Day 10

Today's goal was to ride 100 km to Kale (Demre) to see Noel Baba (Santa Claus). Our plans got altered slightly because of yesterday's hail storm. The roads were wet with ice patches. There was even snow at times on the sides of the road.

The ride began with a 11 km climb out of Kas followed by 4 smaller climbs until the descent into Kale. After we got to Kale, Rustem called a friend who would leave Kas and pick us up along the road back home. This would keep us from descending on ice. We enjoyed a nice dish of Kebap, cay and coffee before returning to the bikes for the 15 km climb out of Kale.

All in all we road 65 km in 3 hours and 40 minutes with 31 km of climbing. As you can imagine the percentages of the climbs were quite high. It took us over an hour to climb the 15 km out of Kale and hit speeds of 50 mph descending.

When we got home we showered and had a snack before heading to Ali Yigit's men's party. This is not like an american bachelor party. With no exaggeration, there was more than 300 men there. The food was just unbelievable. We keep saying that but it was true. There was a live band playing tradition Turkish dance music and dancing all night. Gary and I even cut the rug for a while. There was even dancing on the tables. It was a testimony to Ali to see the number of friends who were there and how he was honored.

Tomorrow we are going to ride to Kalkan and then get ready for "The Wedding" later in the evening. It may be safe to say that tonight's journal upload will most likely happen tomorrow morning.