Prowling my world, camera in hand

13 September 2010

Week 36: La Vuelta

Filed under: — Administrator @ 07:13

This week was the second week of the Vuelta a España. The race had started in Seville the Sunday before, but now it arrived in the mountains surrounding Alicante; these are not the Pyrenees, as they rise to only 1500 metres or so, but they do provide for many nasty climbs. On Sunday 5th September we drove to Puerto de Tudons in the Sierra de Aitana to watch the Vuelta pass by. At this point in the race the cyclists had about 130 km in the legs already, with another 50 km or so to go. The mountain pass is at 1024 metres but the climb up to it is a Category 2 climb, so pretty tough. And despite this being September, it was still well above 30C.

Main
We arrived about 1 hour before the race was expected to pass. Lots of people were waiting around already, but it was still easy to park on a side road. The Guardia Civil were waiting and trying to kill time just like everyone else:
L1002449


Alternates
:

Alternate 1
The real early birds had nice seating spots:
L1002456

Alternate 2
Friendly conversation:
L1002464

Alternate 3
Two women getting ready:
L1002460

Alternate 4
Two children getting ready:
L1002455

Alternate 5
A member of one of the support crews prepares drink bottles and energy bars to refill the support car that follows the cyclists:
L1002466

Alternate 6
Because this is a popular spot to watch the Vuelta, this fast food vendor was doing good business. But now it was time to assume his viewing position:
L1002468

Alternate 7
Finally, the first rider goes through the pass, Gonzalo Rabuñal. At this point he was in a solo escape, but finished 8th in the end:
L1002470

Alternate 8
David López, the eventual winner of the stage:
L1002471

Alternate 9
The main peleton passing by. I placed myself just beyond the barrier to get as close to the action as possible:
L1002480

Alternate 10
Getting some unauthorized help:
L1002486

Alternate 11
One of the stragglers behind the pack, clearly suffering:
L1002489

Alternate 12
Pierre Roland, who abandoned the race later in this stage:
L1002490

Alternate 13
On the way home, we drove back towards the coast on beautiful mountain roads, with views like this:
L1002498

The remaining pictures are from my life here in Alicante.

Alternate 14
In my local bike shop, a beautifully restored vintage racing bike, converted to single-speed. It belongs to one of the employees:
_1020304

Alternate 15
A bit more bike porn:
_1020306

Alternate 16
A construction site on our street. The workers put up the flag during the World Cup, and for obvious reasons, it has not come down since:
_1020308

Alternate 17
We sometimes see threatening clouds, but most of the time the threat is empty and they just disappear. This is what happened with this one:
_1020311

Alternate 18
Isla Marina is a posh seaside bar in Alicante, a favourite spot for celebrations. I was there Thursday afternoon/evening for a colleague’s 40th birthday. Of course, I looked at some of the other bar patrons:
_1020334

Alternate 19
A couple enjoys the evening light:
_1020331

Alternate 20
Same couple:
_1020338

Alternate 21
My boss for another couple of weeks, the outgoing President of our agency, Wubbo de Boer. His second 5-year mandate is ending on 30th September:
_1020343

Alternate 22
We actually had a semi-official photographer at the event:
_1020354

Alternate 23
Finally, a picture taken while walking the dog Saturday evening. A local bar intelligently put a big screen TV in the window so that people could watch the Barcelona-Hercules game while sitting outside in the warm evening. Hercules is the local team here in Alicante, newly promoted to the Primera Liga, and they scored a huge upset by beating Barcelona 2-0 at the Nou Camp:
_1020389

1 Comment »

  1. Hi Nathan,
    A very enjoyable tour. Many thanks.

    Comment by Brian Swale — 13 September 2010 @ 12:42

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

Powered by WordPress