We're on the way

Okay, so there's been a bit of a gap in blog proceedings. The last week in short: pissed, packed, pissed again, cleaned house, pissed once more, ferry from Portsmouth (raining), arrive Bilbao (raining), lurgie (three days). There are some pictures on my Flickr page from Portsmouth, Bilbao and the Eddie - pictures like this...

...although most of them are more picturesque and contain less (and indeed fewer) pissed people.

Anyway, because I don't have free wireless access *everywhere* I stop (I currently do in this hostel in Laredo) I'll be doing up entries and posting them when I can. So back to yesterday's progress report...

Wednesday 04 April, 2007

First proper day of riding today – Bilbao to Castro Urdiales (C-U), 50km. Admittedly, it would have been slightly shorter had we not got lost riding out of Bilbao and added a few kms, but hey, it was only raining lightly at that point and who could have guessed the horrors ahead.

Spanish people have been amazing so far. As clearly demonstrated by the fact that we can’t even find our way out of a town we rode into *the same way* just three days earlier, we are a bit rubbish at navigation. Fortunately, all we need to do is stand on a corner with our bikes and look bewildered for people to flock to help us. I kid you not, people were pulling their cars off the road to leap to our assistance. This has already happened several times, but star man so far is the stranger in Portugalete who drew us a map to Castro Urdiales, gave us the names of the towns we needed to pass through on the way to ensure we were on the right track and even identified a handy cycle path (bidegorri) that we could follow for 10kms of the journey. He even came running after us to make sure we knew that the cycle paths were always red. What a nice man.

Grrr on the cycle path

The journey itself was less fun. Of the roughly 30kms from Portugalete to C-U, I’d guess that around 25kms were uphill. Up-serious-fucking-hill. Hills so steep we struggled to push our bikes up them. Yes that’s right – we pushed our bikes. We’re not proud, people, if we need to push to get there, we’ll push. One of the few short downhill sections, which should have been a thing of joy, was accompanied by a hail storm that forced us to hole up in a disused bus shelter half way down, and we only missed the rain of frogs through good timing – which we know because there were still frogs on the road when we cycled through that bit.

Still, we’re here now, and though I was freezing cold, soaking wet and sick to death of cycling up hills, I was prepared to hate C-U but it looks very pleasant indeed. We’re snugged away in a pension by the castle, showered and warm (Neil broke the heater, but then fixed the heater, so what could have been an incredibly ugly and violent scene was narrowly avoided), and soon we will hit the town for a couple of cervezas and hopefully a hot meal.

This is how nice Castro Urdiales turned out to be!

Overall, cycle conditions have been absolutely brilliant. There are massive cycle paths running along lots of major roads and all through the centre of cities and towns, and drivers seem to treat you with real caution – giving you a wide berth and waiting patiently behind you on twisty roads rather than trying to squeeze past. Although maybe that’s just us, as we no doubt look like something you'd automatically give a wide berth. Weather is much worse than expected – v cold, rainy (haily!) and windy. We are looking forward desperately to a day of sun which the forecasters seem to keep shifting to the day after tomorrow, every day.

Ready to leave Castro_Urdiales

Don’t know when I’ll post this, but quick admin issue – our onetel addresses are not working, apparently. Neil and I both have yahoo addresses that we will be using from now on – if you don’t have the addresses, could you please stick a comment on the blog, saying who you are, and I’ll email them out to you. I sent an email out this morning to some people but no doubt missed some people off. Also, Graeme could you please email me your snail mail address – one Guggenheim postcard is waiting to wend its way to you but doesn’t know where to go.

Back to today, 05 April
We cycled about 35kms today from C-U to Laredo where we're stopping tonight. Today's ride was much nicer - still hilly but not as bad as yesterday and without unpleasant stuff constantly falling from the sky. A couple of pictures are up on Flickr and I'll try to add more soon. We've actually got some sunshine outside so it's time to head out for a relax on the sea front. Some exciting news just in by email though: my esteemed DTI former colleague Jonathan and I have won a coveted Hilary's Award for outstanding work on the always immensibly readable DTI News. I know some of you may be unfamiliar with this prize, but let me assure you that it is *even better than it sounds*. In may gracious acceptance blog I'd like to say that it was largely down to the hard work of Jonathan (which it was) and that it is truly, TRULY, an honour. So, congratulations Jonathan and me - cervezas all round!