The Old Lines Still Hold Part 2 — Terrain and Movement Across Apokóronas

The ride covered 38.4 km with 866 m of ascent and 871 m of descent, set along a stepped ridge-and-valley profile linking tarmac village roads, older agricultural tracks, descent lines, dry-stone field systems, river-valley approaches, and repeated return climbs across Apokóronas. Moving time totalled 2:18:39, with an ascent time of 1:25:46 and descent in 0:52:53. Gradients reached +18.9% on the steeper sections and –15.8% on the way down. Maximum speed recorded was 57.8 km/h, averaging 16.2 km/h across tarmac climb, compacted agricultural track, rough limestone, dry-stone wall track, forest track, broken stone, and village-road connectors, with 50% off-road. It was a stepped route — high ground, descent, valley crossing, return climb, and final ridge movement, with the terrain dictating the line throughout.

Climb profile (summary)

6 climbs | Total structured effort
Longest: C4 – 3.0 km @ 4.8%
Steepest: C5 – 18.9%
Final: C6 – 0.9 km @ 4.1%

Climb profile (C1–C6)

C1: 2.0 km | 0.0% | +11.2%
C2: 0.5 km | +1.1% | +13.7%
C3: 1.2 km | +0.2% | +10.1%
C4: 3.0 km | -10.8% | +16.5%
C5: 1.6 km | -2.9% | +18.9%
C6: 0.9 km | -2.4% | +9.8%

The ride began in Kokkino Chorio and climbed immediately on tarmac toward Drapanos. This opening line sits on one of the older practical movement corridors of the peninsula edge: village to village, height to height, with the road following the workable ground rather than imposing itself against it. On the wartime 1:50,000 mapping, the key importance of this area is clear. The roads and tracks are not decorative additions to the landscape. They are functional responses to ridge, valley, water, gradient, cultivation, and settlement.

The maps used for this comparison are the wartime British 1:50,000 sheets covering the Souda–Vamos and Yeoryioúpolis areas. These were military survey products, compiled from earlier mapping, field survey, aerial photographic interpretation, and wartime revision. Their purpose was practical: movement, navigation, artillery reference, route planning, defensive assessment, and operational control. They record roads, cart tracks, footpaths, donkey paths, settlements, wells, churches, gradients, ridgelines, riverbeds, and cultivated ground. For this ride, their value lies in showing that much of today’s E-MTB route still follows the same movement logic visible during the Second World War.

From Kokkino Chorio the climb to Drapanos gained height on tarmac. The modern surface is different, but the alignment is old in function. It links elevated villages across the Apokóronas edge, keeping to ground that allows steady ascent without dropping unnecessarily into the lower folds. The wartime mapping shows this same principle repeatedly: roads and tracks hold the ridges where possible, descend only where required, and use the least costly line through difficult ground.

From Drapanos the route continued through Xerosterni and Litsarda. This was still village-to-village movement, but the terrain began to broaden. Litsarda Ridge gave the ride its first clear high-ground structure. The road and track pattern here reflects long-established movement between settlement, cultivation, and grazing ground. The ridge allows visibility, drainage, and access. It also explains why older routes survive. They were placed where the terrain allowed repeated use.

The descent into Vryses changed the ride’s character. The route dropped from high ground toward the valley system. The profile shows the loss of elevation clearly: after the opening ridge work, the line falls toward the lower basin. On the wartime maps, Vryses and the surrounding routes sit within a natural movement junction. Roads and tracks converge because the terrain requires them to. Water, valley floor, and road access make this a logical crossing and stopping point.

Coffee was taken at the Cheese Shop in Vryses.

The return began with the ascent of Stone Factory Climb. This marked the start of the main return effort. The climb rose out of the lower ground and began rebuilding the height lost on the descent into Vryses. The surface and gradient demanded controlled effort. The climb profile shows this return phase as the longest structured effort of the day: C4, 3.0 km at 4.8%, with a maximum gradient of +16.5%. This was not a simple steady climb. It included gradient changes, small descents, and re-acceleration points, matching the broken terrain shown in the map contours.

The descent to the Koiliaris Valley followed. The Koiliaris is not merely a scenic feature; it is a terrain corridor. The river valley creates movement, agriculture, water access, and settlement connection. On the wartime sheets, the river and its associated tracks show how movement is drawn along the lower ground before being forced back upward by the surrounding ridges. Today’s route repeated that same logic.

The climb to Kalamitsi came next. This was part of the return from valley ground back toward the settled slopes above. The climb required renewed effort after the descent and valley crossing. It also demonstrated the central theme of the ride: in Apokóronas, movement is rarely direct. Terrain forces descent, crossing, climb, and reorientation.

At Kalamitsi Alexandrou church, the route passed a fixed point in the rural landscape. Churches of this kind are not incidental. They often sit close to older route lines, field systems, junctions, or village margins. They provide orientation as much as worship, marking inhabited and cultivated ground within the wider pattern of movement.

The climb to Litsarda followed. This was the hardest climbing sector of the ride, represented by C5: 1.6 km at 9.1%, with a maximum gradient of +18.9%. This was the steepest recorded climb of the day. The return to Litsarda re-established the route on higher ground and brought the ride back into the ridge-and-track system that dominates the eastern side of the loop.

The Dry Stone Wall Track came after Litsarda. This section is important for the historical theme. Dry-stone walls preserve the structure of land use. They define fields, ownership, animal movement, and old access. Tracks beside these walls are often older than their current surface condition suggests. On the wartime mapping, these small routes appear as practical connectors between cultivated plots and village tracks. On the bike, the same logic remains visible: narrow lines, hard edges, broken limestone, and repeated small changes in direction imposed by walls and field boundaries.

The Enchanted Forest followed. This wooded section reduced visibility and changed the riding surface. The ground became more enclosed, with tree cover, leaf litter, embedded stone, and narrow track definition. In terrain terms, the forest provides shade, concealment, and slower movement. On wartime mapping, woodland and broken track networks matter because they restrict observation and complicate movement for vehicles while still allowing foot, animal, and local traffic. The correct point here is not to claim a specific wartime incident, but to observe that this is the type of ground where older local movement remained possible when main roads were controlled or exposed.

At Stoneman Junction, the route met another practical decision point in the track network. Junctions like this are created by repeated use. They exist because several workable lines meet at a point where the terrain allows choices: toward villages, toward fields, toward ridges, or toward lower ground. The wartime maps help confirm that these junctions were part of an older movement system, not recreational inventions.

From there the route continued through Kefalas, Paleloni, and Drapanos. This final village sequence restored the ride to the higher coastal side of Apokóronas. These settlements form part of a linked chain across the ridge system, each connected by road and track lines that remain largely governed by contour and access.

The final return to Kokkino Chorio completed the loop. The ride had crossed ridge, valley, river corridor, agricultural track, forest ground, and dry-stone field systems. The wartime maps confirm the central finding: modern E-MTB movement is repeatedly using the same terrain solutions recorded during the Second World War. The surfaces have changed. Some roads are now tarmac. Some tracks are wider. Some older lines have degraded. But the ground still decides where movement is possible.

The old lines still hold because Apokóronas still imposes the same rules.

Mandinádes
An English Interpretation

A mandináda is a traditional Cretan poetic form, usually composed in rhyming fifteen-syllable couplets. It is used for memory, love, grief, humour, landscape, and local identity. What follows is my own English interpretation: a ride narrative shaped as a continuous sequence of mandinádes, influenced by the narrative movement of Erotokritos, but grounded in the route, terrain, and wartime mapping of Apokóronas.

From Kokkino Chorio we climbed when morning held the sky,
toward Drapanos on tarmac road with ridges standing high.

The old map marked the higher line before our wheels were known,
where village roads held fast to ground cut hard in Cretan stone.

Through Xerosterni we passed on roads the hills had long defined,
where every bend and rising line obeyed the slope assigned.

At Litsarda the ridge ran broad, with open ground ahead,
and older tracks across the fields still showed where movement led.

Then down we dropped to Vryses plain, from ridge to valley floor,
where roads and water gathered men in every age before.

We stopped beside the Cheese Shop there, with coffee, shade, and rest,
before the return climb rose again and put the legs to test.

The Stone Factory climb began where lower ground gave way,
and metre after metre took the valley light away.

The wartime sheet had marked that ground with track and road and line,
not made for sport, but made for men to move by slope and sign.

Down to Koiliaris we rode, where river trees stood still,
and water made its corridor beneath the rising hill.

The river drew the tracks along, as rivers always do,
and old roads bent beside its course where crossing places grew.

Then Kalamitsi called us back from valley floor to height,
a climb of dust and broken stone beneath the hard clear light.

At Alexandrou’s church we passed where walls and fields remain,
a fixed point in the rural ground of worship, work, and grain.

The climb to Litsarda rose steep, the hardest of the day,
where effort met the upper track and stone refused the way.

The dry-stone walls held every field in lines of patient ground,
and by their edges older tracks and donkey paths were found.

Through Enchanted Forest shade the narrow route withdrew,
where trees closed in on hidden stone and cooler air came through.

No tale is claimed beyond the maps, no battle named in pride,
but such ground gives concealment where exposed roads are denied.

At Stoneman Junction tracks converged, as old use made them meet,
where field and ridge and village road joined under turning feet.

Through Kefalas and Paleloni the high road carried on,
with Drapanos ahead of us before the light was gone.

Then back to Kokkino we came, the circuit closed and done,
with ridge and valley crossed again beneath the Cretan sun.

The maps, the tracks, the roads, the walls, the river and the stone,
all showed the same old truth again: the ground decides alone.