Spain: Road bike tour Catalonia - Costa Brava - Catalonia - Costa Brava: Favourite of professional cyclists
Potatoes for a big selfie grin: in Spain, you say "patatas" - potatoes - when you want people to smile for a photo. To put a decent smile on the faces of herself and her two friends Pépe and David on the small, nameless pass between La Bisbal d'Empordà and Cassà de la Selva, amateur cyclist Anna calls out: "Patatas!" The sun illuminates the three of them and their racing bikes and bathes the wooded hills in the background in a pastel green colour. Before Anna can press the shutter release, something bright green races past the trio. Anna immediately stops taking selfies and instead tries to catch the speeding thing with her mobile phone camera. Too late. Anna almost catches her breath. "My God, they're so fast, it's amazing," she shrieks. The young woman from nearby St. Feliu de Guíxols, a cycling fan with heart and soul, babbles something about "so strong" and "fantastic legs" and decides to lie in wait. She peers round the bend in anticipation, but apart from a pretty fast hipster with a beard - definitely not Simon Geschke - no other professional cyclist shoots round the bend.
Curves on the Costa Brava
You might expect a local like Anna to be familiar with the sight of a professional cyclist - after all, numerous professional cyclists live and train in and around Girona during the World Tour season. Some say there are 70 professional cyclists, others say there are almost 100 - including triathletes like reigning world champion Jan Frodeno. The region has many advantages. Barcelona and Girona are two international airports nearby. Several important tours of the World Tour pass through Spain, France is not too far away and the Pyrenees are on the doorstep. There are also fine roads and good food.
Australians and North Americans traditionally train in Catalonia - Girona's most famous guest for several years was Lance Armstrong, who chose the capital of the province of the same name as his European base at the end of the 1990s. Today, German professionals such as Paul Voss from the Bora-Argon 18 team have also found their adopted home there. However, if you are travelling to the region as an amateur cyclist, you can't always be on the lookout for professionals. There is too much to experience: for example, the coastal road between Tossa del Mar and St. Feliu, which often winds high above the Mediterranean along the Costa Brava, which lives up to its name "Wild Coast". The ribbon of tarmac leads over rugged cliffs and to beautiful sandy coves. The organisers of the Vuelta a España, the Tour of Catalonia and even the Tour de France in 2009 have often sent their cyclists along this stretch of coast. "This is one of the most beautiful routes you can ride on a racing bike," enthuses Paul Voss, who I meet with Orica-GreenEdge rider Christian Meier in their adopted hometown of Girona, and immediately follows up with a question. "Did you stop at the bakery in Platja d'Aro? There are always a few professionals sitting there having a coffee." I say no. In Platja d'Aro, an ugly concrete wasteland with the usual bars, souvenir and clothes shops, branches of the usual fast food chains, discos and a fairground, all I had to do was close my eyes and keep going.
You can download the entire travel article and the GPS data for these tours below:
- Tour 1: Tour of the Pyrenees (88 kilometres, 1,600 metres in altitude, max. 10 % gradient)
- Tour 2: To the rocky cape (84 kilometres, 1,400 metres in altitude, max. 13 % gradient)
- Tour 3 : Hilly farmland (80 kilometres, 750 metres in altitude, max. 6 % gradient)
- Tour 4: Dream and nightmare (138 kilometres, 1,500 metres in altitude, max. 10 % gradient)
