{"id":428027,"date":"2026-01-21T16:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T16:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/428027\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T16:00:08","slug":"big-ride-reach-for-the-sky-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/428027\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Ride: Reach for the sky in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When planning a cycling trip, Europe offers two main options: overcrowded destinations with good coffee, smooth tarmac and a sense of community, or hidden gems that require a bit more planning but pay off in beautiful roads so quiet you can hear the tumbleweed.<\/p>\n<p>This ride is definitely the latter. I\u2019m in G\u00e9rgal, a small town in the south of Spain about half an hour north of Almer\u00eda city on the edge of the Tabernas Desert, which unsurprisingly doesn\u2019t have quite the same level of resources as your Mallorcas, Tenerifes and Gironas. But I\u2019m told that what it lacks in infrastructure and star-spotting opportunities, it more than makes up for in tranquillity, climbing and actual star-spotting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When planning a cycling trip, Europe offers two main options: overcrowded destinations with good coffee, smooth tarmac and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,224517,784,195892,2020,85,224518,224519],"class_list":{"0":"post-428027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-best-bike-rides","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-cyclist-magazine","13":"tag-spain","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-vuelta-rides","16":"tag-western-europe-rides"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}