Gyro Kalavrytas, Achaea 20150103

The round of Kalavryta from Patras: climb from Diakopto and return from Ano Vlasia / Chalandritsa / Road 111. 160km with ~2500m elevation gain. Awesome ride!

0,0k at 0m - Patras center. Start from the city center with Korynthou and new national road to Rio. Later with old national road all the way to Diakopto, passing Kamares, Aigio and Diakopto itself. Quite fast and pretty flat section with very little and very short climbs from time to time. Average tempo without pushing hard.

57,7k at 30m - Turn to Kalavryta. About 4k after Diakopto, right turn up to Kalavryta. The start of huge climb! Continuous steady grade for about 17k, gaining +1000m. Done slowly and steadily, trying to keep as much power for all the later ride. Very difficult and challanging (for me at least :-P)

74,7k at 1030m - Highest point. At the road bend we reached the highest point at 1030m altitude! Great views! Lots of snow all around, but fortunately road still dry and clean. Quick selfie, a bit of extra cloths on and ready for some quick descent towards monastery of Megalo Spilio and later Kalavryta. We were a bit affraid of icy road in shadowed bends so we kept reasonable speed.

80,4k at 850m - Megalo Spilio. Still fast descent for another 2-3k. Later, all the way to Kalavryta a bit of flat ride with few tiny ascents.

90,2k at 725m - Kalavryta, train station. Well deserved longer break after 4h20min of hard work! We stopped next to the train station, ate some serious calories in both sweet and salty snacks, drunk some cola and rested for about 30min.
From Kalavryta we continued with flat ride through the plateau. At this point it got much warmer with full sun and very minimum wind.

110,0k at 715m - Climb towards Metochi and Ano Vlasia. After fairly flat longer ride with only one moderate ascent, the bigger climb waited for us here! Fatigue of 5h+ ride made it extra difficult! After passing Ano Vlasia we still had two more smaller climbs mixed with fast descents, but they were much more pleasant...

132,5k at 810m - Leodio turn. Quite recognizable spot for cyclists in Patras, that also holds a race. From this spot onwards there is pretty much only descent until Patras! And we did enjoy it a lot :-D This didnt mean lazy ride down though. We pushed pretty strong going 70+kmh in some spots!!!

149,3k at 250m - Road 111. After passing Chalandritsa we reached road 111 (old national road Patras - Tripoli) to continue fast descent to the city. Still pushing hard with what was left in our legs.

160,5k at 15m - Venizelou str, Entelbeis. End of the ride at Entelbeis store. Quick coffee and ice cream - well deserved.

I mark it 'very difficult' ride. 7h+, 160k, ~2500m elevation gain - all this is a massive work for my legs! But an awesome ride, definately the biggest in my life so far...