As we looked at the proposed route from Granada to the coast at Garrucha, we became increasingly nervous about the potential amount of climbing that would be involved. It also looked like there was not a great amount of towns along there, increasing the chance of getting trapped in hills, with the place to stop being far off. 

Eventually, we freaked, and decided to make a run for the coast, from Granada to Motril. From there we rather assumed we could make it to Denia, since we had succeeded with that ride, though in the reverse direction, last year. 

In football, when you are making no progress, you "punt", and let the opposition give it a try for a while. But although we named this page "punt", we can not kick the ball to someone else. Once we would arrive at Motril, we would have to fight our way along the coastal headlands. Would that really be better than the interior hills?

We can work up a bit of data to begin to answer that question. The interior route for Granada to Garrucha is about 219 km long, and it involves 2014 meters of climbing.  By contrast, the coastal route is longer, at 285 km, and it has more climbing, at 2438 meters.

That makes it seem like the coastal route is longer and tougher. But actually longer can be a blessing, because it stretches out the climbs.

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One way to understand the numbers is to  standardize into the measure of average climb per 50 km. We normally like to see that well below 500 meters. In the case of the interior route, it's 460 meters. But on the coast, it's 427 meters. It seems like  bit of a tossup. I guess we'll say there is no easy way out of Spain!