April 12, 2023 to April 14, 2023
Balazote - Casa Bajas (Teruel)
Stage 6
Balazote, last town in stage 5, was just a gas station beside the Via Verde, a change of stage on Gerry, and back into the NW blast down to Albacete. As always with a following breeze, you don't know how strong it is until you turn into it. It was a "heeled into it" kinda strength, and I was pleased the trail headed mostly E and NE.
The post-Balazote section was through a dry wetland area, and Albacete is surrounded by a huge plane growing wheat, leeks, lucerne and later, almonds and grapes plus lots I couldn't identify because they had just been planted. Certainly plenty to look at and a landscape slowly changing from flat cultivated fields to dry scrubby hills as we entered the next national park area.
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At the start of the road through the Parque las Hoces de Cabriel was a lovely Roman bridge (Puente de Vadocanas) and at the end, a grunty climb of 300m to give magnificent views back over where I'd ridden in the morning. Most of the parque was old pines and made for lovely riding.
The last 20km to Mira, and my bed for the night, was heading N with some NNW, and guess what? that NW'ly was still blowing strong! I was pretty wrecked when I arrived in Mira and didn't really care that the apartment was reminiscent of a dingy student flat, complete with loose electrical plugs and a cooker that didn't seem to work. The shower was hot, the washing machine worked, and I happily passed out in the lumpy bed.
The final day of stage 6 I mostly stayed on the road to get a direct-ish 80km to Teruel, and to leave out a climb through the local ski field over Javalambre at 2019m (which is early in Stage 7). Call me crazy, but Moorish architecture in Teruel was more attractive to me than a slog up a barren hillside.
Stage 6 was, on paper, 196km and 1640m of climbing. My version was 248km and only 1920m climbed.
Today's ride: 248 km (154 miles)
Total: 1,372 km (852 miles)
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