Today I pedaled into the foothills of the Troodos Mountains. The high point of the day was 1000m, far higher than any roads in the UK.
My target was Panagia, a small town in the foothills of the Troodos mountains. The ride out there was interesting, after I had climbed up the first 600m I descended almost 300m before yo-yoing up and down. Only the last 200m was a straight climb. The most interesting thing I saw was what looked like a small army barracks with a watch tower (manned by a dummy) with a massive sign on it saying ‘Pagia Concentration camp’ (Need to look some of the spellings up on the map later). A film set perhaps?
Once I got up to Panagia, it started raining. I sat under some trees for a while, but the massive thunderstorm that was going on at the same time was starting to spook me out a little, so I headed back to a small chapel for shelter. I was there for almost an hour before the rain stopped, and I headed off again.
Ahead of me lay 15miles of almost uninterrupted descent, loosing me most of my 1000m gains. I had been thouroughly looking forward to this, but had to take it easy on the first 5 miles due to the rain making the roads greasy, and the wind chill factor whenever I got above 25.
Once in the dry again I took my jacket off, and was pushing 40mph on the straighter pieces of road. I ended up almost at the airport, and had only one steep climb back up to Tala.
A nice day, but not the best to leave my knee warmers behind!
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