| Day # | 31 | State of Legs | :-) |
| Distance (miles) | Distance (km) | Ascent (feet) | Ascent (metres) | Punctures | |
| Today | 35.4 miles | km | 1893 feet | metres | 1 |
| Trip Totals | 1223.2 miles | km | 43729 feet | metres | 1 |
| Today's Route |
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| Route So Far |
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Travelogue
"Fully rested", what with having walked for almost two hours to and from a rock festival where we watched Queens of the Stone Age perform, and then getting to bed at 3 a.m, and then spending a good amount of time the next day walking around the old part of Vitoria-Gasteiz, it was time to hit the road again, whether our legs wanted to or not.
And today, you know what? It rained. We've not really experienced rain since our first week when we were cycling in Northern France. And even then, the rain was sporadic, drizzling for half an hour and then stopping, only to resume again an hour later. We never really felt like we'd had a rainy day back then and never really got wet, partly thanks to half decent waterproof jackets and over-trousers and partly thanks to the half-hearted weather. This week, the weather forecast has predicted rain a number of times but we've always managed to be under a roof when the rain eventually came, if it did at all.
But there was no getting away with it today. It was drizzling when we rolled the bikes out of the hotel lobby and it drizzled for most of the day after that. Of course, Rob McKenna, the "Quasi Supernormal Incremental Precipitation Inducer" (or if you prefer, "Rain God") of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would probably have described the weather as Type 15 Moderate Blather or something but to us mere mortals, it was just drizzle. Fairly dense drizzle, the sort that soaks without you realising that's what it's up to, that is.
Our first task of the day was to find breakfast. Ordinary, First Breakfast that is. So, we cycled a kilometre (or less) towards the older part of town and stopped at the first open bar we could find. Coffees and pastries were consumed and with that, we mounted up and headed off on our planned route.
Leaving Vitoria-Gasteiz was easy thanks to the tremendous cycle paths in the city. We soon left the city behind though and found ourselves in misty, drizzly countryside.
A little later, we came to a bridge that spanned a motorway when DISASTER! The road was blocked with large pieces of concrete! What we were going to do, we just didn't know until M2 noted sagely "Can't we just wheel the bikes through those obvious gaps between the blocks?". Such cast iron logic and common sense. Where would M1 be without M2? It was BARELY AN INCONVENIENCE in fact.
And she was right... the bikes wheeled through no problem and we crossed the bridge to the other side. Phew, what drama!
If today was a day of rain, it was also a day of equipment failures. M1 wears a Suunto Ambit 3 GPS watch and records all rides on it. It's an old but excellent bit of kit that M1 has been using for about eight years and has no complaints about at all. But all good things must come to an end, sadly. When fastening it to his wrist this morning, M1 noticed that the strap had begun to break and that it could not safely be worn in that condition.
About 90 minutes into the ride, M1 had not yet looked at the watch and the distance travelled figure once. "Hey M2, how far do you think we've cycled so far?" he called across to M2, thinking to himself they'd probably only cycled about 10 miles. "Fifteen miles?" guessed M2.
M1 rotated the watch on The Mule's handlebars so that he could see the watch face and read the distance cycled figure and got a bit of a shock.
"It says we've cycled 0.43 miles in one hour, fifty four minutes and twenty seven seconds of cycling!!!!!". Even we're not that slow!
Clearly the watch had failed. The elapsed time was still running but the distance figure was locked at 0.43 miles. Had strapping it to the handlebars caused this? Perhaps with the metal back of the watch in contact with the metal handlebars had interfered with receiving GPS radio transmissions? All sorts of theories ran through M1's geeky brain with its knowledge of software development and wireless communication. We'll never know the truth of course. But we can know that the recording of GPS data had stopped very shortly after starting the day's ride. So, graphics and data on this page are taken from the planned route which was creating using the tool Plotaroute rather than the actual ride. We know we stuck very closely to the planned route (there was one wrong turn which added a few hundred metres to the distance we rode), so those figures are good enough for our purposes.
We'd been gently climbing for a while and the drizzle had lessened. But soon, it was coffee o'clock and coincidentally this auspicious hour came about as we entered the town of Murgia. On sighting an open bar (and bear in mind that today is a Sunday), we screached to a halt and went in. Coffees were ordered and drunk and without hanging around, we got cycling again.
The drizzle got a bit heavier and then really quite dense. We stopped and switched our bike lights on, just to be safe.
The gradient changed directions and we started to descend. And the descent lasted for a good 15 miles! And very exhilarating it was too, even if whizzing through the rain at speed made it a little difficult to see at times. The road surface was great and traffic very light. Great fun.
And the scenery was excellent. It all felt rather Alpine as we descended at speed down a steep-sided and tree-clad valley with picturesque villas here and there and the occasional small town. Very nice.
We reached our hotel on the edge of the town of Laudio 10 minutes before check-in time. Now, we'd booked this hotel for the sole reason that it was literally the only place on our route that we could find to stay. There are no other hotels. No Airbnb. No campsites. Not that we could find anyway, and we didn't fancy pushing on to Bilbao in one go. So, this was to be the hotel we stayed in. But the fact is, this is a hotel that has both four and five star reviews on booking.com and just as many one star reviews! It seems to divide opinion, to say the least. The fact is, it is shabby. It is limited. But the photos on booking.com are honest and accurate. And it's cheap. We've seen campsites that charge a similar price just for the privilege of putting your tent up on a small square of land. And all we needed was a bed for the night and a private bathroom. Who cares what the colour scheme is and state of the paintwork?
We were greeted by one of the owners, Luis. Luis was, it has to be said, awesome. He spoke a little English. He was genuinely welcoming and friendly. He made us each a hot cup of coffee (no charge). He said they'd given us a large room so we had space for our bikes (which M1 had flagged when booking). He discussed our preferences for breakfast. And he offered to physically carry our bikes up to the room on the first floor (M1 declined the offer, not wishing to impose and did it himself). The room is clean, the hot water is hot and the WiFi works well. That'll do nicely.
It is a Sunday. No shops are open. So that left the small issue of how to feed ourselves. Fortunately, whilst the supermarkets were all closed, a good few bars were open and what looks like the town's only pizza delivery place. We walked there and bought a couple of pizzas to take back to our room. We bought more than we could eat for lunch so the remaining slices will end up as a light dinner and we're confident we shall not starve to death between now and whatever Luis is making us for breakfast tomorrow.
Rain or no rain, it was an excellent day.
We've nearly finished cycling in Spain now with only about 20 miles left to cycle to Bilbao for the second time this trip, completing the "extension loop" we'd added to take advantage of being ahead of schedule. A closer view of the route we've cycled so far in Spain looks like this:
Other photos from today:
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| DISASTER!? |
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