We were in the vans travelling to the start by 7:05am and riding by 7:45am under another clear blue sky. It was fine and sunny with a cooler start (around 18 degrees) which warmed up during the day.
One rider and one support staff member were not 100% with one blaming the salad from the previous day.
It was a gentle start over lightly rolling country with sunflowers, cereal crops and grapes the first crops seen.
Along the way, my back wheel came to a grinding halt. Stopping to diagnose the problem, nothing was evident until I shook the bike and a stone fell out of somewhere. All then seemed o.k. so I carried on.
We passed the women's bunch before our first stop who then passed us back while we were stopped.
There was a church on a hill side surrounded by graves which I took a photo of.
Before our 2nd stop we caught the women's bunch again and as they were doing a steady pace, we sat on the back for a free ride.
After our 2nd stop, one of our riders suffered a couple of punctures before we reached some more cols to climb. Just before the last one of the day, we crossed into Spain.
The road to the top of the last col was closed for car traffic due to tomorrow's stage. Luckily, we had decided we would ride up it and then down back to our hotel rather than over and down and then drive back over to the hotel.
Riding for the day was 9hrs 13m over 225.5km with 3,432m (about 10 Te Mata Peak climbs) of climbing.
We reached the hotel about 7pm which does not have air conditioning but the wi-fi works.
Dinner was at the hotel at 8pm. They promptly brought out huge dishes of chicken paella. We struggled to eat all that when they promptly brought out chicken and chips for the riders. The tour organiser had told them we were hungry. Much of the chicken was saved for the support crew to eat the next day. To finish off, most then had the local variation of cream brulee for dessert. We were not left hungry.
Breakfast tomorrow is set for 8am. It is a short 65km stage but 36km of that is uphill.
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