Ride: 85 km Climb: +770 m / -1812 m
A good night’s sleep! Briefly woke up at 3 a.m. but got back to sleep within an hour so no complaints at all. Congested ++ but it always clears when on the bike and sucking in air!
As is often the case, when we were briefed last night about today it sounded like it had been rejigged and the total mileage was more like 70 ish km. Not too much elevation gain, I could likely have done this on a real bike, but with energy levels still reduced from the cold I’m not unhappy to be coasting. And coasting it was, in several senses of the word. A different world from the muscle bike; you can do anything, without much effort. The trick is to do enough to give yourself a good workout, but not so much that you are completely knackered…
After hotel checkout we had a 1.5 hr transfer to the starting point, in the high Atlas mountains. The first part of the road was much like what we’d seen around Ait Benhaddou; arid and scrubby. It was Saturday, market day, and we went through some very busy villages. When we turned off into the mountains the traffic volume dramatically decreased, and we started heading up. There is a large national park in the area and the highest peak in North Africa is in there (Mt. Toubkal, 4167 m) – the flanks of the mountains just go straight up, pretty impressive – in this case into the clouds as they were shrouded all day.
After a lot of winding and twisting roads with hairpin bends, we met up with the bikes in front of a private school. The kids were all jammed onto the balcony watching with wide open eyes as we got ready to leave on our bikes.
Of course, we started with a climb – laughable on an ebike but I was imagining it on a muscle bike…. We got to the top and then had 16 km of downhill through spectacular countryside.
Radouanne and Yousef at the top of the pass
The top part was fairly barren but the sheer magnitude of the Atlas mountains rearing up to the right was breathtaking.
Once over the edge in the picture above, the road hairpinned down a valley interspersed with villages and the terracing was reminiscent of the Himalayas.
The road surface was unfortunately fairly rough so care had to be taken going down with a controlled descent. Most of the hairpin curves at the bottom were washed out and a mixture of sand/rubble or mud. At frequent intervals we would pass through a small village, most of which were fairly busy. There were a few incidents with teenage boys again but none affecting me.
a typical hairpin curve
the road goes ever on and on – where we’ve come from. Navigating the roads also meant dodging goat herds and at one point, a flock of sheep with a shepherd who castigated his dog for going after me – the dog obediently fell back
We came around one corner to find the kitchen truck setting up lunch – rain clouds hovered on the horizon but although we were intermittently cold (clouds) and boiled (the sun shone directly onto us and was quite strong) we remained dry during this part. Bonus for me, the tuna was dressed up in a tomato sauce today!
I had noted before lunch that the road started up again afterwards – however not an issue on an ebike! We set off on the next part, an up and down extravaganza that took us down one valley, and then up the next with a fording in the middle.
Reminiscent of Mongolia, we had to take our shoes off and cross on foot, pushing our bikes (Redouanne grabbed some bikes and rode them over)
The road weaved up and down the valley, and I felt sorry for the muscle bikes as it was quite a bit of elevation gain each time. The further we got up the hillside, the windier it got, and of course it was a headwind.
as always, green wherever there’s a river and otherwise arid, although with the last few days’ rain some of the hillsides were already beginning to green up.
We had enough rain on one section to stop and don raincoats, but we were out of the rain shadow in about 20″. Happily, as wet roads were another scenario to slip on. We had one cyclist fall on the way down the first section, garnering road rash on one leg and making her quite cautious for the rest of the day.
more villages on this side of the river
Eventually we moved up the hillside to a very exposed section with a strong headwind. I offered to draft a couple of muscle bikers but they declined – purists! I would happily have taken this option had I been on a muscle bike, it’s the least the ebikes can do… This last hill looked to be the outlet to the head of the valley but it seemed to go on and on. Easy on an ebike, but glad to be able to use someone else’s power going up as I suspect mine would have been depleted by now…
Directly over the pass we started descending again and shortly after arrived at a dam under construction; major objective to increase capture of mountain runoff to hold in a reservoir for drinking water and agriculture in the region. This one was due to be finished in November 2026 though it doesn’t look it’s that near completion – and there are plans for another in a different region later on.
Here we met with the bike truck and loaded up for another hour transfer to Oulad Berhil. We passed Argan trees, a species native to Morocco and famous for attracting goats into the trees to eat their leaves. There was another busy market in progress in Oulad Berhil which we pushed through and snaked our way to tonight’s riad. It has a lovely garden, and is a converted residential palace with spectacular tilework (hand made) and traditional bench seating in the dining room.
the wide bench seating is traditional, accomodating more people when needed and also acting as a sleeping area in a crunch. Likely more comfortable than some of the (very) firm beds we’ve been sleeping on!
Dinner menu was – surprise – soup (carrot this time, very tasty), tagine and fresh fruit for desert (melon, grapes, bananas). I got a plate of spaghetti, purloined some veggies from the others and eventually a couple of boiled eggs appeared. I going to start clucking soon.
My room is spacious tonight, with plentiful outlets TG – after only one, half hanging off the wall between one bed and a window for the last two nights I’m happy to be able to access them easily as well. Laundry is distributed around the room for drying.
We all agreed this was the most scenic ride today – the first few days going through the high Atlas were spectacular but the scenery was barren and forbidding whereas today was r
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