Banish the Butterflies!

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Geo: 36.8405, -5.39055

So after a sleepless night of worrying about the riding in the week ahead I met the group in Sevilla and we drove 1.5 hours SE to Zahara. We are a group of 16 very friendly like-minded cyclists, (5 from Australia and the others from various parts of the US).

We arrived at a working olive mill, El Vincula Molina, where we had a tour of the mill and an olive oil tasting before we were treated to a beautiful picnic lunch.

Then it was time to hop on our bikes - lovely carbon 2017 Trek Domanes with Di2 gearing. Our cycle guides, Justin and Nick made final seat adjustments where required and then we were off.

We started with a glorious downhill run followed by a lovely 15 kms of rolling road beside the reservoir. This was perfect because it got rid of those butterflies in my stomach and gave me a good warm-up before the first hill climb. A few more cllimbs and descents and we soon arrived at the town of Ronda.

Hotel Reina Victoria is our accommodation for the next three nights and it is beautiful - overlooking the valley and my room has a lovely sun-filled balcony. After settling in, we had all had an excellent evening getting to know each other (and remember 16 names) over drinks, nibbles and dinner.

Mind you - remember we are on Spanish time so dinner didn't start until 9.30pm - so by 11.00pm it was very nice to fall into bed after a good first day.

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Comments

[JoAnne]

looks like wonderful weather and perfect countryside for a great trip, hope you are able to learn a bit of Spanish on the way