Dobleve

We took an easy day today and rode to Llanes, another picturesque port town. It was an uneventful but very humid ride, no photos from today so here’s our sheep friends from Asón instead.

We arrived back on the coast today, starting from Asón with a climb over a 2200′ pass and into Cantabria.

We had a long day of riding and are happy to have ended in Comillas, it has a beautiful beach and the old town is pretty and lively.

It’s laundry day too and someone decided the sink was more work than wash-n-wear.

The ride from Zalla through Collado de Asón was an endless series of turns and incredible views, for sheer natural beauty this area rivals Yellowstone.

The road over the pass is closed to car traffic due to construction but we were able to get through on bikes with a short scramble over rock debris; the upshot was that for most of the ascent and descent we had the road to ourselves.

We had a great day with perfect weather and decided to stop just outside of Asón because the area is breathtaking. With 8 houses and far more sheep and goats than people this town in the valley just beyond the collado (pass) through the mountains is surrounded by sheer walls and stunning mountain scenery in all directions.

We left Bilbao this morning for an easy ride to rest before a big day in the mountains tomorrow; we missed the morning rain and had a relaxing ride to Balmesada. We’d have loved to have stayed there but this is where our luck ran out.

Balmesada is a beautiful old town surrounded by green hills and complete with a full color 12 page tourist brochure and seemingly helpful information points all around town. Unfortunately there are only 16 hotel rooms in the one hotel in town, all of which were full; we were duly confused so we backtracked a few kilometers to Zalla and found our luck again. The ride back was maybe the most picturesque 6-7km we’ll see on the trip and Zalla turned out to have a really happening nightlife. It was not easy to drag ourselves back to the hotel early to be ready for tomorrow.

Fortunately before going out for the night we got some ice and prepped the best cooler we could find for catching up on email tonight and chilling our lunch for tomorrow.

We arrived in Bilbao this afternoon after a great ride along the coast, a stop at a Txakolina winery (with great shipping rates) and a horrible ride along the highway into Bilbao; experience riding in big cities is a must to get the last few kilometers into town.

The city itself is great, well laid out, lively and full of good bar and restaurant options. Plus they have plenty of Txakoli not to mention the best pintxos we’ve had so far.

If the weather holds tomorrow we’ll head a little south into the mountains and make our way towards the coast again near Santander in 2-3 days.