Immune system: engage?

I once read about the differences between British and American advertsing for over-the-counter cold-relief remedies; Nyquill powders and the like.  The British adverts promised some relief from your symptoms whilst the American ones promised nothing but a complete resolution.  So a British advert would conclude with the unlucky sufferer still at home in their pajamas and dressing gown with a stuffy nose but with a smile on their face whilst the American ones would conclude with the erstwhile sufferer playing tennis, cycling or climbing Mount Everest.

These thoughts come to me as I am feeling distinctly m'eh and under the weather today and thinking of reaching for such a product. If I could curl up into a ball, slip underneath a blanket and not surface until Lent, that would be a good thing. Somehow, somewhere I picked up a cold that just won't quit; blocked sinus, cough, sore throat and that general m'eh feeling.  Worryingly, perhaps, there is a strange, almost solvent-like taste in the back of my throat, like my lungs are outgassing something banned under the Geneva Conventions.  As John Travolta once said "I've got chills, they're multiplying, and I'm losing control". In fact, I'm starting to wonder if I don't have the actual flu. Not that miraculously self-limiting one-day "flu" people often get, but your real neuramidase/haemagglutinin mediated bastard.

One of the funny, as in funny-peculiar not funny-ha-ha, things about this time is living with a carded member of the health profession. As someone who sees the worst that life can throw at life, la belle's general level of m'eh at seeing me sick is equalled only by my own. I wonder exactly what it would take to get her excited, medically speaking? A dramatic collapse perhaps?  Childbirth maybe.  I'll have to see what I can do.  My old man, also an MD, was the same. Rather than having a mobile ER at home, he limited his out-of-office medical skills to stopping the bleeding and letting you carry on. You didn't lose a leg, after all.

Maybe there's something there about compassion fatigue. There's only so much empathy one can have and if you leave it all on the wards, there's nothing left for home. 

Keep calm and carry on.

Speaking of keeping calm and carrying on, it is the first race of the triathlon season tomorrow, Nova Scotia's first winter triathlon. La belle is the RD. Yours truely will set the bike-course in the morning and be the bike official. We raided Cyclesmith's race-room today and took the bike-racks, flags, trail-tape and stakes.  I'll be up early tomorrow (lungs notwithstanding) to stake the course out.

Speaking of that course: it was funny (funny-ha-ha not funny-peculiar) to see Halifax Triathlon Club (HTC) advertise a bike-course familiarization last Monday seeing as la belle only got final city permission to use the Common, and what parts of the Common were on- and off-limits, yesterday lunchtime! We sat down last night and pencilled in a course, then I went out and rode it to make sure it was doable. So technically the course was only set last night (Friday) and for now it still only exists in my head. Perhaps I should have gone to the HTC training night the previous Monday and saved ourselves the bother!

Part of my m'eh feeling, apart from my WMD sanction-busting lungs, is having to work with TNS tomorrow; the first time since they gave me the big heave-ho last autumn. To be honest, not being privy to the minutes any more, I am unsure whether it was a board-decision or just one person. One thing I am certain of is that I'm pretty sure the rank-and-file membership are as of yet still uninformed. I haven't seen anything announcing my departure and the 2012 AGM hasn't happened yet.

Tomorrow, I will turn up, do my job professionally and leave. Part of me is really looking forward to getting back in harness again, but I'm sure you'll allow me a bit of latitude if I'm not 100% enthused about getting up at 04:30 to do it!  There's something about reaching to the officiating box in the storage room where all the bits and pieces of the trade are kept! The last time I opened that box of tricks was for Gijon. Maybe I'll wear some of my FETri stuff tomorrow to remind me of warm times. One thing is for certain; the food-packages at Tri The Oval won't be half as good!

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Contre le dopage

What a week for doping.  What can one say that has already been said, and surely more eloquently than I ever could?

The big surprise, perhaps was Benjamin Martel, a Quebec amateur, popped for testosterone last year.  La belle says the francophone blogs have been abuzz with this news and whilst most are condemning him, he has his share of supporters, many trotting out the "his bidon was spiked" defence. 

Really?  Spiked bidons?  Really?  What is this?  1975?  Speaking of 1975, testosterone is so 70s!  I thought the use of the big T as a doping agent went out with flares and disco!  Testosterone and spiked bidons, haven't we come any further than this in 35 years?  What's next?  The Jack Daniels and dehydration defence?  The phantom twin defence?  Or maybe the spiked steak defence? 

What?  Too soon?

I never thought that they'd ding Contador.  Personally, my view was that it should have been a slam-dunk but given the stakes I was sure that it wouldn't happen, to the extent when I read the news it was an almost visceral shock!  Armstrong?  Well, if I have to tell another fanboy all it means is federal laws regarding the use of federal money for the purchase of illegal substances were not broken, well you get my drift.  It's SCA all over again.  As for Ullrich, well hey, he has as much as admitted playing with the heavy water.  I always said he had class and once more, it shows.  Armstrong and Contador have tied themselvs in linguistic and legal knots, straining credulity to prove their innocence whereas der Kaiser has 'fessed up, faced his fate and taken his punishment like a true campione.  Class.  The two year ban may seem strange, but it if he were still involved in cycling it would stop him from being in team management, a DS or the like.  There are way too many former dopers running teams.  Riis, for one.  I sense a certain poetic justice if Saxo were to be demoted to Pro Conti after this.  Oh, and a certain Erik Lyman.  Who?  Benjamin Martel's manager, who himself served one, if not two, doping suspensions.  See what I mean?

How's this for unintended consequences following Contador's ban?  He is stricken from the Tour de San Luis top-three, promoting a certain Stephan Schumacher to the podium.  F#%k!

That notwithstanding, this may have been a bad week for cycling on the surface, but maybe not for the future.  Maybe the good news is that the "authorities" have finally grown themselves a collective pair and are not afraid to bust riders for doping, regardless of who they are.  No longer, perhaps, are the days when a Grand Tour gave immunity from prosecution.

Le cyclisme est mort, vive le cyclisme!

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Pumped Up Kicks

Apologies for the obligatory Foster The People reference, but you understand it had to be done!  I picked up my new kicks yesterday at work, Pearl Izumi's Isotransition.  As a triathlon shoe it's definitely not a pumped up kick per se, more like a racing flat.  So light, so slim in fact, you can see right through the sole without taking the insole out!  As for the Sock Snob bit, well they have a sock-liner meaning no socks, but hey, if you stop to put socks on in T2 you might as well take the extra five minutes to do your hair and face so you look good for the finishers' photo!

It fits a bit small, I usually rock a 43 but I'm in a 44 here.  It was comfy doing drills around the shop yesterday and I'll put them through their paces at the Halifax Running Club track-meet on Saturday afternoon.  Look out for a longer review on Cyclesmith's new blog Chain 'n Gears in a few weeks.

Looks like a Creamsicle though.  Hmmmm, ice-cream.....

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Vive la difference

I just got back from renting a movie at Video Difference (hereafter Vid Diff).  Have no fear though, this isn't going to be a boring "what I did today" blogpost, or even worse, a triathletes' "what I trained today" blogpost.

I was looking for the Star Trek reboot movie, the 2009 one, for Son#1 to watch tonight, as requested.  It took a while to find, eventually tracking it down under "Action" on the ground floor whereas all the other Star Trek movies, from whatever generation, were under "SciFi" on the upper floor.  The last time I was there I was looking for Die Hard for my Christmas movie marathon and eventually found it not in "Action" (ground floor), "Archive" (lower floor) with Die-Hards 2-4 but "Greatest Villans" on the top floor.  Needless to say, Villans was the last place I looked.

So here's a plea to Vid Diff.  I love you guys, I really do.  Awesome selection, some really esoteric stuff, always open, plenty of copies and plenty of places to return a movie even though you only have one location.  But despite my love for you please, please, re-order the collection.

I think the time has come to just alphabetise the whole store.  Start with A, say in the top corner of the upper floor, and wend your way through to Z in the basement.  Enough with this division and sub-division and sub-division of the subdivision ("Action/70s", "Action/80s", "Action/90s".......).  

When I finally found Die Hard it was, as discussed, under "Greatest Villians".  On the other side of the Villians' rack, "Seen At The Oxford".  This rack was free-standing on the floor just down from the AFI Greatest 100 rack, the whole lot sandwiched between walls-full of "English Language Drama", "Canadian Drama" (I think), "Independent Drama" (mostly indie Brit-Flicks) and "Foreign Language Drama".  As a side-note I find it somewhat interesting that Made In Dagenham was under Eng Lang Drama and not "Indie Drama", even though the latter would be the first place I would think to look.

I like to think I'm a bit of a cinephile, not scared by cataloging and able to think on my feet but dammit I get lost in there now every time.  Sometimes this is great and leads you to see movies you may not have considered seeing.  Sometimes, like today, if you want to pop in-and-out, well this is getting ridiculous,  What next? "Tarantino/with Uma Thurman" and "Tarantino/without Uma Thurman"?  Perhaps "Liam Neeson/swords" and "Liam Neeson/no swords".  Star Wars could be a sub-genre in the first genre, maybe cross-referenced to SciFi, Family, Staff Picks and AFI Top 100.

So, please consider re-ordering your catalogue in an easy-to-understand format.  You're getting a bit too Rob from High Fidelity ("VD Suggests", not "Comedy" or "Independent Comedy" as you might think) and whilst Rob's OCD-driven, great record recategorisation from High Fidelity ("in the order in which I purchased them"!) is funny in a novel or film, it kinda sucks in the real world!

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Danger: Thin Ice.

As Michelle from 'Allo 'Allo said "leesten fairy carefully, I wiil zay zis only wance".

I think it's great there's a speed-skating oval here in Halifax.  It will allow us as a city and a province to promote winter sports and, who knows, maybe even position us to get another high-profile winter event here one day after last winter's Canada Games.  The "if you build it, they will come" attitude.

Furthermore, the oval has really exercised (pardon the pun) something in the people of Halifax and during public-skates there isn't breathing-room on the ice.  Not only on the ice either, Greg Wiezorak has said he finds it difficult to do mile-repeats around the Common now there is so much foot-traffic to-and-from the south-east corner!  Either way, there are way more people now than just Greg getting aerobic exercise around the Common now, and that is a good thing, especially with Nova Scotia's body-image problem.

Just don't expect me to do it.

Now, now.  I know what you're saying and trust me, I've heard it all before. The attitudes range from sheer disbelief to that gentle, kindly "there, there" look you'd give a senile relative or a sick puppy.  I almost expect to get petted on the head.

Yes, I'm sure I already have the mindset for it and yes, I already do the summer equivalent (Clara Hughes anyone?) and yes I know many cyclists do it for winter cross-training and yes I'm sure I'd be good at it, and yes, when I'm wearing that winter running top with the thumb-holes and hood I even look like a speed-skater 

Here's the thing, I don't skate, can't skate, won't skate.  The first two reasons are simple: I'm a Brit, we really don't have ice, or a culture of ice.  Unless it's in a G&T or maybe a Pimms. 

The last, more personal, reason is I honestly don't think my knees could take it.  Yes, I can run a marathon, but as long as my knees are going up-and-down in a sagittal plane, I'm golden.  

Any twisting, any movements away from this plane, or any deep squats for that matter, makes something in my knee pop out of line quite painfully.  There seem to be some of these movements in skating.  As a runner, cyclist and triathlete I am already part masochist, but painfully displacing my patella just so I can say "yey, I'm using the new infrastructure" seems to be a masochistic byte too far. 

These are my own reasons and to be honest, I'd rather not have to get into these personal reasons with every Tom, Dick or Harriet who asks.  So let me put it another way.

I do triathlon.  Do you?  Now I know some of you do too, but perhaps not all of you.  To the latter group I ask, why?  Oftentimes it's the swim: "I'd love to do a triathlon but I can't swim, don't swim, won't swim" (that last usually qualified by "open water").   If I had a pound for every time I'd heard that, I could probably take early retirement somewhere warm.  I don't question your desire not to learn to swim just so you can do a triathlon, nor do I regard you like that harmless, drooling, slightly slow relative with the buck teeth we all keep in the attic somewhere and only bring out for Halloween and Christmas for not wanting to.  Do I think you're missing out on something?  Yes, I really do, but I respect your choice not to swim, not to do triathlon.

So please respect my choice not to skate.

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Whatever next?

I often say "I really need to write a blog about that".  Once upon a time I did.  Nowadays I get as far as writing the blog in my head but regrettably (or not, depending on your point of view) oftentimes I don't. Something came across my path just now that exercised me to the point of writing without even thinking about it first on a run, and I've not even been drinking.

I follow UCI_Overlord on Twitter. As I'm sure you know this isn't really Pat McQuack, but a fake Pat McQuaid account which is written, believe it or not, by a bloke from Bridgewater, NS who also writes (or at least edits and contributes to) to cyclimas.com which bills itself as Cycling Snark and Commentary.  I enjoy the snark but they also have some well-thought-out and written articles on the history of cycling.  I had the great fortune to run into UCI_Overlord's mum in the shop before Christmas and we had a great chat.  Nice lady, I hope she found Not Pat McQuaid something nice in the cycling line for Christmas.

Anyway, I was just checking out my Twitter and I see this from UCI_Overlord

Huh?  FIA as in Federation Internationale d'Automobile or whatever?  Yup, following the link gives you this....

IOC recognition of motorsport?  Citius in extremis, autem altius et fortius?  I think not.  Shome mishtake shurely.  It's not April Fool's but UCI_Overlord isn't above a little sarcastic silly buggers so there was a good chance I was being taken for the proverbial ride.  So I Googled FIA and when there searched for IOC and got to the same link.  Then I went the other way and Googled IOC, and then searched them for FIA and got this.  Getting the same story both coming and going leaves one with the distinct, and horrid, suspicion that unless UCI_Overlord has got really good at hacking, it's true.

What are the Olympics coming to?  Archery and shooting were always a bit of a stretch, but seeing as the original Olympic sports were all military disciplines, to a greater or lesser degree, then Archery was pretty much grandfathered in.  Synchronized Swimming?  I once tried to hold my breath that long and nearly passed out and so whilst it would normally fail on the subjectivity score (giving out medals based on "artistic merit" is surely somewhat flawed) I'm willing to cut them some slack.  Golf was the nail in the coffin; a good walk spoiled now has Olympic status.  Of course between the two there was letting professionals into the Olympics which might have increased the spectacle but at the expense of a little bit of the Olympics' soul.   

So now motorsport,  Lewis Hamilton as the Olympic Gold Medal Winner in F1, but will there be a ladies; division?  The only possible explanation is that the Olympics goes where the money is (and where the TV is right; this we know from experience).  Golf, motorsport.  What next?  La belle said poker.  You saw it here first.

Sigh

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Cowadonga

One of the nice things about a holiday, for me at least, is to lie in bed in the morning, drink a cup of coffee and read a newspaper or a book.  As the Grauniad told us this morning, iProducts and Kindles are eroding the actual print copies of newspapers and oh irony of ironies I read that this morning from the warmth and comfort of my bed, a cup of coffee on the go, on an iProduct.

Further perusing the Grauniad (so-called because of their penchant for spelling errors) led me to cyclingnews because the Grauniad has a particularly good cycling section for a British paper (which predates the Manx Missile and then some) which led me to the "steepest street in the world" link.

35% eh?  Seems steep.

Call it web-based research (remember, wikipedia is not a reference), cyberslacking or mere random link-clicking, it got me to where I wanted to go.    You see, I was in Spain earlier this year and since I lost the blogging urge for a while mid-year I never got the opportunity to write about some of those experiences.  One of those experiences was ticking one thing off my cycling bucket-list.  Something I'd never done which always made me feel a little less of a cyclist.

Never mind that in over a quarter-century on the roads I've road-raced, time-trialed, psycho-crossed, triathloned (is that a verb?), bike-couriered, commuted, toured, ridden in stupid baking sun humidity (Virginia) and oh-my-God freezing cold (Canada) and everything in-between, crashed and got stitches and screws, worked in a bike-shop and even been in a beer-club with a cycling problem (Crest CC, I'm talking to you) but I've never climbed a mountain col.  

Besides, for a guy of my size (north of 160lb/72 kg, not by much but still north) I like to think I'm not a bad climber.  It's one thing to punch it up and over the hills of the Shubie Doobie Tri or drag a loaded touring bike over North Mountain, but how would I measure up on a proper hill?  It was time to find out.

World Du's had been on the Sunday and la belle and I were now planning what to do for the next week.  We had no plans other than to relax, see a bit of the locale and ride our bikes some.  For me, I wanted to check out a climb from the Vuelta d'Espana; Gijon often hosts a stage of the Vuelta and it's almost always a mountain stage, so that shouldn't be a problem.

We were very lucky in that one of the World Du's LOC, Raul Martin, took us under his wing for most of the week.  It started in the officials'/LOC meeting when it turned out we were the only three there working and racing the event, and then when he bartered me two Federacion d'Espanola de Triatlon running jerseys for my Team Canada fleece cycling jacket.    Before we knew it he was showing us around the Asturias.  We were los Canadiens for the week and we loved it.

After a day to decompress he showed us around Aviles and Oviedo, where we also met Jorge Garcia, World Du's Race Organizer (who we'd met the previous year in Edinburgh) and recently minted ITU level 3 official.

We then headed west out of Gijon to Ballotta, via one of the best beaches in the area, according to Raul, near La Magdalena.  I don't have any reason to dispute this.

In Ballotta we stayed at the Casa Fernandez, run by the family of Beatriz Tenreiro, one of the best female triathletes in the area and a top-ten finisher at Spanish Nationals this year.  Together with Beatriz's husband and coach, Miguel Angel, they all took us on a lovely ride along the coast road to Luarca.  It was a great road-ride, twisty and climb-y.  These were their training roads and they descended like bats out of hell!  I did't even try to keep up!

I felt at home and at ease with these cyclists, who I'd never met before.  It's funny how some people scare you on a bike and some people don't.  What made it more remarkable was we couldn't really talk with one another, so we did our talking with the bike and we got on just fine.  They didn't scare us and we didn't scare them.  I felt like a real cyclist again,  They complemented us on our road-handling skills, perhaps they were worried about being on the roads with triathletes, fortunately we were cyclists first!  Talk about keeping Canada's end up!

Nice little story; I asked what was the Spanish for "car behind" seeing as we were 5-up on a twisty road. Oh, "don't worry" was the answer, "the cars will look after us".  By goodness they were right.  A 60km ride on a twisty coast road, sometimes three abreast or bombing down hills at > 60 kph (Miguel and Raul at least, I descended with the ladies) and not once did we get honked up.  I want to move there.

Oh, they also asked me if I was la belle's coach! As if!  

The next day we had a rendezvous with the climb.  Raul told me we had two choices; Lagos de  Covadonga or the Alto d'Angliru.  Now, I've heard of the Angliru; 10% average but supposedly 25% in places and so hard the team-cars can't get up there.  Pros put on compacts and (if appropriately sponsored) SRAM WiFli.  Velonews named Team Sky's choice of gears on the Alto d'Angliru in this year's Vuelta as their "Technical Blunder of 2011".  I did not know of this Covadonga climb of which he spoke, but how could it be worse than the Angliru?

We met up with Raul in his home town just outside of Ovieda and drove the 50kms or so to the foothills of the Picos d'Europa.  

To perk ourselves up for the climb we stopped for coffee at Cangas d'Onis, which my pet cow really enjoyed (more about her later).

We parked up just outside Soto de Cangas, unloaded, chucked our legs over the top-tube and headed off.  A very low-key start. Unlike the pros, we hadn't raced 100kms to get here, so what could possibly go wrong?

It wasn't good road, very harsh chip-seal.  It was a bit of a false flat; combined with the road-surface, I was already in the 23, doing about 20 kph and the climb hadn't started yet.  I had time to reflect on the statement "what could possibly go wrong".

We hit a couple of roundabouts and then we came to the basilica of Covadonga: little did we know it but this was in some ways the birthplace of modern Spain, where Pelayo had turned back the Moorish invasion.  

The climb started and within 500m of the cathedral, I was in the 27 already.  Ah.  Never mind.  I didn't have anything left below this and this wasn't the place to start berating myself for not fitting a compact or a big cassette and an XT derailleur before we left.  So I gritted my teeth and got to grips with what I had; 39 x 27.  We were to be together for most of the climb.

La belle says I rocketed up the first section.  I didn't think I was pounding it, but riding within myself.  She was riding comfortably with Raul: after all, I was the col virgin.  Raul had been up Covadonga  several times, including at the end of a longish brevet (is there any such thing as a short brevet?) and la belle had done the Ventoux.  I was the only one who didn't know what was coming!

I climbed well for about 5 kms, or about 350 vertical metres, when I passed the tree-line.   The longest climbs I'd done had been in the 5 km range, in the Grampians or the longer climbs in the Annapolis Valley, and none of them had ever gone above the tree-line.  The climb at Worlds three days earlier, which had many Nova Scotian's worried, was just under 200 vertical metres in just under 5 kms.  We weren't even half-way up and I was already into uncharted territory.  Here be dragons!

Then disaster. The average gradient of the climb is given as 7.5% with some 10% pitches and one 15% pitch, about 800m long at about 6 kms.  They call this pitch la huesera; the bone woman.  She had me.

I'd noticed the day before than even strong riders such as Beatriz and Miguel were rocking triples,  Raul was.  La belle had argued with me long and hard about my choice of a compact double for her bike, but I didn't hear her complaining about the 36 inner ring (34" gear with  28T).  On the other hand, I was rocking out on 39 x 27 (38"); yup I'd brought a gun to a knife fight.

My heart was coming out of my chest and my legs were blocked.  I was fixated on the remainng section of la huesera, I could see it turn right by 90 degrees, maintaining an even 15% gradient as far as I could see.  Fuck.  I stopped for the first time on a climb since I can remember.  They say walking a bicycle up hill is the cyclists walk of shame, and that's how I felt.  La huesera had found me wanting.  Bitch.   I rolled to a halt next to a cow, who just looked at me.

Le belle and Raul caught me.  They stopped and we all took the time for a photo, a drink and a little gee-up session for me.   Everyone stops the first time, Raul told me.  He then let me know what was to come; the gradient evened out but there were short ramps at 10 to 15%.  Nothing like this.  Bueno.

We set off again.  There was a look-out, or mirador in Spanish, on the corner and I really wanted to stop again but la belle overtook me and, I think, called me some names.   Chalice.  That got me going again.

I knuckled down and rode the ramps.  As Raul said, the gradient was pretty even with lumps and bumps. For los canadiens reading this, at the shallowest it was like the steepest part of the BLT trail as it climbs to Bayers Lake, but the ramps were like any of the harder climbs around here.

At the top there is the Lagos Enol (an alternative name for the climb). The Vuelta's finish is flatter and to the left.  

Naturally, we went to the right for another few hundred metres of climbing, but unlike the Vuelta's finish, this road dead-ended at a bar.

Muy Bueno.  

About 1100 vertical metres climbed in 12 kms (there was a small descent before the finish, so if we were 1036 above sea level, we had a tad more climbing on the clock).  My Garmin has more, but it's not an accurate altimeter.  Put it this way, it's clocked me at 10 metres below sea-level when I've been on the ocean!  To put Covadonga in perspective, Cape Smokey on the Cabot Trail climbs 200 vertical metres in just under 2 kms.

How about those Bontrager Node 2 computers?

A word about cows.  It had started as a little joke.  Readers of this blog know I have a little pet cow called Moo (imaginative huh?) who goes on my travels with me.  It seemed right and proper she climb Covadonga on my jersey pocket.  

However, Covadonga was covered with Moos of the original variety: big, one-ton, slab-sided, mobile hunks of beef-on-the-hoof.  They just littered the road and didn't give a shit.  Or maybe they did, plenty of manure on the road too: wouldn't like to hit that at speed, in the wet on the way down!  On the way up it wasn't so bad; the closing speed was 10 kph, or less, and you had plenty of time to work out which way to overtake a stationary cow, especially if a car was coming the other way.  On the way down, it's a different matter.  

I read earlier this year that if Thomas Voeckler regretted anything about this years Tour de France it was chasing too much on Alpe d'Huez and not checking out the descents.  I feel that.  It took us 75 minutes or so to climb to the top, and 30 to get back down: and I was descending like a girl.  I mean that too, having ridden with some of the Youth triathletes.  I didn't even break 50 kph.  I wasn't the only one, la belle literally burnt trough a set of cork pads!  Partly it was just not knowing the corners, partly it was the sheer exposed nature of it: you could see that of you flipped over the barrier (which wasn't really a barrier, just a concrete post like the one which killed Fabio Casartelli) then it was a long way down.  Partly it was not wanting to broad-side a cow at full tilt (one suspects the cow wouldn't notice) and part of it was having to full-on concentrate for 30 minutes.  Even at speed on a straight road in a pace-line you can switch off a little bit, it seemed like that would be suicidal here.  Still, going slowly we got some nice views.

Now here's the thing: it was really hard going up and really easy going down.  Yet we stopped repeatedly on the way down to take pictures, not on the way up, when repeated stops wold have been welcomed.  Yup, we're cyclists!

At the bottom we hit the bar with a huge stack of sandwiches, taller than Moo, made from the local Jamon Serrano, even more appropriate today as Jamon Serrano literally means "mountain ham" 

And that was the climb of Cowadonga. Moo!

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