And we’re through the mountains! Day 5 on our South Korea Cross Country ride and we just conquered the Ihwaryeong Pass, the tallest mountain we’re bound to face on this ride.
We started a bit late this morning as we had a rough night last, with the South Korea Air Force performing manoeuvres right over us well into the night. Was close to 10 when we set off and temperature was already at 31 degrees.
We mostly cruised the first 30km of the day, hoping to save some much needed energy for the hills to come.
The scenery throughout the day was breathtaking, always surrounded by big mountains, riding alongside local farms and soaking up the sun.
The mountains showed up around 1pm and we were quite apprehensive about how hard they would be. Online reports from other riders who’ve done this ride mentioned these uphills to be absolute leg killers. Much to our delight, whilst still a tough climb overall, they were quite tame in gradient and quiet, with the occasional lookout stop to see how much we’ve climbed so far.
We paced ourselves well and were rewarded with amazing views from the top of the hill. Here, we rested for a bit and got a South Korean beer to celebrate being done with the mountains.
The downhill was insanely good, one of the best ones I’ve ever done! Zig-zagging down the mountain with open corners and some hairpins. SO.MUCH.FUN!!!
For tomorrow, we don’t yet have a plan... we’ll just hop on the bikes and see where we get to.