Day nineteen

A random ride aound the area, I ended up mainly on the good bike paths by the river and coast.

That's it...

Weather - Dry, chilly and windy

Day Eighteen

Today was a half decent road ride to the coast. I went past the unfinished nuclear power plant near Bakio. It's a sad story of ETA kidnapping and killing an engineer at the plant, so the government stopped it's construction. It's not my family, or country so it's proably easier to say that it's sad that they bowed to terrorism.

Personally, I think the govt. like ETA, they are murdering scumbags (ETA, obviously) but their impact is minimal compared to unemployment, low pay, job insecurity, lack of housing, pathetic saftey standards and a sickening road death toll but the govt. always wants to talk about ETA rather than these other issuse that have a far greater impact on Mr and Mrs Average Spaniard. 

I'm off to the Euskadi v Venezuela game this evening. The almost yearly football match of the "Basque National Team", they didnt have it last year because of a disagreement over the name. Should it be Euskadi or Euskal Herria? Silly people.


Anyway, here's the ride I did, ...Road ride

Day Seventeen

Today wasnt as planned. Have spent too long watching England thrashing Australia so was knackered today. Then watched Sunderland conspire to get beaten off Blackpool, not a happy chappy. Just grabbed my friends Kona (it's here for storage and I've put some slicks on it) , and gave it a good ragging round the block. Feel better now.

Weather - Niiiiceeee.

Day Sixteen

Busy day today, only had time for a quick spin on the road bike. In training parlance I think it's called a recovery ride.

Weather -  dry, sunny, nearly warm

Day Fifteen

A night ride today, just my usual local off-road route. Tried it in reverse though, just to see if it was better in the mud, and generally it was apart from the final descent which was off-camber wet rocks, dangerous but fun.

Think I've done ok for the last couple of weeks in that I've been riding every day but I think I need to up the milqge now. Busy day tomorrow but I think a road ride to Gernika an back on Tuesday is on the agenda.

Weather - cold but dry.

Day Fourteen - Merry Christmas

Just a tootle along the coast today. Didnt say any other riders but plenty of surfers, they are a dedicated bunch that lot. It's nice that when you ride a bike wearing a santa hat people say hello.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone.

Weather - Bright and chilly.

Day Thirteen

Went for a "proper" ride to village of La Arboleda, whic sits on top of a big hill on the other side of the river. There's some really good tracks up there and normally I take the funicular up the hill and ride around the top before taking the downhill track back down. Today though, it was wet, really really wet, we are talking driving rain, hailstones, strong wind and rain, rain, rain. So, I changed my plan slightly to ride up the hill to La Arboleda, its a good climb, took me about an hour of spinning. So, I've ended up doing a decent road ride on an mtb with mud tyres and draggy disk brakes in a monsoon. Aye, I enjoyed it.

Definitely the wettest ride I've ever done, let's all praise Goretex, seal skinz and Ron Hill, I was always warm and acceptably dry.

Weather - wet

Day Twelve.

Got the Xmas food shopping in; found a nice looking Gran Reserva Rioja for Xmas dinner, slurp.

Put some new brake pads and tyres on the mountain bike and took it for a test spin in the driving rain. - Yuk.

Off to buy some new forks now - Rockshox Sektor's 140mm coil U-turn. In black unfortunately.

Weather - Evil - wind, rain, hail, not nice.

Day eleven

Today was the first day I thought "I can't be arsed", but dragged myself out on my mountain bike on a little loop round here. Of course I enjoyed it once I got started, some nice slippy, slidey rocks to mince down and one decent hill to make it feel worthwhile.

Rides have had to be close to home, short and pretty ordinary this week. It's the last week of school before the Xmas hols and there's a load of pissing around and little errands to run and far too much chocolate to be eaten. Today is the last day, at last, I finish with getting drunk with my adult students, that'll be good.

Tomorrow it's dull Xmas food shopping but then I'm free, to do whatever I want any old time....

Weather - Sunny and warm; lots of mud though.

Day Ten

Fixed the brakes and the puncture on my road bike. Went for a quick spin round the block but the rear tyre wanted to roll off. Put it back on, but looks like my rear rim is a bit knacked. I'll bash it in with a brick or something equally heavy. Should do the job.

Weather - back to very wet again.

Day nine

Just a mtb ride round the coast via the local bike shop.

Weather - Sunny, dry; windy.

Only 3 days of work before 2 weeks holiday, time to plan some proper riding.

Day Eight

Had the school Christmas dinner last night, so unsurprisingly didnt feel like riding this morning. Did a bit if fettling and bike cleaning this afternon and then went for a wee night ride to test a few things out.

Weather - lovely sunny day.

Day Seven

Just a coastal ride near home on the road bike. Got a puncture that wouldnt stay fixed, so it was a case of  pump a bit, ride a bit, pump a bit. Ah well, at least it made it a complete body work out.

Suderland 1 - Bolton 0 - Well done lads.

Weather- Sunny, dry, bit chilly.

Day Six

Today was a proper Basque winters day. Wet, vey wet, wetter than a very wet thing that's got rained on in Wetsville Arizona.

Went on a road ride to Zierbena beach, which is on the other side of the river. It's a pretty easy ride along an excellent Bidegorri (cycle path), altogeher about 40km of riding.


Weather - damp.

Day Five (sort of)

Well, that didnt last long.

Tuesday was spent all day at work, no prolem I thought, i'll just for a night ride when I get back. At around 6pm I start to feel some pressure behind my nose and get a bit of a headache. At 9-30 the blood starts pouring from my nose. By 10pm my head really hurts and so I bail out of the ride. Next morning I wake up feeling like a student protester after a session with the Metropolitan police. So, that's a second day with no riding.

I've always had problems with nose-bleeds, had it cauterised when I was young, but it only seemed to work on one nostril. It was handy at times, if I had a nasty test at school I wanted to avoid I could just flick the nose and the blood would start pouring and I could spend half the class in the toilets stemming the flow. Nowadays it only seems to happen when the weather changes, I'm a human barometer "Red nose in the evening, tomorrow freezing" is an old proverb I've just invented.

Anyway, today I woke up bright-eyed and bushy tailed, England were thrashing the ozzies and I was ready to ride.

Went on a wee mtb loop round my house, it's a nice ride, with a bit of everything. Only roblem is even at the best of times lots of it is muddy. Today there was lots of evil sticky mud buggering up my gears and making the chain jam. Time for single-speed I think. I hope Alfine becomes cheaper in the new year.

Anyway, now I'm enjoying the self-satisfied glow that comes from having a nice hot coffee after being out in the cold, wet muck.

Weather - cold, -4.5 this morning.

Day Four

Today was my first "cheat" ride. Just a ride to the garage to spray the mud off my bike. In my defence I have a shed load of work to do and it's a 8km round trip, so there's a bit of exercise done.

Weather - overcast, reckon it's going to rain.

Day Three

Today, I was in a place called Narbaniz. It's a nice little village near Gernika. The area round Gernika is beautiful, I used to live round here but the commute to work became a pain, but I like to visit the old stamping ground now and then.

The area (Urdaibai) has a 11 marked mountain bike tracks, in specatular scenery, sounds good? Unfortunately most of these routes have a lot of road sections, usually way more than 50% The uphills are on nice descents and the downhills on easy climbs. Whoever set the routes up messed up IMO. This with dreadful signalling means I'd say that anyone just turning up and following a route wouldn't have a good time.

Anyway, today I did route 11, which in my opinion is the best ride of the lot, it's not long but is 90% off-road, has some good climbing and has some nice descending. Also, in Genika you can get some essential energy in the form of one of the finest tortillas in Pais Vasco (believe me, I'm a expert). It's an old man bar near the Train Station, called "Zaharra"

Weather - dry (but it rained last night), warmer though. Time for mud tyres now unfortunately.

Day Two

An off road ride along the coast near where I live. It doesnt have many proper hills, just lots of short sharp up and downs, a bit like the South Downs. Lots of singletrack, some rocky bits, some slidy bits, just fun basically.  I did return the dull but hard way just to get a decent sized hill in the legs.

The bike - Orange P7 with lots of aging parts that are going to be replaced bit by bit. First thing to go are the Pace forks, fantastic when they work, but this isnt very often nowadays. Going to get some Rockshox Sektors on, the local shop quoted a very good price, even cheaper than CRC, the exchange rate must be mental at the moment.

Weather - Bloody cold this morning, had to scrape ice of the car windows. But has got gradually warmer over the day, finished the ride in short sleeves, not bad for December.

Now, time to get a recovery beer and watch sunderland beat Fulham.

Day One

You might have expected me to line up a spectacular ride for the first, but no, just a fairly ordinary local loop to fit around work and household crap like going to the supermarket.

The ride was a 1.5 hour trundle on my road bike. Nothing very long but a coule of decent hills which felt harder than usual today.

The bike used was a Specialized Langster, it's a singlespeed so even a short ride can feel like a decent workout. Ive had the bike for about 4 years now, havent done a thing to it apart from give it some lube and repair the odd puncture. It could do with a clean, but it'd just get dirty again.

So, where's my local loop? I live on the edge of a fairly dull town called Berango, near Bilbao in the Basque country, its 15 minutes from work, on the metro line and I live in a pleasant half house with a nice garden. The cats certainly like it and their opinion is the most important in this houshold.

Weather - Chilly but sunny and dry.

Not the first day.

Inspired by an article in singletrack magazine I have decided to ride a bike every day for 100 days. Even if it's just a trip down to the bakers, I'll be on my bike. I doubt this will be a very interesting read but I'll comment on my rides, the weather, whatever and take a few photos.

So, it'll start tomorrow, see you then....