Bike tour Ripoll – Olot

In Adventure, Cycling tour, Europe, Cycling & Diving in Catalonia 2003 On 23/03/2003 One comment

I decided to go on a bike tour organized by Carles from amics de la bici. We left Barcelona on a Saturday morning. We took the train to Ripoll where we started the journey. By the arrival at the train station in Ripoll, Albert was waiting for us with some white cloth meant to do flags for peace. We did the flags and placed them on the bikes.
The trail was constructed on some old train tracks. After about 10km we stopped at the old train station from Sant Joan de les Abadesses in order to keep the group together. We went in town to visit the historic center and have some coca (sweet bread typical from the region). A few kilometers later we stopped for lunch. Picnic on the grass. Awesome!

After lunch we continue to Olot stopping a few times in order to keep the group together. There was some way up, way down and flat paths. Sometimes there was no effort, it was only to sit on the bike and observe the landscape. By arrival at Olot we stopped to visit an area of an old volcano. There was still lots of volcanic rocks around.

We left our bags at Albert’s place (where we slept) and we went to the manifestation against the war. Olot is a small town but there was lots of people in the parade. It looked like that everybody there wanted to say their “no war”. After the manifestation we had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant. There was a cake with candles to commemorate the 10th anniversary of this tour by the amics de la bici.

On Sunday, we woke up early, had breakfast together and left to Girona (we had 55km ahead). Right after we left town we met another group of bikers (Farinera del Clot) formed by families and children. It seems to be fun the whole family biking together on a Sunday. It is interesting to see the organization of this kind of family tour in Europe. In Brazil we don’t see that. Everything is too precarious to have this kind of tour. This amaze us.

In the beginning we had some way up, I got tired… After that it was just ways down and flat paths. We passed through woods, small tunnel, bridges… The landscape was great. Getting near by Girona we crossed a beautiful forest of leafless trees.

We got in Girona by the end of afternoon. We took the train back to Barcelona. I was a little tired, it was the first time I had done a two day tour on a bike (it was 100km). The journey was wonderful. I liked the idea of leaving town, being in touch with nature, do some exercise and meet new people. It was worth it. I recommend.