- [Emma] This ride has it all.
Climbs, epic descents, coffee,
wildlife, forests, cork trees, coffee,
como hablar de cafe Espanol,
smooth roads, gravel adventures, more coffee.
Oh, and one presenter blows up.
Watch on to find out who.
- Check out mine. Cervelo TestTeam suitcase. Still.
(electronic music)
- [Matt] You might have seen that back in January
Dan and Si lucked out, and got to fly off
for some winter sun, courtesy of EasyJet.
The idea was to show not only
what amazing riding there is just a short flight away,
but also the amazing riding destinations
that you might never have thought of.
Now unfortunately for Dan and Si,
their bar tab was so large,
that Emma and I got the call instead.
Although little do they know
just how much coffee we're going to drink.
Anyway, instead of Gran Canaria,
this time it's destination Andalucia.
(upbeat dance music)
- [Emma] Malaga is an easy gateway to Andalucia.
The taxi, plane, taxi, within five hours
I've gone from my house to the Costa del Sol.
If you venture inland, it's a hidden gem
waiting for you to explore by bike.
(upbeat electronic music)
- Well Emma, we're finally here,
at the start point of our ride
in beautiful Estepona in Andalusia,
with 21 kilometres of sandy beaches
stretching to our left and to our right.
Do you know what?
I don't really wanna leave this spot,
but we're going to because we've got some
very, very cool undiscovered territory to explore.
- Yeah we're not doing any beaches today,
we're doing 127 k-- - No. It's hilly roads.
- Of mountains, yeah.
It's quite nice, because it's not even dawn,
we're starting a bit late, to be honest,
because we had to build bikes this morning.
But only 16 hours ago?
- Yeah.
- I was at home in Bristol, hopped on a plane out here,
good night's sleep and coffee at the beach and off we go.
- Hey!
- First time!
- High five! Here we go!
130 k's in the hills of Andalusia.
(upbeat Flamenco music)
- That's quite an epic start to the ride. Bit of gravel.
- [Emma] Few fjords.
- Very, very steep sections of road,
but yeah, very exciting and eventful nine kilometres so far.
But the views as we get gradually higher
already absolutely stunning.
- [Emma] Starting on the coast in Estepona,
the route takes us up into the mountainous hinterland
of the Sierra Crestellina, the Sierra de Grazalema,
and the Sierra Bermeja.
At 127 kilometres in total,
it might not sound like a huge ride.
But with 3,500 metres of climbing and descending,
it's basically up and down all the way.
We have many villages en route
where we think there'll be coffee options,
all of them beautiful places in their own right.
But, well, we stop at all of them.
There's only so much coffee, surely,
that one can consume on a ride.
- [Both] Ah.
- 17 k's in, time for a coffee stop.
- [Emma] Check out the view, it's stunning.
- [Matt] Ah, look at this!
- That's Africa!
- Yeah, that's Africa.
- Coffee with a view of Africa. How awesome.
- So there's Gibraltar just over there,
that little peak just beyond the wind farm,
and then Atlas Mountains just across the Mediterranean.
- [Emma] Right, so how's your Spanish, Matt?
- [Matt] Poco Espanol.
- Poco Espanol? Well this, this is a cafe con leche.
- Cafe con leche.
- Because leche is milk, and con is with,
and cafe is coffee.
- Cafe con leche.
- And this one is a cafe con leche corto de cafe,
which means short on the coffee.
Can you see it, mine's got more milk.
- It's not quite as dark as mine, is it?
- Do you want a milky one?
- No this is, this is fine.
- Okay well there you go, I like mine corto de cafe.
And Matt likes his normal de cafe.
- There we go.
(down tempo electronic music)
- In this neck of the woods, you know, it's a micro climate.
325 days of sun every year.
And we've hit one of those days.
- This is Gaucin, which it's motto is
balcon de la serrania, which means
the balcony of the mountain range.
Which is kind of appropriate given
it's kind of perched on the edge. It's beautiful.
- I mean we are pretty well travelled,
we've been fortunate enough to go
all over the world with our cycling.
But this, this is up there isn't it?
It's absolutely spectacular.
- I can't get over how quiet and smooth the roads are.
So little traffic.
- Great roads. Very quiet.
- And these cork trees, I love them!
- Look at that! A view of Africa, and beautiful Andalusia.
What d'you reckon? Quick!
A nice little cafe with a view.
- I think it'd be rude not to, really.
- Should we just have a cheeky one?
- Definitely, it'd be rude not to with that view.
- Yeah okay.
- Look at that.
- [Matt] So we're 40 kilometres into the ride now,
give or take, and thankfully, well a slightly flat section,
one of the first flatter sections,
then we're on a bit of a plateau
before we drop down the other side.
- And there's another climb.
- And there's another climb but--
- And there's another descent,
and I then I think there's another climb
then another descent and then another climb.
- What are you trying to do to me?
I'm trying to create and generate a little bit of morale.
- Sorry. Although I like climbs, don't you?
- Although saying that I do like climbs,
but you're just a little bit better
than me at climbing that's all.
- Not straight after lunch, though.
- No. Got a nice bocadio. I had a nice
omelette sandwich which was really nice.
- That's a bocadio de tortilla.
- Bocadio de tortilla! That was pretty good.
- That was perfect. That was spot on.
- Thank you very much.
- Good work.
- Cheers.
(down tempo electronic music)
- Even a Spanish cobble climb. This ride's got everything.
- Orange tree! Look at that!
- Emma is now gonna talk about cork.
- Yeah, 'cause this section of the ride
is called Los Alcornocales, apparently.
And an alcornocal is an oak tree.
And the oaks around here are pretty special
'cause they're cork oaks.
And I didn't realise this til quite recently but
what that means is they harvest the bark
and that bark is the cork which
they make wine bottle corks out of.
Which is extremely important.
- But there's a fine art, isn't there,
to cutting the bark from the tree.
Apparently up to four people do it with little mini axes.
- Yep because you have to be careful not to damage the tree
and actually with most trees,
if you cut the bark off it would kill the tree,
but with a cork oak it doesn't kill the tree.
And it grows back it just takes ages.
So the cork oaks are protected.
You're not allowed to cut one down
without special permission.
- Wow.
- Although I have to say I'm quite a fan of screw top wine
because it's a lot easier to get into.
- I'll tell you what, Emma,
that was an absolute corking fact.
(upbeat retro rock music)
- So at this point, we're getting up to
almost half way on the ride,
and we're in the Parque Natural de Grazalema,
which is one of the many natural parks in Andalusia,
but it's quite a big one.
- [Matt] It's gotten semi-off-road, this bit,
it's a bit like, a kind of--
all the pitted and rotted (mumbles), loads of gravel.
- [Emma] Awesome.
- [Matt] It's really, really awesome. It's--
- Twisting through the trees, it's not too steep.
- Ah! Bits like that, really, that catch you unawares.
- Gotta watch where you're going, really.
- Yeah, blimey. This really is a ride
of mixed texture and character.
(upbeat retro rock music)
- [Matt] Ooh, cafeteria.
- [Emma] It is the cafeteria.
- [Matt] Should we-- fancy just a cheeky one?
A mid afternoon coffee? Yeah, okay.
Here we are in Cortes de la Frontera,
about 73 kilometres in, thankfully,
well over half way now by a few k's,
and most of the climbing done as well.
- Indeed, yep. We have sugar packets with our coffees--
- We do.
- That have little sayings on them in Spanish,
which is rather cool although actually
this is an English saying
that has been translated into Spanish.
See if you can guess what it means.
- Yeah, I'm gonna give it my best shot, my best Spanish.
Se tu mismo los demas puestos ya estan ocupados, okay.
- Which means, "be yourself, the others are already taken."
- And that's Oscar Wilde or Oscarus Wieldes.
- Pretty good saying actually.
- Yeah thank you.
- And then my one, it doesn't say who made up my saying,
I think it's just folklore which is
Valora a quien te dedica su tiempo,
te esta dando algo que nunca recuperara, which means--
- Value your time, dedicate some to yourself,
and it'll be okay for recuperating.
- (laughs) It means "value those--
"those who you value, you should dedicate your time to,
"because you're giving them something
"you can never get back" which is quite true as well.
Spend time with people you care about, basically.
- [Matt] What a ride so far.
- [Emma] It's been pretty awesome.
- And it's still kind of really warm.
It's about quarter past four in the afternoon.
I reckon two and a half hours to go, roughly?
Somewhere along those lines if we press on a little bit?
- Yeah I reckon it might be three, actually.
- I reckon two hours 41.
- Decent amount of climbing if you put coffee on it.
Bet you an ice cream
it's three hours. - Alright then.
- I bet you an ice cream it's two hours 42.
- Alright , there's an ice cream in it.
- Well how many coffees is that?
That's three coffee stops, isn't it?
But I think it's the way to go.
- That's fairly restrained, actually.
- It is pretty restrained.
- I'm not ruling out another one.
- No, I'm not ruling out another one as well.
Let's try to get another hour in,
then maybe a cheeky one before we descent.
(upbeat flamenco music)
- [Emma] Andalusia is a very special region of Spain.
It was actually the last part of the Iberian Peninsula
to remain part of the Al-Andalus Islamic Caliphate
before the Reconquista took Grenada in 1492.
As a result of this rich cultural history,
the settlements and architecture
are fascinating and beautiful.
And actually, many of the traditions
that we think of as traditionally Spanish
are actually Andalusian: flamenco, bull fighting, paella.
- It's, yeah, great descending.
Really smooth surface as well.
That was a lot of fun.
(flamenco music)
We think this is nearly the top
of the penultimate climb from our Wahoo.
And we drop down for a bit and then we've got
one last pretty big climb
before the run in back to Estepona and I must admit,
my legs are starting to feel it actually, Emma.
(rock music)
We are now on the final climb.
- 1/6th of the way up it.
100 metres of climb.
- Just over 100 metres up it in terms of height gain.
Really steep at the bottom.
Mercifully this is more of a slightly flatter section.
- Quite enjoying the shade as well, actually
because it's getting warm.
- It's still really warm considering the time of day.
We're well into the evening.
(rock music)
- I am feeling rather interesting right now.
- Friends don't let friends get hypoglycemic.
- Sugar. Flippin' heck, what a ride though.
I think I'm hallucinating.
Oh really. Ooh. Uncle.
Can't actually press any harder than this.
I'm knackered! It's great!
- Estepona! An epic view.
- It's a million dollar view, innit?
- Nearly at the end of an epic ride.
Boom! - Bosh!
- Thank you for your moral support, Emma.
- S'alright. Thank you for your moral support.
- No, it's been a pleasure.
And now we've got that lovely plummet down to the lines,
I'm gonna have another handful of--
- 15 k all downhill, woohoo!
- Sugar and chemicals.
- 7:26 p.m. at night.
- Yeah 7:26 p.m.
- That is quite late to not have finished the ride
but that's okay.
- And we were kind of in Estepona
about half past nine this morning, quarter past nine.
But we've had a few stops, we've just enjoyed the day.
- We have had a few stops.
- We've packed a lot in today.
- A lot of coffee in.
- And the last bit is gonna be
a lovely plummet down, back to the sea front in Estepona.
- Yeah I think one of the great things about this ride,
apart from Matt's snotty nose,
- Sorry it's typical.
- But the last 15 k is all downhill.
So we're both a little bit tired.
But we don't have to really pedal that much.
- We can just let the bike and let gravity do all the work.
- Vamos a la playa.
- Let's go to the beach.
- Spot on.
(upbeat dance music)
- Right we've made it.
We've made it and I think it might be time for an ice cream.
- Yeah, it was a big ride.
- That was a big ride.
- Good work.
- And I recognise that descent,
it was used in the Vuelta a couple of years back,
when Leopold Konig won the stage.
And actually in the Vuelta Andalusia
the stage was won by Alejandro Valverde
a couple of years ago, an absolutely epic climb.
- I learn a lot from riding with you, Matt.
I knew nothing about the Vuelta.
Anyway, high five, that was a big ride.
- That was a great ride.
That was proper, proper old school,
super enjoyable, some fantastic roads.
- Lots of coffee.
- Great company, lots of coffee.
- Lots of corks.
- Amazing countryside.
- Anyway, we had a bit of a bet about the time we'd finish.
- Yeah I said 7:41 p.m., you said 8:00 p.m.
And you are by far the nearest,
by like three minutes, I'm twenty minutes out.
But I reckon you dictated the pace,
I think you manipulated the speed.
- What, you think I went slower?
- No I think it was my legs that caused you to go slower,
actually on that part of the climb.
- Let's not argue on this one, Matt.
I win, but that means I buy you an ice cream, right?
- That sounds great. Let's do it.
Let's go and sit down and have one.
Brilliant!
Well Emma, what a ride.
I think we are deservist of some treats.
You've gone super healthy, I've just gone-- D'you know what?
It's about chocolate, carbs and sweetness, so basically--
- He's double-waffling.
- I've ordered the entire shop of muffins,
sorry of waffles, and chocolate ice cream.
- Yeah he's double-waffled, double-parked on the waffles.
Anyway, it's been--
- Seriously burned some calories.
- Absolutely gorgeous ride.
Definitely recommend it,
it's super quick to get here from the UK.
Straight to Malaga with EasyJet.
Spot on, thanks EasyJet.
And if you wanna check out another one of these epic rides,
try looking at Sy and Dan's ride
in Gran Canaria, which you can see down here.
- Or, if you want a slightly looser version of this video,
but the inside look at this ride,
where you see me in various states of fatigue,
click down here.