Getxo

September 14, 2023

Not surprisingly, I endured a fitful, broken night’s sleep that ends with a solid block with me out cold from around 5 until 9 when Rachael finally wakes me up. I quickly down the two small cups of coffee she’s brought me up from the lobby and a couple bowls of granola and then start in on the bikes. I do it in two stages, the best I can muster - they get assembled in the first one, but then I crash for another hour before getting back up to accessorize them. For a nice change, everything goes smoothly and the bikes look like they’ve made it across without injury - no broken derailleurs, crushed down tubes or warped rotors to be seen; but we’ll know once we take them out for a test ride this afternoon.

It’s a nice room with a fine view, but with only a small uncarpeted space where I feel okay doing this project: the small shower room, the adjacent small bathroom, and the narrow entrance hallway between them. It’s enough though, and I’m delighted when I look up and see my bike replicating off into infinity by the opposing mirrors on the two rooms.

Bike Fridays forever. Also, those are hands and a camera at the top right, not a giant crab.

While I’ve been working the bikes Rachael’s gone out on a hunt for a couple more Tiles (the Android equivalent of Air Tags). We brought one with us and it appeared to work well for tracking one of the bikes on the flight, so we’d like another so we can track both suitcases when we ship them down to Valencia tomorrow. In retrospect, I’ll bet we could have tracked down those two lost suitcases from two years ago if we’d tagged them.

She’s unsuccessful, but no big deal. If we can track one, the other’s apt to be nearby anyway.

It’s well into the afternoon by the time we’re ready to head out for the short test ride we have planned. When we get ready to depart though I realize that we’ve left something important back in Portland - the handlebar mount for my Garmin. It’s not a trip-ending problem because I can carry it in my shirt pocket and pull it out when I need a navigation check like I did long ago with paper maps - but it’s certainly not ideal.

Rachael does some quick research and finds an electronics store in a nearby mall that lists what looks like a functional mount, so our ride starts with a quick trip there. I stay outside the mall watching the bikes while she goes inside and returns a few minutes later empty handed. They sell them, but don’t carry them in stock. You have to order them in advance, which won’t work for us.

Like I said, it’s not a trip ender. We start our routes, I study the map and then stuff my Garmin in my shirt, and we head off for the river. We only get about one block when I call a halt because there’s an Eurasian magpie nearby in the grass, an I’m misremembering in thinking I didn’t see one this spring. I did though, I realize later when I check my log - a very poor, blurry shot early on in Sicily, on the day my zoom camera gave out. So not new, but I like having a better shot to show off this elegant bird, alleged by some to be the most intelligent of all the bird species.

Eurasian magpie. Not a new bird, but a much better shot than the blurry first one taken back in Sicily on the day my camera gave out.

We’re across the river and starting to bike north along it toward its mouth when this time it’s Rachael who calls a halt. She’s been biking along behind me staring at the back end of my bike when she has a brilliant insight - she wonders if the mount for my Varia taillight might be repurposed as a handlebar mount for the Garmin. And it works! Good thinking, Rocky!! I’ll be having appreciative thoughts of you for the next six weeks, every time I look down to check for directions.

We have an easy ride mapped out for ourselves - a completely flat ten miles to Getxo, the coastal town at the mouth of the river on the Bilbao estuary. It’s a fine ride most of the way and sees quite a bit of bike traffic, with half or more of it being on separated bike lanes or paths. We’ve seen this stretch before - it’s how we arrived in Bilbao nine years ago on our ride along the Pyrenees from Girona - and I remember enjoying it but have forgotten all of the details except for the Vizcaya Bridge, which I’m anxious to see again.

What I’ve forgotten though is Getxo itself and what an appealing place it is, with a broad sandy beach at the eastern end of the town and a very impressive collection of fine homes and mansions built in the late 1800’s in the Basque Baroque style. All in all it makes a wonderful outing. The weather is perfect, the cycling is pleasant, and there’s pistachio ice cream available for a break on the beach before we head back to town.

And the bikes both seem to work flawlessly, a near-first for us at the start of a tour. It’s great to not have to scramble to find a bike shop at the last minute to bail us out as so often seems to happen. And there’s even a new bird!

It’s not all like this, but enough so that on the whole it’s a great ride. Also, if you ever make it to Bilbao, it’s probably the only flat riding to be found starting from town.

I love this building near the Vizcaya Bridge. I should look it up. (An update: it’s currently a tourism office but was originally a train station.)

From the UNESCO world Heritge citation: Vizcaya Bridge straddles the mouth of the Ibaizabal estuary, west of Bilbao. It was designed by the Basque architect Alberto de Palacio and completed in 1893. The 45-m-high bridge with its span of 160 m, merges 19th-century ironworking traditions with the then new lightweight technology of twisted steel ropes. It was the first bridge in the world to carry people and traffic on a high suspended gondola and was used as a model for many similar bridges in Europe, Africa and the America only a few of which survive. With its innovative use of lightweight twisted steel cables, it is regarded as one of the outstanding architectural iron constructions of the Industrial Revolution.

The suspended car, which carries automobiles, bicycles and foot traffic, is conveyed across the river by a trolly mechanism on the bridge overhead.

Out of time. I’ll come back and caption the rest later.

Should we keep a tally? Two days and two gelato stops.

Back in town, we pass Puppy again and stop for another shot. It’s so colorful in the sunlight!

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2023 Bird List

193. European shag

Today's ride: 22 miles (35 km)
Total: 346 miles (557 km)

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Rich FrasierI had a snarky comment to make about European shags but I’ll keep it to myself. You’re welcome. 😄
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7 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Rich FrasierYour self-restraint is noted, and appreciated.
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7 months ago

Genny FoxHi, I am enjoying your journal, as usual. May I ask, what birding app do you use?
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7 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Genny FoxI didn’t my use an app per se, but in the states I browse the Cornell Labs site, All About Birds. It’s really an excellent resource. Overseas I use eBird, also a Cornell site. I think both are associated with the Merlin app.

Cornell is really the center of the bird universe, I think. It goes back to Tom Cade, a professor there who died not long back. I remember reading his book bout perigrine falcons back when o was an adolescent.
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7 months ago