Mane

Anna R and her friend had decided to ride up to Castell Sant Miquel. They kindly allowed me to join them. I was very eager to join, because I had rented a mountain bike and wanted to use it. I also did not want to go up the mountain blindly without any proper maps. I did that on Wed and ended up pushing my bike up a hiking path. Not fun. The brave group Today's ride was fun. We started late, only well after (Finnish) lunch time  (which gave me time to visit the Girona Cathedral in the morning, a very impressive building). I was surprised to find that there is a not-so-steep path up. For once, I was the fastest (happens very seldom in Girona). But that was not the point, the point was to enjoy the ride, the forest, warm weather (27C, sunny), and company of others. We did enjoy and made out way up without any real difficulties. at 339 m Telegraph tower Views east The others decided to return to Girona, which was kind of OK, because I was embarrassingly slow r...

I bought my first mountain bike in March 1990. It was a nice Bottechia. It got stolen in two weeks. I bought another one. It was also a nice one, a bit more hybrid type of bike. I rode it all the way from Gdansk to Istanbul with Kössi. We survived and the bike did well. It then took it to Berlin for a traffic politics conference and it got stolen. Brave man ride, not run So, I bought yet another mountain bike. Now it was already spring 1991. I rode the bike for a while, but mountain (off-road) cycling never felt like my cup of tea, so I sold it. And bought a road bike. I have not been riding a proper mountain bike in about 21 years. It was maybe time to try riding one. I rented a Cannondale mountain bike with front suspension and decided to ride it up to Castell De Sant Miquel, which is the nearest 300+ meter hill here in Girona. It had been told that it takes some 40 minutes to climb up to the castell. So, I took a look at the map and decided that the shortest route must ...

Another club ( bike shop ) ride, another time getting dropped. But this time I knew what I was up to: riding with people much fitter, thinner and thus faster than me. So I did not care that much. I knew they would be waiting for me at the cafeteria in Canet d'Adri. And that coffee would be good! Since I knew the ride would be hard for me and that it takes me a long time to warm up (been riding too much on my own, lacking pace, I have kind of "diesel engine"), I took my rental mountain bike for a 30-minute ride around Girona before 9.30. Then I got my rental Cannondale Super 6 at the shop, chatter a while with other riders, and off we went. I got a good start. No problems. Getting ready. Today's club ride group consisted of some local fast riders, a few very fit members of a Dutch triathlon team, a Brazilian man who rode RAAM this year, me, Anna, Jolien (fast local amateurs), and some even more random tourists than me. The fast ones dropped me. The slower ...

Some mountaineers say that "the mountain being there" is a good enough reason to climb it. Same applies to cyclists. Wherever there is a mountain with a road up to the top (or a high pass), cyclists just have to ride all the way up and down . Near Girona, one of the toughest climbs is the climb to Rocacorba. I had read about it (e.g. here ), many local people had already told me about it, some even had boasted having climbed it. I had to try climbing Rocacorba myself. It had become a matter of honour. So, I set out in the morning. The weather was nice, quite cool at 9 am, but getting rather warm when I got closer to the mountain. The guidebook has the following information. It seems that the road to the bottom of Rocacorba would be rather flat, or at most very modest uphill. It is not. Rather, there are rolling hills (bigger than anything close to Helsinki!), which made me wonder what I was really doing. My legs felt tired, I was not feeling fresh at all. ...

Riding a bicycle is the most efficient method of locomotion. By bicycle, one gets the furthest with a given amount of food (energy). This is true even though human is a very inefficient heat machine. Only about 25% of the energy ends up in useful movement, the rest becomes heat. To get rid of the extra heat derived from food while cycling, the cyclist will usually sweat. Only in very rare circumstances, such as riding slowly in cold weather, other forms of heat transfer (convention, radiation, etc) are sufficient. So, the cyclist sweats. The hotter it is and the faster the cyclist rides, the more he or she sweats. The cyclist is made of 60 to 70% of water, which makes sweating easy. There is plenty of water. Unfortunately, the human machine is rather delicate. Losing only 2-4 % of body weight as sweat both decreases efficiency and can lead to health problems, and if not replaced, may lead to heat exhaustion, and finally death. To maintain efficiency and to stay alive, the cyclist...

The special spirit of Girona made my day. I had planned for a quiet day-off from cycling. Maybe walking a bit, reading on shale gas and hydraulic fracturing, visiting the cathedral, being alone. But no, it was not to be. Luckily. First, in the early morning, when I was having my morning coffer, the Girona 10 km run passed my table. Some of the people from the club ride were running, Anna even calling "Hi Matti" while passing my table. Suddenly, I did not feel that lonely anymore. It is always nice to know someone in the city one is touristing in. I did visit the cathedral, though they did not let me in. I did some reading in part. The book "cold, hungry and dark" is very interesting, but so far from Girona. Here it is not cold or dark. Nor hungry. The spirit of Girona embodied Second,  I got invited to lunch with Anna and others. The lunch would be El Jardins De Merce, which turned out to be a lovely garden restaurant, a place of the kind ex-patriates ten...

One should not believe everything one reads. The guidebook for Greenways claims that  Ruta Garrilet from Girona to Olot is of minimal difficulty. The bike path follows (mostly) an old narrow-gauge railway track. Since trains cannot ascend steep hills, the path should be easy. So, I rented an hybrid bicycle from Cycle Centre Girona and set out for Olot from Girona. It was a bit late, almost noon, but the distance is only about 60 kilometers each way. For a fit cyclist like me, cycling 120 km (and having a late lunch halfway through) would be easy, and I would easily be back before dark. The route is well marked. There are funny green and blue paintings on the road, sign post every now and then, sign at most turns, etc. Even a bit absent minded cyclist should find his way without problems. I did not, I lost the path and ended up cycling along a high way for 5 km or so. Not fun with a hybrid bicycle, since it was constant uphill. There was some dif...

Cycling is cheap, when one does not ride far from home. Bicycles are not expensive, they do not break down too often and when they do, fixing them or getting them fixed is cheap. So, cycling is an affordable hobby. Sometimes, one wants to travel to foreign place for some cycling adventures. Maybe it is getting cold, wet and miserable back at home. Or maybe one has ridden every street, road and path way too often, so just to keep the hobby alive, one must go somewhere. It turns out that Girona (Catalonia, Spain) is a cycling paradise. Great roads, nice scenery, good bike shops for renting bicycles, delicious food, suitable weather all year. Thus, a cycling holiday in Girona sounds like a good idea. But is it affordable? What does it cost? Post ride beer #2 Based on my experiences, cycling holiday in Girona costs about 70 to 100 euros a day per person. The cost breakdown is approximately the following. Hostel/pension costs 23 euros or more per person per day.  Road bic...

Ylämäet ovat petollisia. Varsinkin loivat ylämäet ovat hyvin petollisia. Kun loivaa ylämäkeä on jatkunut jonkin aikaa, ehkäpä alle kilometrikin riittää, mäen näkeminen ylämäkenä ei ole enää helppoa. Mäki alkaa näyttää tasaiselta. Pyörä kulkee huonosti, hengistys puuskuttaa, mutta tie näyttää tasaiselta. Välillä tie näyttää jopa alamäeltä, ja tekee mieli lopettaa polkeminen. Ei kulje niinkään. Silti silmä ei huomaa ylämäkeä, joten aivot alkavat etsiä vikaa polkemisen raskauteen pyörän rikkoutumisesta, tahmeasta pinnoitteesta, vääränlaisesta aamiaisesta tai yleisestä terveyden pettämisestä. Edes taaksepäin katsominen olan yli ei auta. Tasaiselta näyttää sielläkin. Vastaantulijoiden kevyt pyörittelyä ei sekään kerro mitään ylämäkisokealla. Vastaantulijoillahan on paremmat fillarit ja parempi kunto, siksi he niin kevyesti tasaisella jaksavat. Ainoa mikä auttaa, on kääntyä hetkeksi takaisin päin ja huomata alamäki. Kovin usein niin ei viitsi tehdä edes retkellä, kisoista puhumatt...