Day 6 – Ripoll to Gerona – 85km
We got up about seven and headed for the Ribes de Freser railway station. I’d wanted to take the train the day before – and the thick mist in the steepsided valley did nothing to dissuade me. Hopping aboard the Linea 3 to Ripoll would take us to the point that the N-260 became, heaven knows why, the N260A and climbed out of the Freser valley, and, we hoped, out of the mist.
The station was built of brick and stone with low overhanging eaves held by struts taken off the wall. A shelter crafted from materials used and, indeed, celebrated, in a truthful way, truthful that is to the forces exerted in nature, and truthful to the wonder of the railway age. Not that M. Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, the theorist behind this break with classical formality was averse to extravagance – particularly in the lapel department…
Anyroad (or rail) up, the 8.12 came in pretty much on time, which is to say four minutes before the timetable lifted off the internet the night before, and we got on. The train rolled gently down the valley, crossing and re-crossing the road and the river below, its smoothness testament to the virtues of the Iberian gauge.
We pulled in to Ripoll, made our way out of the generous station and took coffee and pastries in the café opposite, not in any rush to get the day over with. And then, a little after nine, we set off for Olot, going up, (as was our morning habit) through thick green woodland, sliced through by sunlight, thinking that this hill was nowhere near as tough as those on previous days, but, still and all, if it had happened in England or Wales, which it wouldn’t because it went to 1120 metres, would cause young men in lycra to dash themselves against its tarmac, recording their endeavours in the demented annals of ‘Strava’.
We heard wolves howling. Honestly. It was quite something. Wolves. Or dogs that sounded like wolves. Either way, we were unworried, knowing that wolves had better things to do on such a nice day than to bother tourists of a certain age. We simply turned the pedals, watched the road unwind in front of us and knew that, for all its gentility, this day’s ride was a ride to remember.
We departed the N-260 for good and all and dropped in to Olot. Which had sappy bike paths to nowhere, so we ignored them and ended up on the elegant main drag before getting just a little bit lost beside El Fluvia. Susie’s I-phone told us where we were, and we toddled along the side of the river to the C-152 and turned south to St. Esteve-en-Bas, which, for all its proximity to a the main roads appeared little touched in the last two hundred years. Which was not entirely to the good, as, by this time, we wanted a bite to eat……so we went southeast on the C-63, through our last tunnel and gently downhill to Les Planes, there to find sandwiches and lemonade.
And then we turned left, on to our last road, the GI-531, with kilometre signs that told us when we would reach our destination. Another few kilometres of uphill, and then a descent to the valley of the Riera de Llemana and then, without warning we were on the flat heading southeast knowing that in an hour it would be all over. As we went south, little knots of super-super fast cyclists (and even some super-super-super fast items) were whizzing north. We waved to them, and, almost without exception, they waved to us - as if to say 'sombrero!'
I wasn’t sad about the ride coming to an end – there was a fit-ness to it. I marvelled that we’d done it – close on 600km across some formidable country, pretty much all of which came as a surprise to Susie. Because – here’s the thing. Any muppet can do what he knows he can do, but for someone to take on something that they do not know they can do, and to come through it having achieved much, much more than she thought possible, having seen much more than she thought possible is quite something. We are, after all, talking about a woman of 54 (whoops, now I’m going to have to kill you all) who bought her first road bike five years ago.
Gerona (or Girona) is a nice town. Not big – perhaps the same size as Derby – but very, very pretty. We rode over the same bridge we’d crossed three years ago, and pushed the bikes up to the Pensio Bellmirall. The owner welcomed us and told us that our bike bags had arrived….
This is clever, so make notes. We bought eight metres of ripstop nylon (140 cm wide), took it up to the dry cleaners with a drawing, and had bike bags made to the size accepted by SNCF with two pockets on the inside for our wheels and ties to close the top. Total cost forty quid, plus six pounds for postage to Spain. I bet you’re impressed!
So………..we went shoe shopping. I bought a fine pair of Pikolinos shoes in dark tan and there is no truth in the rumour that Susie bought a pair of green suede boots. Then we went to the lovely Placa de la Independencia, had a couple of beers and some tapas and when back to the Bellmirall to listen to the cathedral bells all night.
And thought of home.
