warming up and warming down leaving the actual jogging until she was confidently out of shot.
Actually, we were woken by workmen in the cafe below. Two storeys below but they had come to do a job that needed access to places that were denied them. Mucho sitting about, smoking, phoning, chatting to the neighbours, shouting at passers by who shouted back. Eventually after much banging and thumping the job was decreed impossible and sitting around was once more judged the thing to do.
I did manage to find out the password to the wifi of the cafe which has been on all the time we've been here but inaccessible as the cafe's been shut. Now we have the password the wifi's been turned off. The owner is skiing and not due back till the 22nd by which time our Orange 3G PAYG sim will be long exhausted. 2Gb a month isn't much, either that or uploading these blogs, reading a few bus
timetables and sending a few emails are taking up huge bandwidth. At least I've turned off all the automatic updates I know of but I suppose that Windows 7 and Apple whatever are always trying to download something or other.
The return of the restless jogger was accompanied by the instruction to wander down to the hotel along the front where there were some serious cyclistos. But only when she'd changed (again) as it was getting hotter by the minute. Serious? Yup. Very. Caja Rural Professional Cycling Team said the coach, the Skoda Superbs, the bikes, their green and white livery, their socks, wheels and pretty much everything else.
The technology is what gets me. All that "stuff" for a pushbike. The roof racks on the team cars are works of art, hydraulically damped, qr clamps machined by cnc from alloy billets, hinges with what looked like nylon bushes and each one with tiny rose joints connecting tiny dampers to tig welded alloy and carbon struts. The carbon struts carry the rollers that allow everything to tilt as the tailgate is opened and closed, except when closed the rack sinks slowly back to its locked down position under the influence of a whole array of tiny dampers. It only pivots up 100mm or so at the rear but I guess with six built up bikes over the front and another six pairs of wheels at the rear that represents a lot of carbon and very expensive bits if not great weight. That's just the roof rack!
The stowage inside one was remarkable but I couldn't get close enough to do it justice. Racked out with what looked like rows of cooled water carriers and a mechanics perch in the back with loads of "stuff" around his position. The other car had radios and screens in the front, phone holders and gizmos and gadgets by the score but Mr.Smiling Portly on the smartphone wasn't too keen for me to go poking my camera inside it. Anything outside was Ok but inside, no. Fair enough, I can understand that.
I didn't realise until recently that caffeine was a banned drug for cyclists until only a few years ago but now it's allowed so most will down half a dozen espressos in the hour befor the off as it ensures a slower release of energy than otherwise would occur. See, all these years of people taking the mick out of my caffeine intake. If they only knew that it's what got me through the day. Cheaper than EPO, unless you know a Spanish doctor ......
The bikes are another story. Each rider has his bike fitted to him and a mechanic with a bike stand that looked almost ordinary was on hand to adjust it to perfection. They'd ride up and down the road checking their bike and then get back to the hotel. A man ran about with a meter checking something elsectronic which turned out to be the battery voltage for the gear change on a couple of bikes and then fiddled with the handlebar mounted computers. The coach wasn't up to Team Sky's example and they had Jag's instead of Skodas but there was palpable rider enthusiasm and older, plumper personnel in team colours speaking endlessly into their smartphones and gesticulating in a highly animated fashion.
Eventually they were off to a gentle start right past our apartment into which we were about to go and fortunately I had the 40D in hand. A most interesting interlude in the otherwise quietly sedate passage of time in these here parts. If I had my Raleigh Banana here I could have gone for a pedal with them, I suppose. Their gears seemed to have about the same size cogs as mine so obviously they weren't going to go up any of the myriad of steep hills beyond the town, were they? I would have taken the escalator route and caught them at the top to save a bit of energy, of course.
Back for coffee and later we went to the local Museo where there's a display of British Atefacts. Very twee but not without a certain charm. In this case a tea set, some tea and plastic fairy cakes. Apparently in summer strawberries and cream are taken with tea in the south east of England and especially at Wimbledon. That's what it says. There's a jar of Earl Grey for you to sniff and another of
English Breakafast Blend. The former does smell a little but the latter has obviously been open far too long. I happen to have some here so if we've any left when we go I may donate some, otherwise it'll just be the empty packet but I bet that smells more than what they have.
The man in the embroidered jumper even let us roam the grounds, cool and shady amid orange trees, two a penny here as they even line the streets but no one picks the oranges they just fall and get swept up or driven over, and lemon trees. All very lovely but a bit too manicured for me although I've got to get used to wandering around gardens, haven't I? Then he called us over to tell us the English speaker was due back. She duly arrived and she's going to show us over the rest of the house at some point soon, probably. Very nice of them all. She did offer to let us join in her next tour with a bunch of schoolkids but we declined very swiftly indeed.
We found another supermercado, a huge one with lots of space. Really, there was loads of space in there, acres between the aisles and not really having stomachs up to the usual bocadillo we bought some plain cheddar, meusli y cured jamon. In the event lunch was pan y allioli with a few olives and tea. Pleasant change, or about as much as one could cope with. Tea tonight is fried chicken, baked beans and chips. That's if I go up to Masymas and get them as we noted McCains were in the freezer yesterday or the day before. If I don't or they're not there it'll be fried chicken, beans and pan. Maybe not evn beans. Maybe not chicken either. In the event we did go and get the chips. Alas, like the onion rings that were squid in Fuerteventura many years ago I looked at McCains and thought, great. They weren't oven chips. They were proper ones. Result.
Actually, the cook did brilliantly as the electricity died in the midst of the cooking process and it took me a while to sort it out but that little adventure will have to wait for another post, and a calmer me. I trust taht there are no more interesting interludes today
No more liquid chocolate, though, last nights is still doing its stuff.
A lovely day for a pedal on the cycle paths along the Mediterranean coast.
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