Bilbao was an industrial city for most of its life, an iron-ore and shipyard town on the Nervión river, and then in 1997 it reinvented itself with a titanium-clad museum that changed how cities think about culture. Frank Gehry's Guggenheim sits right on the riverbank, curved and glittering like a ship that has run aground, and its success gave the whole place a new confidence. You will notice that the older parts of town, the Casco Viejo with its seven original streets, are still very Basque, loud and unpretentious, with bars full of locals at lunchtime and counters stacked with pintxos.
The valley setting matters for riders. Bilbao is squeezed between green hills that rise steeply on every side, so any road you take out of town immediately climbs and bends. Mount Artxanda, reached by a short funicular, gives the best overview, with the whole urban sprawl and the river bend spread underneath, while the Bizkaia Bridge at Portugalete, a hanging ferry from 1893 and a UNESCO site, shows how the old industry linked both banks of the estuary. The climate is mild and often damp, with drizzle common even in summer, which keeps the hills a deep, almost Irish green.
On two wheels, the ride starts best by getting out early. Inside the city, traffic is dense, tunnels and viaducts carry the main roads, and parking is tight, so plan to leave the bike in a garage if you stay overnight. Fuel is easy to find in the surrounding districts, and Santutxu, Basauri and the other neighbourhoods all have stations. The N-634 and the smaller coastal roads that run east toward Gernika, Lekeitio and beyond are twisty and often slow, with fishing harbours and cliffs worth every stop. Allow longer than the map suggests, because the roads follow every inlet and the villages demand attention.
Eat before you leave. A couple of pintxos at the counter and a coffee will carry you through the first hour of bends, and nothing else on the coast will taste quite as good.