Well I'm all finished safe and sound in Santander but boy did I have to work for it !
The left have been great and I've cruised my way here so far but Today I probably made a poor choice to ridecalong the coast instead of straight along the road parallel to the motorway.
My route planner suggested it only added an extra couple of Mike's and very little in terms of elevation.
So the first half of the day went well fighting a decent headwind but I soon passed Unquera which is where Asturias ends and Cantabria starts, there was a sign in the middle of the bridge which I photographed. As I looked down at the river it was full of hundreds of large fish ( trout I suspect but I'm no expert). Next I was figting that wind up a sreep hill and envious of 6 cyclists out heading downhill and down wind as they shot past at about 40mph. From the top it was all downhill into the lovely San Vincente de la Barquera which is on 2 rivers on an estuary and has 2 parts to the town and 2 stone bridges. I cycled through the lower town all the way to the pier at the end of the pot and estuary. At this point I headed along tge coastal route which SHOULD have been relatively flat. I hit about 10 climbs most with 10% and more gradients, all this into a 15mph wind. I planned lunch at 42 miles which would become 46 due to me doing a bit sightseeing along the coast at a little Panaderia and that 18 miles from San Vicente was as tough as it gets. I did have one highlight shortly after leaving town I took a photo of the 24.5 mile point ... This was the 1000 mile point of the Tour.
So after lunch I had the best decent of the day down to Barreda where there was a large chemical plant and soon after yet another steep climb I was in Arce !
where I knew for sure I had a 400ft ascent and that would take me to 6 miles from the City Centre all downhill. I was soon up the hill but in all honesty there wasn't much left in the tank for the first time this Tour so maybes in a way its a good time to Ginish after 18 consecutive days cycling which I don't think I've ever done before.
One last aside - I photograph place names I cycle through along the way to see how many letters of the alphabet I can get and this year I got the full set of 24 (Spain and Portugal don't have the letters K and W) but I will be cycling through Kings Cross and Wardley on the way home so I'll post a collage of them all next week.