The promise of sun in the sky and stormy clouds behind him as he left Cadavedo at 9am put Grant in an enthusiastic mood as he pedaled away from the coast on the inland track toward Ribadeo.
The plan was to put in a huge amount of kilometers on the clock today.The wind had come up and even though there was a headwind Grant was still thinking it was manageable. At Quellas he made a mistake and took the wrong turn and landed up on a busy freeway, which is illegal in Spain. With trucks and cars thundering by and limited space to turn around, Grant decided to ride it out and try and get off at the very next off ramp, which he managed to do. Not far from there, a police car came up behind Crazybikeguy, ordering him to stop.
Addressing him in Spanish and a bit of English, both traffic officers interrogated Grant quite aggressively about riding on the freeway.They wanted to know how long he had been travelling on the busy hi way and were threatening to arrest him for breaking the law.
Thankfully Grant could show them the distance on his GPS and he explained that he made a mistake and got off as soon as he could.They were very unhappy!
He then explained what he was doing and why, gave them one of his Crazybikeguy cards and they wished him luck and he set off once more! Not only was the dangerous riding on the freeway scary, the interaction with the police had been rather unpleasant too!
At Navia the clouds started rolling in once more and the weather started to turn- the wind picked and it was was drizzling. He knew he had to go further inland and make it to Ribadeo at least!
He came to a huge bridge which had two sections- one for cars and the other a split away from it for cyclists and walkers, with a big mesh barrier on the side protecting them from the 100 m fall into the Estuary below.
The wind was now howling and he was truly grateful for that mesh barrier as he was continually blown into it as he attempted to ride over the bridge into Ribadeo.
It started to pour with rain.
"By the time I got to the other side of the bridge I felt quite rattled by the whole experience. It was very scary! I looked at those dark clouds rolling in and looked at my weather app and decided to call it a day after a challenging 70km.'
- Grant voice note
He found a place to stay, checked and and just after that the heavens opened and it poured with rain, thunder and lightning which carried on for more than two hours!
Good call! It cleared much later and he managed to go out for a walk in this very pretty town and take some photographs and have dinner in a warm place!
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Riding to create Autism awareness and raising funds to create equal employment opportunities for neuro diverse adults.
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