A 4 a.m. wake-up call, a cliffside road, and the kind of ride that reminds you why you started riding in the first place.
4 a.m. is a decision, not an accident
Nobody sets an alarm for 4 a.m. by mistake. Five of us met in an empty petrol station forecourt, bikes still ticking as they cooled from the ride there, all chasing the same fifteen minutes of coastal sunrise light.
The road doesn't care what time it is. But the light does, and that's the whole reason we came.
The road
This stretch of cliff road rewards patience — tight, blind corners hugging the rock face, with the kind of exposure that keeps your speed honest. We rode it in a loose formation, radios crackling with corner calls, watching the sky shift from ink blue to the orange that made the whole 4 a.m. argument worth it.
Group ride notes
- Staggered formation made blind corners far safer to call out
- Regrouping every 15 km kept the slower and faster riders from drifting apart
- Bring layers — the coastal fog at dawn was colder than any of us expected
Why it's worth the alarm
You can ride this road any time of day. But there's a specific ten-minute window at sunrise when the light comes in low across the water and turns the whole cliff gold. That's the ride report, really: set the alarm.
