Day 4 to Bilboa

7 September 2023 Day 4 was a 49km day

Today was a good day of riding.
Not difficult distances but the challenging elevation changes make for very tiring days. There is a however today - toward the end. If you look at the Zamudio and that’s straight up peak, that awaited me at the end of the day straight up, and I had to push my bicycle up the hill, the majority of the way sweating with my heart pounding out of my chest I believe I took one of two routes over Mount Avril. The guidebooks do warn about this treat at the end of the day. I think it was something like 1000 feet of vertical over a couple of kilometers. Well, I am in very good shape due to all my cycling this year I had no hills to practice on at home very demanding. Now I’m worried about my calorie intake each day.

The daily elevation gains are rewarded with some nice downhill riding that I frequently just coast. (due to the simple fact, my heart is pounding out of my chest)

i’m still getting used to the countryside on the fact that I’m really doing this and it’s not a vivid dream. This is the view from across the valley from last nites monastery lodging….Just fabulous ! I have since turned this image into a very large canvas at home.

The first order of the day after I’ve set out, is to get to a town by eight or 830 and find a Panderia and have coffee con leche and a chocolate Napolitano croissant

This is a very difficult routine to get used to maybe I’ll continue it at home 😎

I am convinced that there’s nothing in the world like a blue cheese. I will have to look for the triple Leche version (goat, cow, and sheep milk ) at home hopefully get lucky to see it and be able to buy it.

Breakfast is my most important calorie gathering meal of the day and I stated before the Spanish don’t start eating (cafe opening time) until at least 9, 9:30 or 10
This presents a special challenge for start of day calorie intake

I would say half of my road riding is with good shoulders, and half looked like this ! Very tight / non existent bike ‘lane’. Naturally downhill you are running at fairly high speeds even on the turns some of which are switch back curves. Again it is nice to see that Spanish drivers are used to lots of bicycles on the road whether bike clubs out on long rides on their road bikes or bicycle pilgrims like me .

This is a Hermitage at the beginning of the climb of Mount Avril. I took a break here to size everything up, drink some water, which I was running rather short of.. I was very hot and dripping wet with sweat at this point. While I took a break here to cool down I wondered who is staffed this hermitage in the centuries gone by, I was just disappointed that it was all locked up to at least get a look inside and sit and rest. Unfortunately, my experience at these points of interest have been very frustrating. They are usually all locked up whether it be a hermitage sanctuary, church, or old small basilica.

Still soaking wet here at this location with a long way to go uphill I set off again- Oofdah! Pretty much walked up the steepest part of this 13+ degree incline

Basilica of Our Lady of Begoña Built in the early sixteenth century on the site of the old wooden church—which has loomed over the city of Bilbao and the Nervión river for centuries. During Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in August 1808, French troops looted the basilica, killing the parish priest and causing heavy damage

Decent into Bilbao, after that monstrous climb is pretty much racing downhill for long distance. Halfway down when I was trying to determine which way to go (incorrect choice being needing to ride back up the steep hill) into Bilbao I was looking at my map- splat !- a huge over ripe rotten fig dropped out of a tree right onto me - over ripe goo
go fig-ure it out, yuck

Bilbao is a huge industrial metropolitan city. I got to my hotel right next to old town and was going to walk over there for is numerous gourmet dining options but halfway over there the skies opened up and I hightailed it back to the hotel and grabbed a couple mediocre empanadas at a pastry shop for a dinner.

Highlight of the day: Gaining confidence with road riding in rural Spain

“Hiking – I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not hike! Do you know the origin of that word ‘saunter?’ It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, “A la sainte terre,’ ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them.””

- John Muir

Awesome painted building street art