The Biscay Coast

About 2 in the morning it started to rain a nasty drizzle. I packed away my sleeping bag, as being down-style its ability to insulate is seriously compromised by getting wet. I pulled out my tarpaulin and hid under there until first light at around 06:30. It was also around this point that I found a lot of the water I was carrying was no good, I had forgotten to change it after the ferry crossing and having been treated with SIS powder, it was fermenting.

Undeterred I got an early start, but even with the rain and the cool morning the effort of hauling my heavy bike up the inclines had me sweating a lot, and I was becoming seriously dehydrated. Early on a Sunday everything was closed, so my food was dwindling too. Needless to say being dehydrated and on the cusp of "the bonk" whilst dragging your touring bike about in the rain is not the most pleasant way to spend a morning.

I struggled on and was rewarded with my first ever "arrriba!" when passing through a small village. The good feeling was short lived though, as shortly after I sustained my second puncture of the trip. Being aware that it was Sunday, I elected to patch rather than replace; I generally don't trust patches, but its something I really should be able to do.

Later in the morning I came upon a public stand pipe atop a mountain pass, and began to feel much better for having had a drink. I was even able to keep up a decent speed despite challenging 7 and 8% climbs.

When I rejoined the coast, I found the road to be high and meandering over some of the head-lands, but after the difficult climb I was rewarded with a very long coast back down to... the coast. I greatly amused the locals strolling along the beach by slipstreaming some Lycra-clad roadies on my fully laden (and towing) touring bike.

Met a few interesting characters. So far today I've conversed with people from the Netherlands, California, Belgium and (oddly enough) Spain. By noon I had traveled some 80Km, a good morning's riding considering the issues (and gradients).

A family of American tourists took some pictures of me as I climbed the hill from the village; they seemed to think I was going quite fast. When I stopped at the parking bay where they were, they were kind enough to do one with my camera.

A young man from California that I met was taking a small plastic Owl around the world, and photographing it in locations, to prove he had been there... ridiculous, has to be a duck.

The flat coastal road I had planned to use, it had some quite pretty little islands rising out of the sea. As soon as I saw this I started day dreaming about Darnasus, rising out of the sea and other fictional locations. Luckily I was slip streaming the roadies at this point, so just needing to follow the wheel in front it was Ok for my mind to wander a little.

The riding today was far tougher than I had envisaged, regular 7 and 8% gradients and the weather and supply situation has also been unfavorable. Even so I've covered 140km since Bilbao, nearly half the distance to Lourds, with a civilized 18:45 finish to the days riding and two days in hand to make the remainder of the distance.Læs mere