Today I did a 50mile ride from Tala to Polis then back again. On the way out I descended down to the coast, and went up the climb to Pegeia and Kithikas. The first section to Pegeia was pretty steep, I was down in 39-25 for most of this section, averaging about 10mph. The Upper section towards Kithakas was a little easier, I could ride this at about 13mph. Once on the top of the ridge the going was a lot quicker, although the descents were slightly dodgy due to the high winds from the west (my left).

On one of the sections I came up to a massive quarry and concrete batching plant, which spanned both sides of the road for some considerable distance. A concrete lorry had just exited from the left spilling a large amount of concrete on the road. I had passed it in the opposite direction further up the hill, struggling with what remained of it’s load. As I crossed the patch of concrete I punctured, so I pulled over to the side and quickly swapped the tube out.

The descent continued to Polis, where I waved to a trio of guys on road bikes just starting the climb up. After a short detour around Polis I the Paphos road south again, then headed up a ‘short cut’ back up to the ridge I had seen on google earth. This ‘short cut’ turned out to be a 3mile climb running from about 100m up to 600m. This was very tough, I was down to 8mph at some sections grinding away at the lowest gear.

From there I climbed back up to Kithikas, catching a slow moving lorry at the top of the climb. This lorry was a tipper loaded with finishing stone for the outside of a house. These were loosely placed by hand, and several looked like they might fall out at any time, so I wasn’t keen on going to close to the back of it. As it crested the hill I took the opportunity to pass the truck, making up enough time in the next mile to stop and put my jacket on for the descent without it catching me again.

On the last climb back up to Tala from the coast I bonked while climbing slowly through the orange plantations, but luckily I got my act together before the steep section of the climb.