Life On Two Wheels

Along the river and toward the mountains a morning shadow shimmers across the road. The rays of the first light jet through the trees and across a figure gliding upon the road. His breath trails in short spurts, petrified as it hits the icy air. All is quiet except the slight sound of the athlete as he summons himself for yet another days work. Soon the rest of the world will bustle with life as well and the brief simplicity of cyclist and nature will disappear into the everyday struggle of life in full motion; the errands and intervals, the appointments and intersections, and the deadlines and finish lines OutPaceTheRace

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Girona life

Girona, ESP
Wednesday, May 17, 2006

I leave today for L’Isard so I did an easy ride this morning and a hard 5 hour ride yesterday. There are a bunch of good routes around here; it’s just a matter of putting ‘em all together so you don’t end up coming back on the highway half the time. The roads are small here too, and although there’s not much commuting traffic, having no shoulder’s no good if even a few cars are going 80 km/hr.
Aside from the riding there’s not much action going on. There’s a dude I can see from the outside loft who stands on his loft and smokes cigar after cigar. Then there’re the workers upstairs who hammer on the floor all day long. & of course there’s the euro techno that you hear no matter where you go. This morning I had to ride up to the shop through the narrow alleys between the ~5 story apartment complexes. The alleys get narrower and narrower as you get further back, until a small euro car could barely fit through. The alleys get super steep too, I’m pushing it using a 23. But the most euro part of it all are the treacherous cobbles the road is made of. They are literally made of small rock pushed into cement- going up the steep narrow roads with cobbles becomes a full body workout quite quickly. I made it, although I wound up at the cathedral accidentally at first. It’s quite impressive, very big and old. Perhaps one of the only old things that actually looks kept up…