Green hills to Monteverde

The name Monteverde pretty much describes the landscape we cycled through today: green hills with cow farms and trees. Beautiful views, but one of the most exhausting rides we've had on our trip so far...
We left Tilarán after Cristian had prepared a big breakfast of Gallo Pinto, eggs, quesadillas, sausage, coffee and watermelon juice. He told us today's ride would be beautiful. We'd have to climb a little, but nothing too steep. The road would be rolling, but without much elevation gain.
What we learned is that you should never believe a non-cyclist when it comes to elevation! What we experienced today: Tilarán is at an altitude of about 550m, Santa Elena (the town where we are staying tonight) at 1350m (= elevation gain of 800m instead of nothing). Indeed, the road was rolling, in total we climbed over 1700m. However, this was far from easy: on AVERAGE, we climbed at 9%, my computer showed a maximum of 20%! (and this was not only one exception) I'd definitely say that's steep. And as 30km of the road were unpaved and we had strong headwinds most of the time, this was about the maximum we can do with our setup. In Santa Elena, my bike computer showed the lowest average speed we've had so far: over 5hours for 40km, average speed 7.44km/h 😯
Therefore, we didn't do much once in our hostel: cook, get a beer, enjoy the views, sleep!Read more