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| Collado De Ason, Cantabria, Spain |
Ride day: pictures here/video here
Ride profile: here
I felt horrible this morning. Too much dairy. Too much milk and cheese and not enough salad and fruit. I don't know if it's just because it's off season or because of my special needs but I seem to have a hard time finding the right kind of food at the right time all over this world, not just Europe.
I understand now why people take fully supported tours, although I wouldn't be caught dead in one. I like the fucked up parts. Like tonight, where after my ride (48 miles and 5700vft) and hungry as hell I decided to walk to a restaurant I found online (which costs $20 per day for the internet at this particular hotel). Half of the hotels have free wifi (which is slow slow slow) and half have pay-per-wifi (which is slow slow slow).
No, it wasn't .55 miles away. It was 1.75 miles away. I know this because I carry my Garmin around with me so I can find my way home. So I walked that 1.75 miles, which included a 1/2 a mile in a car tunnel, only to find that this restaurant is closed on Mondays.
So I walked into a bar to grab a cold beer. And Santander is a hilly place, so when I took my coat off I realized I was glazed in a hot sweat from lack of food and liquid. I used ten napkins to wipe myself down and after sitting there for about 3 minutes with the bartender not getting out of his chair with his friends to help me, I decided to get a cab and go back to the hotel.
The taxi stand was a quarter mile away, and by the time I was in the back seat, I was seeing stars. I asked the girl at the front desk to order me the largest pepperoni pizza she could find. When I got it, it was about 8 inches wide and all cheese and soft, cold dough. So, in other words, perfect.
I ate the entire thing, maybe before the delivery guy even got back on his scooter. And this time I was actually able to look at the food as I was eating it, as most times I'm not sure what it is I'm putting in my mouth and therefore it's best to just look away and chew.
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| Collado De Ason, Cantabria, Spain |
However, I'm not calling this day a downer, just interesting and a challenge, as always. And my ride today was just a stunner, although I did have to battle through a bit of a too-much-caffeine first 12 miles.
Perhaps the best scenery of any ride in my life. The great thing about the elevations here is that there aren't any trees, so at 1,000 feet you feel like you are on Everest, and at 2,500, it's like the top of the world.
Once I got onto the big one, the caffeine rush started to fade and I just put my head down and took out my headphones and enjoyed many freshly-paved miles of steady climb with just the sounds of the birds and the waterfalls and the hawks circling overhead.
Glorious day.
