Olympic bicycle ride 2008

Wonderful cycling across the plain of Argos , sweet oranges to be picked from the roadside everywhere. And they are much better than the bitter oranges from Spain sold in Finnish supermarkets. We visited the Theatre at Epidauros, the other archaeological sites (Asclepeion temple) were in repair, i.e scaffolded.
Nightstay in an olive orchard, where putting up a tent on the rocky ground isn't all that easy. Actually many olive orchards are irrigated nowadays.

Spring in full bloom on the Epidauros archeological site.

From Epidauros a very scenic road along the sea to Methana, from where we took the ferry to Athens. It's now time to take out sun glasses and sun lotion, because UV radiation is strong in springtime
As we've been cycling through mostly mountaineous terrain over the past five days, one could study rocky outcrops along the roadsides in abundance, reaching from thrusted lime stone sediments to more horizontal and obviously much less resistant conglomerates.

From the steeper cliffs there may be also stones dangerous stones on the road and it's good to wear a helmet because of those. Otherwise the streets and roads in this part of mainland Greece are very quiet and there are almost no tourists around.
The other thing that one can study in both abundance and detail (especially during the slow climbings) is the plastic trash along the roads. Very distinctive feature of mediterranean countries!

GPS: http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=13482

For entire track recording over the Peloponnesos: http://www.everytrail.com/fullscreen.php?trip_id=26857

59 km to ancient Mycenae. Today ultimately losing the height gained during the last two days but with a spectacular view into the plain of Argolis and ancient Mycenae as the final destination. A camping site and the first (if only cold) shower after three days of biking! Tourist infrastructure very developed, but at this time of the year most places seem to be closed. Luckily not the internet cafe in nerby Fehti, where I'm sitting right now....

GPS (incomplete) http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=13241

By the way, this is how my Sony SK1 tracker works. It record position and time every fifteen seconds (as long as there is power, battery supply requires some planning and follow-up, even though the device should be running for 14 hours on one AA 1.2V battery). If you watch a close-up of the track you will notice that it doesn't fit the roads of the database (Google Maps or whatever you choose) terribly precisely, but that's not because of off-road cycling but rather because of reflection effects (GPS picking up signal not straight from the sky but from a reflecting surface nearby). I'll try to monitor the quality of the track in different environments over the next few weeks.

View from the fortress hill of Mycenae

Yesterdays climbing continued until max 1150 m. Beautiful Arcadian town of Langadhia along the way up. After the pass subalpine vegatation with spruces, very much in contrast to the forest fire damaged woodlands near Olympia. What was climbing for us, is the place of the gods' wild frenzies according to Euripides' Bacchae!

Reached campsite during daylight. Temperature surprisingly stable over several hundreds of metres of altitude.
My altimeter is an invaluable tool, unlike the map material given out by the organizers because it's really hard to identifiy the ascents and descents from a b/w copy.

This photo shows our Silk Road van that carries the excess luggage (including even two complete spare bikes) and is driven by Marcin and Adam from Poland who do lots of other things during the day for the benefit of the group like providing water, organizing and signposting nightstays etc.

GPS and more photos http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=13239

The grand day is there after all. After meeting everyone at the Olympia camp site the previous night (for me in fact a reunion with three people from the 2004 ride in Finland, later I am going to write more about some of the other BC members) we departed to the ancient stadium of Olympia where the Greek media was awaiting us. (By chance I saw the News about us on TV in Pub in a fairly remote mountain village two days later.) Official starting ceremony at Olympia town hall with the local press and deputy town mayor.

Visit to the Archeological Site, where I had been the previous time during a study journey from my Greek course in Grammar school in 198X. In fact, I had celebrated my 18th birthday in Olympia back then!

At 1.30 pm and sunny weather finally on the bikes and into the mountains for a 63 km trip across an unbelievable 1657 altimetres!

See GPS track http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=13238.
The last bit was a 20 km rise from 150 to 700 m in almost complete darkness. A true test for the first day!