Christmas ride: Patra - Trichonida lake, West Greece 20141225

Christmas day ride to Trichonida lake. Four major climbs with accumulated elevation gain of about 1800-2000m (gpx data not accurate).

0,0k at 0m - AB Supermarket. Meeting point and start if the ride very early morning (still dark in winter). Following major roads through the center of Patras (Ag Andreou, Korynthou, pl Georgiou) to exit the city with new national road towards Rio/Athens.

12,0k at 5m - Rio/Antirio bridge. Due to early hour and major holiday, the traffic was minimum and we followed major road to the bridge. A bit of uphill/downhill on the bridge with fair wind. Later with national road to Nafpaktos.

23,0k at 40m - Nafpaktos/Thermo road. Again due to minimum traffic we stayed on bypass of Nafpaktos instead of going through the town. Later took the exit towards Thermo and very soon after started first big climb of the day: ~250m in 5.5k. Steady and slow :-P

31,5k at 355m - Pitsineika, end of first climb. Now fun and fast descent to Chani Mpania, ~5k.

37,0k at 120m - Mpania bridge. Quick stop for photos and little snack. Second climb starts from here. First steep and hard with +220m in 7k.

44,0k at 340m - Douneika. First village on the climb. A bit of flat/easier climb section to later continue hard all the way up to Analipsi: 200m in ~3k!!

51,0k at 610m - Analipsi, end of second climb and highest point of the ride. Another quick stop at water spring for refill and snack. Pretty relaxing section now ahead with passing the village and later descending to Petrochori. Very cool ride here with awesome views and fast curvy section just before the village!

65,2k at 320m - Petrochori, view point to Trichonida lake. Longer break and proper food! The viewpoint to whole of the lake (check out the photos!). And later we continued with fun downhill through curvy road - great :-D

76,7k at 75m - Kato Makrinou. A bit of flat section before the village and onto third big climb, back to Douneika. Lots of fatigue and cold weather didnt make it easy :-P

83,6k at 340m - back in Douneika, end of third climb. At this point, even downhill doesnt bring rest for the legs :-/

90,5k at 120m - back at Mpania bridge. Last climb... Very tired but we did it pretty strong with very good speed!

96,0k at 355m - back in Pitsineika, end of fourth (last) climb. Still some power left in legs and onto the descent - very fast!

104,8k at 45m - back in Nafpaktos/bypass road. After ~4.5h of ride and lots of mountains covered, this flat section with slight head wind killed us completely!

113,0k at 5m - back at Rio/Antirio bridge. Even worse on the bridge going up :-P

119,4k at 0m - Mpozaitika, end of ride :-D Finally! My legs were dead!

I mark it difficult. Mainly for my effort! It was actualy only my second time with so many hours of constant hard work pedaling up and down the mountains. Still getting used to the fatigue.
Awesome route and views.