Day 11 was away's going to be the hardest day of all... almost 100 miles of hilly terrain to cover!
It lived up to it! just take a look at the profile!
Long gone were the long smooth rolling roads to France these were very long steady climbs the first of which was a 13 mile steady assent, quite a low gradient but never ending! the second a shorter stage climb with the first part 2.5 miles long at 8.3%! and the next part 1.6 miles at 6.7%. More stunning scenery but very different to France. The first impressions of Spain wasn't the best... worst roads... worse driving... more litter...
The worst was yet to come! the final climb of the day was on a cut through which Craig had found to keep us off the really busy nitemare roads!!! It was the only part of the route which when i'd put the little google man down to have a look it wouldn't work! we found out why! 70 miles in we faced a concrete road which had obviously been laid just before they local farmer had ran his cows on it!! rough as rats and peaked at almost 18%.... 18% in 80°+ heat after 70 miles is not a good mix.
With over 7000 ft of climbing we were all very tired and the run into Bilbao couldn't come soon enough. Flowers and little tributes by the road said it all, this wasn't a nice place to be at rush hour on a push bike! the rough road cut through had kept of off that road as long as we could.
We arrived at the massive hostel, eat and went out for a well deserved beer!
Beer in Spain is dirt cheap compared to France so it not all bad!
Flat run into Santander so the beer kept flowing!
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