eBiking Puente Viesgo to Ampuera - 21st day cycle touring Spain
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- This would have been a modest 63km cycle across Cantabria were it not for the state of my brakes which had escalated to a ‘hmmm the pads really are wearing out’. Normally I’d get far over 2000km from a set of brake pads but this Spain trip has not been normal as Ive now been up and down the equivalent height of Everest almost 6 times in 3 weeks. And apart from the meters of climbing a lot of that has been on rough roads with tight bends and quite often crazy 20%, 30% and even one thankfully brief 40% incline. You come down those with your brakes on.
They hadn’t stopped working but they were making the sort of noises that said all was not well. Initially today was fine, a long stretch of relatively flat cycling by a river and then motorway. The initial climb into the hills was also fine, nothing too ridiculous slope wise.
However after Entrambasaguas there was a steeper climb on rough roads into the hills (and another LGD encounter) leading to a very steep descent into a valley. The very steep descents in the older rural roads frequently feature a road surface which is parallel bars of concrete running across the road. I presume this is to provide traction in winter or heavy rain but it doesn’t improve the experience of cycling them.
Having come down I stopped for a coffee in Solorzano and checked the intended route ahead. Sure enough there was what looked like another of those descents do I decided to divert onto a main road, the CA 267 which although it climbed higher then made the descent via s-bends over a longer distance.
In fact this was another of these main roads withalmost no traffic on it, it wasn’t until I was back on my intended route and approaching Ampuero that the traffic picked up to occasionally unpleasant levels. But I got there confident my brakes would still function tomorrow on that all important final 52km to the ferry at Bilbao
Route
Map at cycle.travel/m...
Is this case I’ve linked to the original intended route as my diversion was only because of my brakes plus it would be very easy to reproduce from the map itself as its on a major road.
leaving Puente Viesgo - 63km to go
Pomaluenga - 3km
La Penilla - 9km
Saron -11km
Cabarceno - 16km
Somarriba - 19km
Lierganes - 24km
La Cavada -28km
Entrambasagus - 31km
Solorzano -41km
San Mames de Aras - 50km
Limpias - 59km
Ampuero - 63km
Great local tales.😊😊
Another great video thanks
much prefair to watch real time quick version can wreck a fellas eyes,
looks like a super tour tho
Would you watch a 4-6 hour video though?
Hah probably not Andrew but I would watch an hour of most interesting bits
Hope I didn't offend.
@ oh no a few people have said similar, it’s just the alternative (which I did for some of my first videos) but a a very long real time video (or of course just selected highlights, but that I’m intending to to do)
I’ve been giving some thought as to whether these ‘all the road’ videos make sense & instead I should just shoot and edit the highlights into 10 minutes videos
Those cycle tracks at the start looked good, wish we had a few more in the UK. On another note and you may have said so already but do you take a spare battery?
Yes I’ve a 2nd 500whr. TBH I probably could have done all these days without it but day 20 with its 4 diversions and 120km might have exhausted a single battery and it’s nice to turn up the assist late in the day.