Iberica Traversa - Part 3 By Jim Sutherland

30/9/25  Cuenca to Alcaraz

Breakfast was included and after the kindness shown to me yesterday I was not going to blow it off just to get on the road 90 minutes earlier.  The guy who served me breakfast in the bar was friendly and wanted to give me a good send off with a wholesome breakfast as well as help with translating the weather forecast. The TV showed that Valencia was about to get hammered again by easterlies along with shots of flooded towns and swollen rivers.  Then just to tweak my stress level to 11 Jaime messaged me to say that the big weather system should continue to stay north of me…

A couple of days previously I had asked my friends Andy & Kyle for any playlists that might help me get through the difficult mornings.  Andy gave me a couple of Americana ones and Kyle’s were, the sort of music Kyle gets.  I did try the smooth country tunes for a bit however eventually I caved in and played Abba - Gold.  Every one is a banger and it certainly did the trick.  I think Andy is still in shock to have heard that!

I rode 75 miles to the beautiful ancient town of Alcaraz.  Alcaraz was at the top of a hill with a castle (of course!), shaded narrow streets and a lovely big plaza.  My room was in a gorgeous pension just around the corner from a lovely cathedral.  My host took me in and showed me into the spacious courtyard which had all the rooms up and around it.  By this point I had already decided that I was not riding out tomorrow in the dark.  Instead I was going to spend another rest day exploring this place.

It definitely felt that the tourist season was coming to an end and this made for a very chilled mood in the bar around the corner.  The woman who served me was very patient with my Spanish but there was not really much of a rush!

 

1/10/25  Alcaraz

Today I wandered around the old streets which often framed the wooded hillsides.  There were ruins from the 8th century to explore but for me it was the cathedral that stuck in my mind.  I wandered around looking at the statues, the relics and the information panels.  All around me was a soothing, hushed silence which I was not going to upset, especially when I noticed some women praying in one section.

For lunch I made sure to get plenty of fresh fruit and veg from the local store as this was something that I felt had been lacking in my diet.  My resupply consisted of the usual snack bars, chocolate and nuts but from here on I made sure to include small oranges and plums to give me a healthy variety.

By dinner time I had managed to have a video call with all of my family which was a great boost to my morale.  The owner's son also came down to help me try to repair my air mat with some patches and super glue.  These are all the sorts of details that made my rest day worthwhile.

Later that night as I left Bar Comedias the staff thanked me for making the effort to speak Spanish, saying that this was very polite of me.  This made me feel very happy.

 

2/10/25 Alcaraz to Siles

I made it out the door early and enjoyed riding through the plaza in the dark.  As I ascended onto the dirt roads the sun rose and slowly, but surely started to warm me up.  Switchbacks up and down the wooded slopes made for varied riding.  The route traversed ridges, cols and plateaux often scented by the pine trees.  This was easily one of the most beautiful days on the route.

The last 15 miles or so did rear up a little and made me work a bit before arriving in the busy town of Siles.  Bars, or service stations were proving to be good places to find out where the best places to eat or stay were.  I got directions to one but by the time I reached the street it was on it was obvious which one to go to as it was absolutely rammed with locals eating and drinking very loudly.  Daytime was when I could order menu del dias which often meant more salad, or veg than at night.  So I loaded up on both along with some soup, three chicken fillets with potato chips and ice cream.  All washed down with glasses of orange Fanta.

A large guided group of Belgian mountain bikers started to fill up one of the tables nearby.  It was perfectly natural that they started to speak with me about the usual sort of things such as where we were going, the hills, the descents and how wonderful this part of Spain was.  At this point I realized that this was possibly the first English speaking conversation I had experienced in almost two weeks!  Thomas, one of their guides, was super friendly and he recommended that I try to stay in one of the refuges between here and The Gorafe Desert.  We shared some stories about work as bike guides and it was very clear that he also loved this sort of work as much as I do.

After my mountain of food in the afternoon I didn’t feel the need to sit down for another meal so I used the supermarket resupply to also get a nice, healthy chicken and potato salad to eat in the room.  By now I had switched into ‘keen-touring’ mode so had written out the distance & elevation gain for the remaining days in order to provide some sort of structure to my plans.  I went to bed well rested and feeling much more positive.

3/10/25  Siles to Refugio Campo del Espino

I made it to Pontones in time for an early lunch.  Although the distance to the refugio did not seem that much I was not going to fall into the trap of thinking it would be easy.  Today was much hotter which made sense to me seeing as I was always riding South!  The route up from Pontones took me past farms on tracks that varied from paved to fun singletrack.  The last few miles were on fantastic open dirt roads, never too steep and easy enough for me to look around and drink in the views.  Red and white waymarkers showed me the route all the way to the refugio which I reached in the afternoon.  I was able to set up my ‘flat’ mat and sleeping bag on a floor level platform and organise my cooking stuff on a bench.  Dinner was a Moroccan couscous dish that I had been carrying since a shakedown ride in Scotland a lifetime ago. A tin of pineapples made a refreshing dessert and afterwards  I enjoyed some fruit tea and biscuits.

One of the local shepherds came up in his pickup before dusk to tend to his flock of sheep and leave their shelter gate open for them.  I went out to meet him and we both agreed that the weather had been changeable over the last few days.

I had just taken a bunch of sunset photos when I was joined by Jose, Elias, Pablo and Ruben on lightly loaded mountain bikes.  These four guys from Asturias were lovely and very considerate of my space in the refugio too.  It was cool to share this place with others who clearly loved the mountains as well.

4/10/25 Refugio Campo del Espino to Bacor

In the morning I was up and about a wee bit before them and noticed that they did not appear to have any stoves with them.  They did not hesitate to accept a small cup of coffee from me and it certainly helped us all first thing in the morning.  The guys headed north and I headed south into some of the most huge and spectacular scenery yet.  By now I was completely comfortable knowing that most days if I looked at what was on the horizon there was a good chance I would be riding there.  Distance ceased to mean anything.  Elevation too.  All that mattered was to move forward.  This sort of headspace is so liberating once you get into it and today was the day I entered it properly.

I did pass another refugio a few miles down the trail and then a ranch building but that was all.  The terrain off of the route was dry, barren and rocky with no shelter or water.  All around me were mountains, either close by or tens of miles in the distance.  As I rode I enjoyed trying to figure out where the line of least resistance was going to be.  When riding in places like this it is important to ride at say 60% effort/pace so that the chances of a crash or mechanical failure are minimised.  Some folk might consider that to be a pretty low percentage but it does depend on what you 100% might look like.

I arrived at a rural hotel at about 12:30 pm so it made sense to stop and have an early lunch as I had no expectation of resupply until I got to Bacor where I was staying.  Lunch was fairly ordinary but I ate the breadsticks, cheese and ham anyway.  As usual I washed it down with some Fanta and asked for a third one with ice to share between my two water bottles.  All fed and watered I jumped back on my bike and crucially, without checking I started following the purple line and blue arrow…

The descent to this steeply wooded slope had been fun.  There were loose, rocky switchbacks and progressively steeper and steeper lines to follow until there were none.  At this point my Garmin was suggesting that I should now be traversing the slope and no longer dropping down.  Things just did not feel right now.  I left my bike against a boulder and walked down to find this traverse path.  As a backup I always have a Komoot gpx file for each day downloaded to my phone in case my Garmin runs out of power, gets smashed, lost or just stops working.  According to my Komoot gpx I was 6 miles off route!  Initially I thought to myself it’s because I have no signal but of course that wasn’t the case as I had been downloaded.  I was really starting to get a bad feeling here.  More than 30 years of navigating in the mountains has taught me that bad feelings happen for a reason but you better back them up with facts.  The only fact I was certain of was back up the slopes to where I knew I had turned off of a walking track.  So I grabbed the bike and went to turn it back up the hill.  At that point it over balanced and pulled me down with it.  I smashed my right elbow open on a boulder and it started pishing blood which I left for now.

Once back up at the junction my Garmin still didn’t make any sense and my Komoot app was telling me I was still 6 miles off route.  So the next decision in relocating was to ride all of the way back to the hotel where I had lunch as that was an absolute known location.  Eventually I got back there after an extra 6 or 7 miles riding and maybe 500 ft of reascent.

What appears to have happened is that I forgot the hotel was off route as I read that in the cue notes but not altered my Garmin.  Whilst eating the device recalculated a route and then I started to follow it after lunch!  In the end I lost between 2 and 3 hours due to my mistake.

The rest of the day was supposed to be downhill but of course it never is!  Eventually I crossed the barrage and hit the wee road climb up to Bacor in the dark.  I then circled around this hilly village trying to find a bar for some food.  No luck.  Then a woman in a car asked me if I was Jim who had booked ‘Ceuvas’ for the night?  I said yes and then had to follow her uphill, of course to the amazing house built into a cave.  The place was incredible and reminded me of the dwellings on Tatooine in StarWars.  A shame I did not have those 3 hours to enjoy it a bit more but at least there was wifi so I could have a video call to wish my daughter a happy 20th birthday!  Dinner consisted of anything that was left in my bike bags and mint tea that was in the kitchen.  In between all of that I fixed the first of my slow punctures of the trip…

 

5/10/25  Bacor to Diezma

A big long road climb for breakfast as there was no resupply open.  I had rationed myself a couple of bars for the morning but that was it.  The headline act for today was The Gorafe Desert.  I remember seeing some video of it when I was researching the route.  As far as the eye could see there were ridges and razor sharp fins of rock that had to be negotiated with one particular section looking very exposed and consequential.  Thankfully that bit did not appear to be in the 2025 edition of the Iberica Traversa but everything else was.  Once I reached the entrance signpost and took my CP photo it was time to enter these Badlands.  The dirt road was good enough but any deviation from it, whether that was by oversteering or trying to take a photo whilst riding could well be your last mistake on a bike.  The heat was getting to me as well as hunger but this was one of these situations where I had to dial the effort back and simply keep riding.  The scenery was incredible.  Canyons plunged from the ridges for hundreds of feet and the ridges themselves piled up into the distance for miles and miles.  I did encounter other riders coming in the opposite direction and they seemed to be going a lot lighter than me!  I bet they sill had more food than me though.

Eventually after four or so short and sharp reascents I made it out of the Gorafe and within striking distance of a town called Villeneuve de Torres where I simply had to get lunch and resupply.  Just before the descent into this town I met up with a couple of riders who were waiting on their friends.  We had a blether for a few minutes but my need for drink and food was too strong so I excused myself and headed off.  After some searching we all found ourselves at the same bar for lunch, the eBikers regrouped and there were close to a dozen of them. I recognised some of them from earlier on the Gorafe and they recognised me. One or two of them raised their eyebrows when I told them where I had started and where I hoped to ride.

Service was steady at the bar which did not bother me at all.  I needed to cool down as well as refuel.

I had two more climbs to get over before reaching Diezma, my target for the night.  The route was on pavement which was a bit of a mixed blessing but after two or three hours I was there.  Diezma was a quiet place and the only bar I found was closing.  I had already spotted some potential urban camp spots but I desperately needed food now.  Otherwise I would be late getting away the next day and it was another long day.  Thankfully the barman gave me directions to a motel down by the main road.  From outside it looked a bit fancy so I was ready for a knock back but I didn’t.  The guys in the bar were very welcoming and efficient which is just what I needed.  My bike was safely stored downstairs. I got shown to my room and in no time I was downstairs in the bar for my dinner.  Three or four huge slabs of chicken breast with green veg and fried potatoes.  I was also able to visit the shop to get resupply for the next day.  The amount of food and drinks that I bought really did take one of them by surprise but when I told him I was riding to Granada he understood!

 

6/10/25 Diezma to Granada

I got to Granada CP 9 by 3:00 pm and as usual had an epic struggle up cobbled steps and amongst throngs of other tourists to get the selfie shot for Andy!  I loved this part of the route, it was fun now that I had got used to it.

I stuck to my plan on each of the three climbs and it worked.  Keep my heart rate way, way down and stop for food and water if the Garmin told me.  On climbs that were often 5 miles there was almost definitely going to be a ‘Drink’ or ‘ Eat’ alert to obey.  In general each day consisted of riding The Bealach na Ba road circuit and The Burma Road - two testpiece rides in the Scottish Highlands and then some!

Today I crossed the highest pass of the route, the Collado de Alguacil 6204 ft.  I could see it for miles and just knew that the faint line across the mountainside had to be the way.  By now numbers or apparent steepness no longer phased me, they were simply a label given to features on the gpx.  After this climb there was about 20 miles of blistering descent into Granada on a paved road that felt like it was stitched to the side of the mountain.  In what seemed no time at all I was no longer up in the mountains listening to cowbells.  Instead I was being overtaken by mopeds or facing an ambulance, sirens blaring as it sped through the outskirts of this stunning city.

Not far from the CP I found a lovely Spanish/Arabic cafe which was not too busy.  I celebrated with some beers then sat back to enjoy melon with ham followed by an omelette.  I was absolutely buzzing to be here in Granada having ridden through such diverse terrain in the last 24 hours.  As a special treat I had booked into a 3 star hotel which again was not that far away.  There I was shown to the lounge where there was still a free buffet of coffee and pastries to enjoy.  My room was on the first floor and just off of the courtyard.  I had plenty of time to shower, do some ‘sink’ laundry and sort out my stuff for the next day.

 

Read the final part next! Available now on the Ultralight Hiking Blog