6/14: day 5

Day 5: Monemvasia to Elia

We left our hotel today and rode across the finger to the east coast.

Here's the stable of ebikes lined up before leaving the hotel. 

This was a smaller tour than most VBT tours, 13 people instead of 20, and 9 of them were riding ebikes. A few of the riders were pretty new riders and one or two were regular riders but just wanted ebikes. There was only one woman from Florida who rode a road bike besides us.

Having so many people on ebikes changed the complexion of the rides. Normally, we are among the fastest riders on VBT tours. VBT caters to recreational riders, unlike some other tour groups like Duvine and Trek that have rides that attract more competitive riders. But with ebikes, we were likely to be the ones at the back. 

VBT utilizes two tour guides (Backroads uses three), one driving the support van and usually ahead of the riders to point out turns and to set up snack stops. The other guide rides sweep. We almost never see the guide riding sweep unless we have a mechanical or an accident. Not so on this trip. (No accidents or major mechanicals - just slower than the ebikes.)

After breakfast and before getting on our bikes, we took a short boat ride out of the harbor to get a better picture of the island and the construction of the lower and upper cities.

Here's the causeway.

Here's our hotel.

And here's the lower city that we walked through the night before.

There was time to do an "independent" (self-guided) ride while the other half of the group was on the boat. It was a short out-and-back, and since the boat ride took a little longer than expected, Mike and I cut it short and made it a warm-up ride. We skipped the climb in the middle, but the excuse was but we really didn't have enough time.

The ride itself was a good challenge for us. One indicator is that we didn't stop often to take pictures.

In case we got lost, here was a roadside map. 

Many homes had humble little roadside religious "boxes" (maybe someone can tell me what they're really called and I will fix this). This home went to town and made something that was almost big enough to enter.

Although the tradition in Greece is white-washed houses with blue trim, surprisingly, there weren't a lot of them.

We arrived at a resort at the tip of a peninsula. Here's the view on the approach.

Front entrance.

Here's the view from my room. I removed my laundry for this picture.

VBT trips often have at least one stay in an upscale place. It is nice, but it could be anyplace in the world. I will admit it is nice to have strong and reliable internet anywhere at the facility.

Here are the stats from the warm-up ride: https://www.strava.com/activities/9264005867

Here are the stats from the big ride: https://www.strava.com/activities/9263492344

Strava is saying this was easier than my usual efforts. If that was easy, I don't ever want to see "hard".