Day 1: Ripoll to Olot

Met the gang outside the Sant Pau hotel in Barcelona. Bags were loaded into a van, then we caught the metro to Urquiaona. From here we walked to the regional train station at the Arc de Triomf and took the train to Ripoll.

The journey took a little longer than expected but we still had time for a quick coffee. Ripoll was once the power centre of the first Catalan Count Guife el Pelos (Willy the Hairy).

It was a short walk to meet up with the bikes and we were soon on our way. The first section of ride up until lunch was on the Camino de Ferro (what was an old mine railway), a nice flat cycle route following a similar course to the N-260. We found it a little more challenging than expected when we encountered a big digger and a pile of earth sitting in the middle of our cycle route.

This was an omen of things to come on this so-called 'Easy' cycle tour. After some climbing, hauling, swearing, etc. we made it past and continued on to our lunch destination in Sant Joan de les Abadesses.

Lunch came as various sandwiches including typical Spanish ones of chorizo, salchichón, queso, etc. We kept lunch light because immediately afterwards we were faced with our first ascent. A 7.5km long climb on the old mountain pass with an ascent of about 300m (1,000 ft).

Traffic was rare which was nice, but many of those on the trip had never tackled such a long ascent and we had our first casualty, Mary from Ireland, who fell whilst struggling with the gears on a steep section. Once the top was reached there was a small celebration and the reward of free-wheeling down the other side. The descent down to Olot was around 600m (2,000 ft) with some lovely views along the way.

We cycled through the town of Olot (the capital of the Garrotxa region) and made our way to La Perla hotel. We all had a few drinks and a good meal at the hotel's restaurant.

Day 2 >