The Bikepacker: Bikepacking 2024

Day #

State of Legs

:-)

	Distance (miles)	Distance (km)	Ascent (feet)	Ascent (metres)	Punctures
Today	33.2 miles	km	5420 feet	metres	1
Trip Totals	1119.4 miles	km	36421 feet	metres	1

Today's Route

Route So Far

Travelogue

We knew that today would probably be a tough day, with lots of hill climbing to do. And we thought we would probably have to contend with bad weather as well. The rain of yesterday evening was torrential and more was forecast for today.

But it's all part of the adventure :-)

We left the apartment and retrieved our bikes from the garage at about 8:30. M1 lubricated the nice clean chains on both bikes and then we set off. We'd decided to take an indirect route to our destination, the city of Bilbao and visit a highly photogenic place on the coast called San Juan de Gaztelugatxe (or just Gaztelugatxe) en route.

Gaztelugatxe is an islet that is connected to the mainland by a bridge. It has a hermitage on top of it that was built in either the 10th or 9th centuries and dedicated to John the Baptist. You can climb to the top of the islet and the hermitage via a series of steep steps.

Game of Thrones fans will be thrilled to learn that Gaztelugatxe was used as the fictional location Dragonstone, with its castle digitally created on top of the islet.

But before we could enjoy Gaztelugatxe, we had to get there. This required us to complete our first of several substantial climbs of the day. This one was 5.6 km long, 267 metres of climbing, had an average gradient of 4.2 % and a steepest section that had a gradient of 9.9 %.

We both took this first climb in our stride. It's what those low gears are for and how we get our heavy bikes (have I....) to the top of the big hills!

The road to Gaztelugatxe appeared on our right shortly after completing the climb. We cycled down a steep hill and parked the bikes at the entrance to a path which we then followed on foot all the way down to sea level. Gaztelugatxe came into view as we descended and looked amazing at all times.

Our legs were getting slightly alarmed though. Walking down steep slopes and especially steps can be brutal on your legs. What on earth were we thinking? Didn't we know we had another 28 miles to go and lots more hills to cycle up?!

The four legs were of course ignored. We weren't missing out on seeing Gaztelugatxe just because of our moany legs. No way, José.

The walk was really enjoyable in fact. It's such a spectacular location. Lots and lots of photos were of course taken.

After enjoying Gaztelugatxe, we resumed cycling and after a thrilling descent (aren't they all?), we came to the town of Bakio where we stopped for coffees and pastries.

Back on the road, we soon had our second big(ish) climb under our belts. Was there no stopping M1 and M2?

The scenery all day had been wonderful. Beautiful coastal views and incredible forest. And it had not (yet?) poured down! That was a definite bonus.

In our minds, we knew there were two big climbs and then a couple of smaller climbs on today's route and we'd kind of mentally dismissed the smaller climbs as being inconsequential.

The second of the two "inconsequential" climbs turned out to be somewhat consequential though! There aren't many ways into Bilbao from this side and we ended up choosing a route that crossed a range of hills that wrap around the North Eastern side of the city. This climb was pretty long and tough and the road we ended up cycling on was in parts, a total nightmare!

We've become familiar with some of the road classifications and codes used in Spain. AP is a motorway, for example. We avoid AP roads therefore! But we've had good experiences cycling both N roads and BI roads. We'd call these roads B roads and "lesser A roads" in the UK. Or at least that's how we'd have described these roads until today.

To enter Bilbao, after most of the climb up into the Bilbao hills, we ended up on the BI-631. This (we now know!) is a fast and very busy dual carriageway with a narrow hard shoulder. There were no signs indicating that bikes weren't allowed, so not quite realising what we were getting ourselves into, we joined the road and started cycling along the hard shoulder, often cycling uphill.

The road was horrendous and the hard shoulder all but disappeared sometimes. We battled along behind the safety barrier at one point, anything to avoid actually being on that road.

Eventually, we were both over the hill and the climb that seemed to go on forever and off the dreaded BI-631. This left about 4 miles of cycling to get us into the heart of Bilbao and to the Airbnb apartment we've booked for today.

We met the host and they took M1 up to the apartment with the first set of bags while M2 kept the two bikes company. Yes, up. Not only up but up and all the way to the seventh floor! There was nowhere to put the bikes other than in the apartment and so that meant either carrying them both up the stairs or somehow squeezing them one at a time into the tiny elevator. Happily (very happily!), M1 managed to somehow defy the laws of physics and get himself and one bike at a time into the elevator. After all that climbing today, carrying the bikes up 7 floors might have been the end of M1!

So, that's it for today. We've showered. M1 has shopped. M1 has cooked. M2 has washed clothes. We've eaten. We're now taking it very, very easy in the hope that our legs will recover in time for tomorrow.

Photos!