Picos & Costa Verde - 2018

Despite another night disturbed by indigestion & broken sleep (I need to eat earlier & drink less 🍷), I was quite looking forward to the Cavadonga climb, despite several steep sections over 15%. An iconic route apparently, that winds its way up to the Mirador del Reina over about 10 miles or so out of Soto de Cangas.  We had a light breakfast & broke camp before setting off, leaving all our gear in the campsite office.  It was overcast & more than a little humid as we rode the gentle climb to the village of Cavadonga & the start of the climb proper. It was apparent pretty quickly that I wasn’t feeling great, as my stomach wouldn’t settle & I lacked energy. Oh well, no problem. I’ll do it at my own pace. The boys rode on steadily & within 15 minutes or do, I’d lost sight of them.  The climbing was tough! I was in my lowest gear & struggling a bit. I stopped briefly after a couple of miles, had a good drink, and set off again feeling a bit b...

Can’t say as I had a particularly great nights sleep. Comfortable enough & got off alright, but woke at 2am with raging indigestion, which took an hour or more to settle. A combination of eating late, rich food & booze. Sleep was then pretty fitful through to around 7.30. I think the others had similarly disturbed night, but for quite different reasons. In Kev & Neil’s case, something to do with sliding off their camping mats due to the sloping pitch 🙄 It was an overcast morning as we packed our gear away &’onto the bikes before heading west through Comillas and into the Olyambre nature reserve for breakfast on the beach. A simple affair served in a simple restaurant.  The subsequent ride out of the park & along the sawtooth profiled coastal road was fab. Great views into several bays along the way with the Picos mountains as a backdrop.  We skirted the coast to Llanes, where we stopped for a bit of lunch. It appeared to be a pleasant if unre...

Well I do!..........Like to be beside the seaside 😁 The latter part of the crossing was really smooth & we sat on deck for an hour or two soaking up a few rays. We were pretty chilled & looking forward to getting on the bikes after  the 30 hour crossing.  We got off the boat in front of most of the other vehicles & headed off into the centre of a Santander to pick up our route out. And it went remarkably smoothly as the Garmin did us proud. I have a deep seated mistrust of the bloody thing, especially when it comes to navigating a route, but fair play, it was almost glitch free on this occasion 😉 We were on an undulating route to Comillas via Torrelavega & Santillana del Mar. After taking a bit of time to acclimatise to the 25 deg heat, the weight of the bikes, etc, I settled down & reallybegan to enjoy the ride. Superb scenery & a great road surface.  We stopped for a snack just after Torrelavega & then pressed on to Comillas. As we rolled i...

Friday 15th June 2018 Well, here we go again! Another jaunt abandoning our long suffering better halves, however quite whether they’d want to be cycle camping in the Picos Mountains is doubtful 🤔🤪 Alex drove us down to Portsmouth yesterday afternoon and, remarkably, having  dodged the bulk of the UK’s Friday traffic madness, we (that’s Alex, Kevin & I - Neil was making his own way in his own style - as usual) arrived at the Holiday Inn Express in Portsmouth at around 7.30pm. Nice rooms. Shame about the pizza & ‘Are you sitting down for the price of this’ beer, but necessary nevertheless.  Neil rolled in sometime around 10pm, then promptly disappeared again to park his car elsewhere before returning in a taxi. He too needed a beer! Saturday 16th June After a slightly restless night (pre tour nerves?), we were up, breakfasted and away at 7.10am for the short ride through town to the ferry port.  Four Go Down to the Sea.  ...