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  • Day 112

    Long valley ride

    September 18, 2020 in Turkey ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    Our day started with a Turkish breakfast Cemil prepared for us. Then, all family members got up to say goodbye to us. It was nice and cool at an elevation above 600m, a perfect temperature for cycling. We had the hardest part of the route in the morning. 2 long and steep climbs with a descent in between in the first 10km. Afterwards, we had an epic downhill ride on a small road into a huge flat. Unfortunately, it was steep, so another 10km later we were back at 50m above sea level.
    From here, we had another 120km ahead of us, all along this pretty flat valley. First on bad but quiet secondary roads, then on the highway. Luckily, we had tailwinds as soon as we reached the highway, so we could roll fast on the smooth asphalt. And the traffic wasn't as bad as expected either. At some stage, we stopped for lunch at a small shop and bought something to drink with our lunch. The owner of the shop was so nice, he brought us 2 chairs and a table to sit and make our breads and also gave us a big bottle of water and some crackers.
    The last 30km were slower again as we took small roads to Pamukkale where we were going to spend the night. We checked into a family run hotel, went for a swim in the pool and took a walk through the town. The town is built because of the white travertine terraces and the ancient ruins. Therefore, there's no real town center and most buildings are either hotels or restaurants. It doesn't even have a supermarket, so it was quite hard to find vegetables for dinner. However, we found some in the end and cooked dinner on our balcony.
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