May 12: Day 15, Barcelona-Caldes de Malavella
Time to get back on the road today. I'm feeling a lot better after a day of doing just about nothing; and just to be safe today's ride is a short 7 hours with no climbs worthy of the name. So I slept in and only got on the road at 9. First things first though; my hosts had a very cute Shiba Inu so let’s have some puppy pictures.
From left to right: This is Hana: she enjoys looking cute, sleeping, looking wistful, looking coquettish, and chewing on things.
Did I mention that we were on the sixth floor and there was no lift? I did, but wrestling a big bike up or down some small stairs is quite the memorable way to start the day. Down is definitely easier than up. Despite my best efforts the bike knocked on some doors on the way down, I guess the occupants are used to that because nobody came out to check.
From left to right: if I lived on the sixth floor, I wouldn’t own a bike. Breakfast - plus a sandwich. Random beach sculpture. Random road sculpture, big enough to ride through. Probably not a sculpture.
From left to right: best front gate ever. The cycleway out of Barcelona. It turned into singletrack before long. This stony dip was too rough to go through quickly, please don’t make them like this. Good surface, sun, trees; I could do this all day! Restaurants with cows are usually worth your time - this one was no exception.
Sadly the 13.90 fritz-cola menu was only available from 1pm; it was 12:30 and couldn’t wait. So I had a salad with all the food groups and it was very good, and I innocently set off into the afternoon sun…
From left to right: the route seems to be headed directly for the foreboding storm. It hasn’t rained in at least two weeks, it surely won’t that bad. Is that thunder?
It was thunder. About a kilometer away.
From left to right: raindrops, it’s drizzling for the first time in weeks! Pellet-sized hailstones. Monsoon rain and everything is getting flooded. Me, thinking back over my words wondering if I’d angered any weather gods.
The weather escalated seriously. A few raindrops were nice but it got heavier so I parked under a tree to see if it would pass. Shortly I figured it wasn’t going to pass so I got my jersey and raincoat out, but the raincoat was wrapped very small and buried quite deep so it took a while to find - and in that time the tree stopped holding the rain back and it wasn’t shelter any more. I zipped to an underpass that was luckily nearby, by then it was starting to look like a monsoon. A floodwave was steadily flowing through the underpass, from the flow it looked like this was the first deluge in a very long time… and also that I should get moving.
The raincoat works very well, the hood is big enough to cover my helmet - mostly. The hailstones were pellet sized, they stung when they hit my fingers, and made a very good thwack sound when they hit my helmet. But I was dry and warm and visibility was OK so it was straightforward to progress; I rolled pragmatically onwards.
To see … another cyclist! Coming towards me, through the deluge. With panniers, and similar wet weather gear. We saluted each other’s life choices and kept going.
At this point I was quite glad it was a short day. I was less glad that the route forecast had not had any hints that there might be a monsoon and thunderstorms; I’d checked it this morning and the only noteworthy thing was that the temperature was lower than I’m used to.
After a while, the monsoon calmed down to light rain. The roads were wet gravelly mud, fine grit was going everywhere. When I turned the front wheel I could feel a fine spatter of watery gravel on my legs. I can’t see much of the panniers without getting off, but I could already see muddy grit was getting everywhere … . I even had a bit of grit when drinking from my waterbottle.
From left to right: light rain again. An old town wall; they had excavated garages into it. More rain; glad to have the cyclepath. More rain.
The route crossed a river - fortunately not swollen enough to be a challenge. Komoot told me to turn right, but the only path I could find ended in the river so I gave up and found another route on the map. This took me through an aging light industrial area filled with trucks and trailers loading and unloading. At one point I was going down a one-lane entrance road with a big truck nearly ready to start moving towards me: I politely took the bike off the road to make space for him, which meant into a puddle. A BIG puddle. Not sure what happened in there but I had to put a foot out and drag the bike up to stop it falling into the water. The truck driver saw the whole thing, made a gesture to the effect of “these things happen sometimes” or maybe “lol” and kindly waited until I was fully past before moving off.
Where was that hotel? Still ten kilometers away. Komoot took me through a rainy village, but deliberately sent me the wrong way down several one-way streets. The road went out into the countryside again, and turned back into fine brown gritty mud. The bike is getting steadily dirtier, and the rain was not strong enough to wash anything clean…
Eventually the hotel appeared. A loud superannuitant hoedown was going on, but I figured there’s no way they’d have the stamina to keep going late enough for it to be a problem.
From left to right: Me at the hotel; mostly dry thanks to the raincoat and jersey/drinks insulator. My panniers - everything else looked like this too.
All the gear was wet and covered in muddy grit. I carefully carried my panniers up to the room, worried that if they touched anything they’d leave a brown mark, and put them directly in the bathroom. I started by washing my hands, but needed to clean the sink afterwards. I used the shower to wash the panniers and water bag; the shower needed to be rinsed out after that too…
It took about an hour to progressively clean the grit off all my gear, and find places for everything to dry. I started just trying to get the stones off my shoes, but they ended up fully wet so I gave them a full wash; they’re filled with water-absorbing squishy soles so I really hope they’ll be dry by tomorrow morning.
I was a bit worried about the bike: the gears had been making some grinding noises this afternoon, quite possibly related to all the grit. I went to the front desk with my water bottle and cleaning cloth and a look of pure innocence and asked if I could get access to my bike to clean it: there was a brief conversation behind the counter and then everyone disappeared. A language problem…? I waited, and waited, and was wondering if I should investigate when someone popped out to say that they had kindly organized a hose! So I was able to blast the grit off the chain, gears, derailleurs, and the rest of the bike too. Tomorrow, when it’s dried I’ll lubricate the whole works.
I miss the heatwave. I think I’ve got acclimitized to cycling up steep mountains in 30 degree heat; 15 degrees and rain aren’t my style any more. Fingers crossed that tomorrow is more my thing.
What I’m listening to: “Story over Yaughton” from the game “Everybody's Gone to The Rapture” by Jessica Curry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y0XE4oWFWQ
Also “Finding the pattern”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_RL__8o8-k
“Everybody's Gone to The Rapture” is a quiet little indie game where you explore a small village in England where everybody has disappeared, and slowly learn what happened. It is unhurried, contemplative, and has some seriously dark moments, and if that’s your thing you’ve probably played it already…
