Cowadonga II

It was especially nice to watch the Vuelta a Espana this weekend as it took place in the Asturias, where la belle and I had been last year for World Duathlon champs and spent a week afterwards bumming around the Asturias, some of it on our bikes and some of it by car.

Yesterday's stage, stage 17, which saw Contador in red and Valverde move up to second (what this says about modern cycling I do not know) finished on Fuente De,  We drove up there last year and took the cable car to the top.  I'm pretty sure the stage finished at the bottom of the cable car run!  Here's Moo at the top of the plateau;

and having a coffee waiting for the cable car on the way back.  It felt a bit On Her Majesty's Secret Service being up there!

and another one of one of Monster Factory's monsters, Bradley, at the top of the cable car station.

The day before we'd stayed overnight at Potes, which is where Stage 17's  last intermediate sprint was.

I'm pretty sure we inadvertently drove the last 50km of stage 17 last year; here is Velonews' picture of the break

and here is a picture of the Renault Sprinter we drove around the Asturias.

Looks like the same place.  Pretty impressive place to hold a bike race.

I was a bit scared driving the Sprinter down that canyon, Unipublic took a whole race down there!

Stage 16 , the one that ended on the 24% pitches of Cuito Negro started in Gijon , the host town of the 2011 World Dus.  I really liked Gijon as a city;

La belle liked the ice-cream

and Moo developed a taste for cervesa y limon after a long bike-ride!

and more ice-cream!

Stage 15 finished on Covadonga, which we rode last year also, with our friend Raul.  It was interesting to hear the cycling press talk about the climb.  The Alpe d'Huez of the Vuelta!  Maybe not in pitch but in grandeur! Nevertheless, they made it sound pretty scary.  I was glad to see La Huesera labeled not as a 10% pitch but a 15% pitch.  Made me feel less bad about stopping, although la belle hasn't stopped mentioning it all week!

Ahh, Spain.  Makes me want a holiday.

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