Day 17: Salamanca to Plasencia. 84 miles. 4345 feet of climbing.

We got a lucky break and some heads up work from Jesse and Michelle as we found a place to eat outside of Salamanca.

It might not look like much, but this meal (bread and coffee off-screen) saved us this morning.

Today was one of those days when we knew we were in for a challenging time.  It was going to be a long day.  It was going to be a hot day.  And we were not going to follow our normal morning routine.  Being in Spain has required us to change our usual morning and evening schedules.  Cafes and restaurants don't open early for breakfast.  And they don't start serving dinner until at least 8pm.

The long empty road.  We saw more
hikers than we did cars on this road.

This morning, Jesse and I were up early, so we walked around the medieval section of Salamanca at 7 am, reconnoitering for any place that might be serving breakfast, as our hotel did not have a kitchen (probably the only one on this entire trip).  Eventually, we realized that our search would prove fruitless, so we all decided to take our chances and ride out of town, hoping that we'd find a place along the route later this morning.

As luck, and some ingenuity from Jesse and Michelle, we found a bar/cafe about five miles out of town that agreed to serve us breakfast.  The husband immediately started making coffees for our group while some of his early morning usual customers looked on in amazement.  While he was tending bar, his wife was cooking us up fresh eggs, jamon and bread.  A nice meal was not had by us during this trip.

The challenges of the day continued with a road closure out in the middle of nowhere that allowed our bikes through but caused Jesse to do a 60-mile detour before catching up with us.

The Spanish version of the signs
I saw earlier in France.

We had a couple of major mountain climbs today that speak for themselves.  It was slow going, especially as no one was packing a lot of fuel today to draw upon (as good as our breakfast was, it was much less than we'd normally eat).  On top of that, today we really started to feel the heat of central Spain.  And the headwinds during the last 10 miles didn't help much.  The one special treat of the day was the nearly 17 miles of downhill cruising after the last mountain climb.

Looking back on the last mountain
climb of the day.

Our late start and our late finishes meant we had less time before dinner than was usual.  But, owing to the fact that most restaurants in our neighborhood were not opening until 8:30 or 9:00 pm (some chefs chose to watch the local bullfights, thereby delaying their normal opening times), we chose to eat at our hotel.  That turned out to be a great choice as we had some much needed healthy eating while still enjoying local cuisine.

I've shown you these before.  A church steeple with a huge bird's nest.
It turns out many churches in the Salamanca area encourage these
as breeding grounds for giant white storks.

Somewhere in the middle of our ride today, we ran across this giant park with multiple granite statues and displays.  Turns out, there's a huge granite quarry down the road.  These playful displays (we all called this one Stonehenge) are scattered across a 20-acre site.

Blog extras #1: The Daily Routine

Wake-up & breakfast

Each morning starts with a 6 am alarm clock.  However, many mornings, I’m already up long before then.  It’s really weird.  You’d think that, with all the exercise from the previous day, I’d be so exhausted as to fall quickly into dreamland and sleep well into the night.  But that’s rarely the case.  Most nights, I wake up once or twice during the night.  When I’ve talked about this with fellow riders (of ANY age), they all share similar experiences.

Once I’m up, I do some stretching, then hop in the shower just to warm up my muscles and get a bit looser.  Then it’s putting on whatever cycling outfit I’m wearing that day on the road.  Not the formal dressing, but to wear something.

From there, it’s downstairs for breakfast.  Most of the hotels we are staying at offer a full buffet breakfast.  The selections vary, depending on both the country as well as how many stars the hotel has [we’ve usually been staying at 2 or 3-star hotels, occasionally a 4-star (Novotel or NH in Spain)].

Breakfast is all about loading up on fuel for the day so this becomes our major meal.  Although it varies with each person’s capacity and taste, but we usually have three courses:  Some eggs and bacon, some form of potato (or a combo in Spain with their tortillas de patatas) and maybe tomatoes; followed by either toast or fresh baguette with ham/jambon/jamon and cheese; then a bowl of cereal with fresh fruit and either milk or yoghurt.  Fresh juice and coffee or tea.  And, sure, if there are fresh croissants or pain au chocolates, at least one of those as well (those seem to now be universal and no longer the strict provenance of France).  By the way…we’re burning somewhere between 3500-5500 calories per day on these rides.

Pre-ride

Back in the room, it’s time to hit the bathroom one last time before the ride starts.  There are few, if any, places along the day’s route to stop and take care of business (which is why we all carry a small baggie with toilet paper and a wipe, just in case).  Then it’s taking off what I wore to breakfast to lube up.  There are many products but I use a combination of chamois butter and Bollocks, a butt balm from England.  Applied to those areas that will take most of the chafing action during the day as well as to the chamois in my bike shorts.  Then it’s getting dressed again and including either an undershirt, a vest, a windbreaker or a rain jacket depending on the weather conditions and the outside temperature.

Check list of everything I’ll need to carry with me today:  Road ID wristband (left wrist), phone in a waterproof baggie (center back pocket), small waterproof case (with cash, credit cards, ID and extra electrolyte tablets) (left back pocket), lip balm, aforementioned toilet baggie, and energy gels (all in my right back pocket).  We don’t look fashionable, but we carry what we need to get through the day.

Next is bringing our gear downstairs so that Jesse can load the car.  Once we’ve done that, it’s back to the room to bring down the bikes. Either in the lobby or right outside the hotel, everyone tops up the air in their tires with the one floor pump we’ve brought along for the trip.  Then it’s one last check to make sure the brakes are aligned, the Garmin’s are set and showing today’s route, and the front and rear lights are all working (when riding on a tour such as this, it’s pretty much standard to have both front and rear flashing lights to help warn oncoming traffic of our presence).

The ride

When everyone is ready, we take off.  We usually ride as a group when we are leaving a town.  The “strength in numbers” philosophy applies until we’re beyond the city limits, at which point we begin to ride at our own pace.  We might stay together or we might not see each other again until either a SAG stop or at the hotel at the end of the day’s ride.  Jane and Gene will ride together.  I might follow either Michelle or Laura depending on the number of hills.  James is the fastest in the group and quickly is off on his own.

Along the ride path, we usually stop either for a SAG stop or to take pictures.  The SAG stops are all about topping up our water bottles and getting a snack, usually some kind of energy bar (more on that in another segment).

Post-ride

When the ride ends, Jesse has already arrived at the hotel and unloaded the bags from the car. Sometimes we have access to the car and sometimes it’s locked away for the night.  So he’s gotten used to knowing the importance of having everything necessary out of the car and within reach for whoever needs whatever.

Once I’ve checked into the room, it’s the start of a major post-ride routine:  Showering, stretching, washing clothes, charging the Garmin and flashing lights and, if it’s early enough, eating a late lunch. By the end of a long day’s ride, the Garmin is down to about 15% power levels. That’s the first one to get plugged in. Then it’s my rear flashing lights. Their internal batteries are recharged by plugging in as well (my front light runs of AA batteries).  Then I recharge my phone.

The clothes washing is done in the shower.  We don’t always have either access to or the time available for a trip to a laundromat to do a proper clothes washing, so “sink washing,” as it’s sometimes referred to, is the only way to ensure that you have (more or less) clean clothes to wear for the next few days, even if you’ve brought extra shorts/shirts/socks/gloves.  There’s no way to wear sweaty clothes without suffering the consequences.

One of the tricks I learned years ago from past cross-country rides was the 2^ndwringing of clothes to help them dry quicker.  The first wringing of the clothes is in the shower itself.  Once I’m out of the shower and have dried off, having left my now clean bike clothes in there to start to drip dry, I wring them out.  Then (and I’m usually good at getting extra towels to do this), I lay out the wrung-out clothes on a towel and roll the towel up with each clothing item.  When it’s totally rolled up, I do a 2^ndwringing of the towel with the clothing inside.  That soaks up even more water and the clothes come out drier. The rest is hanging clothes up in the room (I’ve also learned to bring a set of foldable travel hangars) or laying them out the window or, in some cases when we’re on the ground floor (and it’s sunny and hot outside and it’s a casual country hotel), lay the clothes outside on either hangers or chairs or, as was the case outside of Bordeaux, on the hedges alongside the hotel.  You’d be amazed how this crowd has learned to keep clothes dry in time for the next day’s ride.

After all that, and maybe after having lunch, everyone retreats to his/her room to relax, reflect or take a nap.  Once in a while, we’re in a town that’s worth having a walk around to sightsee.

Drinks/Dinner

Around 6pm each night, we get together downstairs at the hotel bar, or at a neighboring facility, for a couple of beers/cokes/waters/whatevers, and catch up on each other’s take on the day’s ride.  Everyone is swapping stories about their own experiences including what they saw along the way, how they avoided getting a flat tire or a deer crossing the road, etc.

The true cyclists are downloading their daily ride data on Strava, a cycling website that records and catalogs the routes.  It can tell you if anyone else has ridden the same or similar route as well as whether or not you were faster/slower than others.  Yesterday alone, Laura clocked in as Queen of the Mountain on those three nasty climbs.  In other words, no other woman had either ridden up those hills or had ridden it faster. We all like to think that, for Laura’s sake (as she’s a true cyclist), it was the latter.

Then it’s on to dinner, usually between 7-8 pm depending on the country and what we can find locally. By 9:30 pm, we’re all tired and heading back to our rooms.

Post-Dinner

I’m usually trying to write up my basic notes and downloading the photos of the day during the afternoon hours and adding whatever extra color commentary, as well as swapping the photo that I missed but someone else had, and vice versa, during dinner. Back in the room, I’ll finish off the blog post and publish it.

The final things to do before going to sleep is topping up the water bottles, adding an electrolyte tablet to one of them, and lubing my bike chain.  The electrolyte tablets are to help prevent muscle cramping.  We don’t have Gatorade on this trip, so I brought enough tablets for each day’s ride throughout this route.

And then, hopefully, it’s lights out and a decent night’s sleep.  Tomorrow we start again.  

Rinse, lather, repeat. 

Or, as Jesse put it when talking to a friend of his with great amazement early in the trip, “These people are crazy!  They get up so early in the morning; eat more for breakfast than you or I consume in a day; ride 75-100 miles in the heat or rain; meet up later in the day before dinner and knock back more drinks that I’m comfortable admitting having; eat dinner where they consume more alcohol; go to bed and wake up and do it all over again the next day!  I mean, how cool is that!?”

Day 16: Villadolid to Salamanca 73 miles 2615 feet of climbing

Saw this small
statuary on bridge
leaving town
this morning.

Today was one of those days on a long ride that challenges your mind more than your body.  It didn't help that it also turned out to be a day when the recovery from the past two days caught up with many of us.  In other words, another day with no legs.  But, fortunately, there wasn't a lot of climbing.

Remember me talking about the "Blue Highways" a few days back?  Today was a route along one of those.  N620 is an old two-lane route that runs all the way from Villadolid to Salamanca.  It must have seen a lot of traffic 30 or 40 years ago.  Today, there's a much newer 4-lane super highway that runs alongside of the older road.  Today, we were on that older road.  For 46 miles!

I think there were most cyclists on the road today, being a Sunday, than there were cars (and the occasional truck).  We very much had the road to ourselves.  That was the good part.

Coming into the small village (town?) of Alejos, I noticed two church steeples.  I kid you not, about two hundred meters past that traffic circle, I was already out of the town.  So why are there two, almost identically large Cathedrals right next to each other?  I tried looking the answer up on the web.  No help there.

The tougher part was being able to concentrate on the road.  When I'm riding for more than 10 or 15 miles straight on one road, I can easily drift into a fog, not really concentrating on the road in front of me or on anything else for that matter. While constant turning can also be a drag, at least that makes the rider focus on the next turn, the next corner, the next car about to come into view.

This was it for much of today.  Hay bales everywhere.  Miles of land that looked like it got a crew cut.  

Today we were by ourselves on an empty highway.  And it didn't help that I had just read an article on the New York Times website about Madonna, lauding the performer for her many landmark activities that have set such a high bar for anyone else in her field.  So while I was riding today, I kept hearing the song "Like a Prayer" playing in my head.  For miles and miles.

Jesse in front of the city hall in La Plaza Mayor.  We wound up having lunch in one of the many outdoor cafes around the plaza.  Eating local, Jesse and I shared some smoked sardines (excellent), jamon croquettas and suckling pig.  All de-lish!

We got into Salamanca early enough to so a bit of sightseeing.  We are staying in the old quarter of the city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so there were many beautiful old buildings in and around our area.

Part of the Nuevo Cathedral of Salamanca.  Construction on the older Cathedral was started around the 1100's.  This "modern" Cathedral was started in the 1500's and consecrated in the 1700's.  Both are amazing.

I've gotten some e-mails from folks asking questions ranging from what kinds of foods am I eating as I travel through Europe to what is a typical daily routine for the ride.  So I've decided to add a series of extra blogs, one per day, that will each address a specific subject.  Yes, for those looking for more pictures, I'll apologize ahead of time.  They'll likely be a bit wordy.

Day 15: Burgos to Villadolid 87.5 miles. 3615 feet of climbing. Frosty morning.

The road giveth.  And the road taketh away.

Much of today was riding through these small Spanish villages.  We'd see people who seemed to come out of nowhere, walking along the roads as they approached these villages.  In all cases, the tallest structure would be the church steeple.

That was the kind of day we had today.  I love the British word knackered, which means "beyond tired."  Knackered is how I'm feeling right now.  I got all of about 3 hours of sleep last night and, by this afternoon, I was feeling it.  Now that I'm sitting down, I'm REALLY feeling it!

Where there's a rock, there's
a church bell or steeple.

It was actually a great morning.  Chilly, with temperatures not yet out of the 50's, but a bright and sunny morning.  The first few miles were a climb out of the city of Burgos, but then we were on a freshly-paved road with a very nice tailwind (our first of this entire trip mind you) for the next 20 miles.  Absolute heaven!  There is nothing more satisfying that riding on a totally smooth surface.  And the tailwind was a happy addition.

We road through farmlands and the Spanish countryside, occasionally riding through or near very small villages along the way.

By about noontime, the winds had changed.  They were now either in our faces or strong crosswinds. But that wasn't the fun part of the latter half of the ride.  We had three nasty little climbs, not mountains, but steep hills with equally steep descents.  That's normally the part of the climb a rider would look forward to.  But, in this case, the road surfaces were just awful.  Cracks, potholes, badly paved (or more likely, neglected) road surfaces that made the going very slow.  No one wanted to pop a tire in a pothole.  The only way both up and down those hills was to go very slowly to avoid potential disasters, especially on the steep downhill sections.

Stopped to take a shot of this cute cemetery up on the hill.
Okay, trivia question:  Why are some hay bales either square or rectangular shaped while others are circular?

Eventually, we got out of the countryside and into Valladolid proper.  We rode along the Rio Pisuerga, in a park that runs alongside the river through much of the city.

Loved the bird's nest on top of the steeple.

Day 14: Miranda de Ebro to Burgos 50 miles 2900 feet of climbing.

We finally got a copy of the article from the local Dronfield newspaper.  Nice coverage!

Looks identical to
my rides through the
US West.

I had no legs.  They just weren't there.  For the first ten miles, I was really feeling the effects of yesterday's mountain climbs.  Today was not a day to recover from all that activity.  But somewhere around the 15-mile mark, I woke up and was able to cycle effectively for the remainder of this short day's ride. I would guess that we probably were riding uphill for about 60% of the day, 30% on a level surface and about 10% downhill.  So it was a fairly constant need to pedal much of the day.

It was not a tough day from an altitude standpoint.  Most of the climbs were somewhere between 2-3%, with a couple of climbs that ranged from 5-8% gradients.  And not much wind to speak of, just an occasional mist from the fog that was rolling off the mountain tops.

It was a peaceful day on the road.  A slight misty rain fell from time to time as we climbed in Burgos.

The ride and the road itself was very reminiscent of one of my rides from out west in the States.  Lots of tractor trailers all day long as we rode in and out of mountain canyons and along farmlands.

The Spanish are very proud of their cattle in these parts.  Or is that Paul Bunyan's Blue ox Babe?

Burgos Old City entrance 

As we arrived in Burgos much earlier than we've done in previous days, we got a chance to do some sightseeing.  A true chance of pace.

And, as we're in Spain, dinner starts later, as does breakfast.  So our 87-mile ride to Villadolid tomorrow will start later than our normal 7-8 a.m. departure.

Burgos Cathedral

After dinner postscript:

When we started this trip, forest fires were raging in southern Spain and in Portugal.  The temperatures in England were way above normal.  So here we are in Burgos, two weeks later, and the temperatures have dropped this evening into the 50's.  I haven't checked this out, but I was told that tomorrow morning's temperatures willin the upper 40's when we depart.  Yes, it'll be in the high 80's by the time we reach Villadolid in the late afternoon, but we're all wondering how many layers to put on as we leave here in the morning.

As we met this evening for dinner, we were all wearing more clothing than we'd put on during any day of this trip so far.  On a personal note, my jeans were looser than when I wore them on the plane 15 days ago!

Day 13: Elgoibar to Miranda de Ebro. 68 miles. 6200 feet of climbing.

The "canyons" leaving Elgoibar.
I didn't take a parallel shot of the
actual canyons we rode through.

When cycling long distances, there are three conditions when all you can do is put your head down and keep pedaling: When it rains; when you have severe headwinds; and when you have to climb mountains.  Today was the latter.

I don't think anyone thought about today's ride in that way but, for me, this turned out to be the hardest day we've ridden so far.  We had all seen the road profile on our "Ride with GPS" apps.  The first 40 kilometers were straight uphill.  Then there was a bit of leveling off, followed by another hairy climb.  But, until we were on the road today, I don't think anyone appreciated just how hard today's riding would be.  And James, who's ridden this route eight years ago, didn't remember how difficult today's second mountain climb would be.

Today, we traveled southwest, skirting a direct assault on the Pyrenees, but still playing in their foothills.  The first few uphill miles out of Elgoibar were a mere taste of things to come.  We wove through the canyons of the a number of mountains in the morning.  I thought we might be dodging a few mountain bullets and hoped, in vain of course, that maybe I or we had misinterpreted the rode profiles on our apps.  Late this morning proved them right all along.

Church in the old town square in
Elgoibar.  Every small town we
rode through had a similar site.

There was a threat of rain in Elgoibar this morning, so everyone was wrapped either in their rain gear or in some kind of windbreaker.  I chose to wear my sleeveless vest.  It worked well in the morning, so well in fact that I would up giving it to Jesse during our first SAG stop.  That, too, proved to be a mistake.

The first climb of the day, at 24 miles, was an ungodly steep switch-backed road that remained in the double digits of percent grade for much of the ascent.  At one point, the road pitched up to 15%.  And, to make matters worse, that was just as the road turned sharply up to the right, making that hairpin turn even more of a challenge.  If I didn't keep pedaling, I would surely have fallen off the bike.  Tired as I was, and with Gene pedaling about ten feet in front of me, we both huffed and puffed and climbed out of our saddles to keep pedaling, more for sheer survival than for getting up to the top.

Gene had told a story at dinner only the night before at being teased during one of his cycling races from that brief time in his past life.  A kid waving a cow bell was running along side of him as Gene was attempting a similarly very steep ascent. The kid, clanging the cow bell, yelled at Gene that he could run faster up the hill than Gene could climb. Dispirited, Gene would soon end his competitive cycling career.

I took this picture riding up the first climb.  Little did I know how far I still have to climb.  I was nowhere near the top, nor anywhere near the impossible 15% gradient about to push my heart rate to the max.

On today's first climb, as Gene and I were now two-thirds of the way up the mountain, we passed a number of cows, all wearing cow bells.  I asked Gene if he thought they, too, might start running beside us as we made our way up the last third of that climb.  He just turned my way and smiled, wryly.

Waiting for the racers to arrive.  That's the French cyclist on the right in the blue and white as well as one of the team representatives with whom I was speaking.  While we waited, we also had a pantomime "conversation" with a Spanish policeman trying to figure out how we'd get back down the mountain when the roads had been closed for this race.  After five minutes of hand gestures, we finally understood each other.  Claro!

The reason Gene, Jane, Laura and I rued leaving our jackets/vests with Jesse was that, no sooner had we arrived at the summit of that first climb, we found ourselves on the very mountain top where a bike race was about to finish.  All during the morning, we had been passed by cycling team cars and caravans of teams, buses and equipment vans.  I think we all assumed they might have something to do with the upcoming Vuelta a España, the final three-week grand tour in professional cycling.  It turned out that there was an Under-23 cycling event taking place on our very mountain this morning. As we got to the top, we stopped to check out the festivities.  Team cars and vans with all the sponsors name emblazoned on them were parking in the nearby lot.  We leaned our bikes on the side of a building next to the finish line and waited for the cyclists to arrive, once we learned (through my limited French from a fellow cyclist who was standing nearby) about the event and the expected time of the riders.  In the ensuing twenty minutes, the mountain top temperatures had dropped a bit.  Nearly everyone in attendance was wearing a sweater or sweat shirt.  We were standing there, in our very sweaty bike jerseys, now succumbing to the colder air.  And Jesse and Michelle couldn't get to us with our jackets/vests because the roads up ahead were closed for the bike race.  But once the riders arrived, it was great fun to watch young riders, all vying not only for today's race win but, much more importantly, for the potential to go beyond their current sponsored teams and to be picked up by one of the world class professional teams.  That's really what today's race was all about...separating the true potential stars of tomorrow from the rest of the peloton.

The peloton arrives!  They were great to watch.  So fast.  So strong.  So young!  I don't know what was more unnerving...the fact that these guys got up that same mountain in one-third of the time we did, or the fact that they don't have an ounce of body fat.  Yeah, probably both!

We rode through what appeared like an industrial corridor today.  Apart from the two mountain climbs, we seemed to be on what would be called in the States (for those fans of either Rand McNally maps or the travel author William Least Heat Moon), "blue highways."  We seemed to weave in and around a major Federal highway much of the day as we rode along the Deba river valley, but our road was older and less traveled, except for large tractor trailers that seemed to be going in and out of those industrial complexes we continuously passed.  No bike paths today.  No narrow, but charming downtown roads.

Riding along Spain's Blue Highways.  They even paint their bridges blue as well :-)

The second mountain climb almost did me in.  Not because of any accident or misfortune.  It was just a continuous, seemingly never-ending, ascent.  By then, Gene and Jane were long behind me (Jane having made a wrong turn many miles back) and Laura and James miles ahead of me.  So this climb was a solo effort.  Just me, my bike, the road and my thoughts. Singing in my head when I could concentrate on that, listening to the strange sounds coming out of my bike as I creaked up the switch-backed road, and cursing the fact that, when I asked Jesse at an earlier SAG stop after the first mountain climb if we had already done the toughest part of the day, he said, "Yeah, you just have some rollers from here on in."  Michelle, who was riding with Jesse today as her recovering shoulder would not have stood a chance on those climbs, said to Jesse in the car after seeing the road profile that Jesse hadn't actually looked at, "your father is going to be cursing your name all the way up this mountain," as they drove up it.  Later, when I saw Jesse at the hotel when I finished, he gave me a sheepish look and apologized for giving me incorrect info.  It was fine.  He actually did a great job today finding Jane lost in the wilderness, negotiating three closed roads (one due to construction, one due to the bike race, and the other due to a town fair) and volleying back and forth between all the riders who were spread far apart today.

It doesn't seem very steep, but this shot was taken near the top of the final climb, looking down towards the valley floor.  It took me over ten minutes to ride down the entirety of that descent, doing over 30 miles per hour much of the way down.

Okay, totally a non sequitur (and I didn't take a picture of this), but why is it that the red octagonal signs at intersections in both France and Spain say "STOP" and not the word in their respective local languages?

How tough a day was it?  I passed out (as did most of us) after a shower and stretching this afternoon.  It was THAT challenging a day.  Tomorrow is also all climbing, but it's only 50 miles and it's a much milder grade.  Still, another day of constant pedaling.

Day 12: Biarritz, France to Elgoibar, Spain. 76 miles. 3875 feet of climbing.

It doesn't get much bluer than the Atlantic Ocean in San Sebastián.  Just an eye-popping color!

And the Atlantic Ocean on our right shoulder much of the day.

What a beautiful day for riding!  The weather was perfect, with temperatures only rising to the upper 70's.  The sun was out. There was a light breeze.  And the Atlantic Ocean never looked more gorgeous.

One of the harbors around St. Jean de Luz as we were heading out of France.  

Everyone enjoyed having a rest day, but once on the bikes this morning, we all felt a bit tired in the legs.  It took a lot of concentration and focus to deal with the morning traffic through Biarritz, Anglet, and St. Jean de Luz before we entered Spain.

The Pyrenees in the background.  We would have a couple of climbs up some of the smaller mountains later in the day.

Leaving France.  There were Gendarmes inspecting cars
entering France.  

I was kind of surprised by the ease with which we entered Spain.  There were three armed Gendarmes  checking cars entering France but, from the Spanish side, no one seemed to care.  "Couldn't be buggered," as the Brits would say.  So here we are, slipping unnoticed into Spain.

We spend most of the day riding along the Atlantic Ocean coastline, weaving in and out of the towns along the way, including San Sebastián, Orio and Zarautz.

No similar governmental inspections taking place for anyone
entering Spain from the French side.

It's a holiday here in Spain as well so the roads, the beaches and the boardwalks were all crowded.  We did benefit greatly from dedicated bike paths through many of those Spanish beach towns.

Our only diversions from the ocean roads were two category climbs up into the mountains along the coast.  They were challenging and long climbs that went on for about two and three miles each, respectively, topping up at around 7 or 8% grades. The descents offered spectacular views back down into the villages and the ocean. The shot below was taken just after the crest from the 2nd climb.

For a long time, we were riding along an ocean road.  Twice, however, the roads took us back up into the mountains.  We had two very long climbs.  This is from the top of the 2nd climb of the day.  45 minutes earlier, we were down there along the coastline!

More shots of San Sebastián

Okay, one more for good measure.  We could have stopped every half mile to take another great shot.

Tonight I'll get a good night's sleep.  My legs earned it today!