Tenerife - Confidence = Key 🌞🌞

The last full day on the island seemed like the perfect day for a little stunt. I initially made this route because I wanted to see the road to Masca one more time ánd wanted to do a loop around the vulcano. When I then saw the amount of climbing I'd inevitably end up with, I thought it was an overkill, definitely with having the longest climb (40kms, 2200m) at the end of the route. So I made a second shorter route, cutting Masca out.

I, however, couldn't help but notice myself thinking I actually could do the longer one. I don't know why, I just did. So this morning I decided to follow my gut. On the road I thought a lot about how proud of myself I would be if I would actually manage to finish it. Which I told myself I was going to do throughout the ride and eventually did. In some ways, I still have some trouble believing it. I'm stronger than I think sometimes!! It was absolutely my most demanding ride so far, and it all went relatively easy 🙏🏼🙏🏼

Moral of the story? No idea. Believe you can, and you're halfway there? Or some other ✨️lovely cliché✨️. I do think it's a(nother) good example of the mental aspect of these types of rides.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seeing Masca again was exactly as rewarding as I'd hoped it would be!! Unfortunately a part of the cable of my rear brake snapped during the descent. During the descent - it's rather steep with sharp hairpin turns - I didn't know what happened exactly, I just heard a loud *click* and it felt like I had less power on my brakes. I wasn't sure, so I also decided not to stress too much about it. Mainly because there was also no easy way to get off my bike due to the steepness (I kept rolling) and me being inbetween two cars. For the meantime I had enough trust in my steering-skills and thought I could always bump into the car that was driving in front of me. I would check my cable once I was done descending.

Turned out the rear brake practically wasn't functioning at all anymore 😅 Three of the metal strings of the cable were broken, which loosened the grip of the calliper.
Confidence = key here too? Idk. Could have gone horribly wrong, but it didn't! Luckily it was an easy fix; I could re-cling the calliper just before the broken parts of the cable.

I should have tightened/re-adjusted my breaks before coming here, probably. I probably also wasn't too stressed about having less brake-power because I kind of knew this. But 🤫🤫🤫