famous Sa Calobra (google it for a picture) we did the very famous Petra cake ride. Not to worry though you still had to put in 90 km to get your cake, but it’s the best cake around and a must on every year’s itinerary. I had mentioned before how great the group is this year. Outside of the riding which everyone does we also have morning swims and afternoon core/flexibility sessions and finally some evening lectures. From year to year the enthusiasm towards the extra sessions outside the biking can vary. This year had been the best, which has made it a lot of fun for everyone and the coaches. What’s also very cool for all of you who like to use getting old as an excuse, I would say ~ 6-7 riders out of the 24 are 60 years or older, and I am sure close to 50% of the riders are within a year or two on either side of 50. It is very inspiring, they are all so strong that’s its truly hard to imagine being able to perform at that level when I hit 60.

As it turns out the pictures are taking to long to load, lots to come on Sunday from earlier ths week and the famous SaCalobra.