Spanish Bikepacking Diary – Day Three Continued

This 17 day series of Amanda’s first ever multiday bikepacking trip is exclusively available to Singletrack World Members. It gets more scenic as the journey unfolds, so stay tuned for more updates!

Catch-up:

Day Three: Corbera d’Ebre to Vilafranca

Distance: 135km
Ascent: 2,510m

Where did we leave it last time? Oh yes, we’re 110km in to our day and are about to ascend for another 30km. We pull away from the petrol station, encumbered with Redbull, biscuits and plenty of random junk food, and cross over onto a quiet mountain pass. A few pedal strokes in, we pass a sign alerting us to a 10% gradient for 2km, shortly followed by another warning for switchbacks. Switchbacks around this region have been incredibly steep, but I’ve been enjoying finding the sweet spot of each of them. Cutting across the apex from the outside somehow makes them feel flatter despite me still pedalling up the entire corner. I’ve taken to on some of them pretending that I’m in the breakaway of a World Tour stage and all the cameras are on me, stood up and making it look easy. These bursts of power feel great in the moment, but they ultimate leave my legs feeling quite empty.

This road is taking us all the way to Vilafranca where our pre-booked rest day accommodation is waiting. No need for navigation is great because it means Rhys can pedal ahead if he wants. Sometimes he likes to ‘do an effort’ up a climb and then ride back down to me, but so far he’s not shown any interest in doing that and is pottering around with me at a speed I can pedal at indefinitely.

Somewhere around half way up the ascent I pull into a lay-by to empty my Redbull cans and sweet wrappers into the bin, and find a board titled Mirador Morella. It’s a viewpoint for the castle on the hill we saw earlier on, and now the sun has begun to set and we’re no longer sat on the floor of a petrol station, it really does look magical. The lure of our upcoming day off must have overridden any desire to take photos, so here’s a doodle of how it looked:

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For the first time this trip I get that anxious hot panic of thinking I can’t make it to the end of the day. In theory, I have a bed with me, and no end of open space to set up camp in. But we’ve got somewhere booked, with a bath (I hope), a big bed and all the basic luxuries a roof and four walls can offer that a bag in a bush cannot. I voice my concerns to Rhys and to my dismay he agrees that it’s really tough going right now. What should have reassured me in a ‘you’re not alone’ kind of way, has made me think ‘well if he’s struggling then I really am f***ed’.

Just around the time the numbers on my Garmin screen look close to what I’d expect at the end of today, we hit a short sharp climb that steals the very last of my beans. I’m done, I can’t pedal any further and for once Rhys actually believes me, and in contrast to the usual offering of motivational words, he offers me a can of full fat Coke and a railing to lean on.

I ride the sugar high for the remaining stretch of road, and it’s now dark. But by some miracle we’ve actually made it to Vilafranca. As always, my legs had been holding out on me and I’m finally able to tap into my reserves, as I giddily sprint through the silent high street towards our accommodation.

‘Diddly deeee’ chimes the Garmin, as it states we’ve arrived a our destination. Only we haven’t, we’re in the Spanish equivalent of a ginnel. We now partake in Ginnel Quest, riding down steep stone steps in narrow alleys, being disappointed at the end, and riding back up the steep ramps to the side of the steps. This goes on for quite some time, until an over animated Spaniard shouts up at us from, in the dark of the night, what appears to be the abyss.

You can only imagine the state we’re in by the time we make it down the chundery gravel path to the house we’ve rented. We lose 100 vertical meters on the driveway to this place, and our host is the most enthusiastic, over accommodating people pleaser in all of Spain. Gone are the hostile receptions from people enjoying their winter ‘off-season’, oh no, we’ve got El Capitan Feliz. He shows us every light switch, tap, plug socket, window latch, cupboard, patio, jet bath, massage chair… wait. There are two massage chairs in the bedroom, next to a big corner jacuzzi. I don’t care what a UV light would reveal in here, this is enough to make me cry tears of joy and forgive the host for stealing the last few minutes that remain of our day from us. He is finally ushered out, and we collapse into the massage chairs and share excitement for what the view out the windows might be in the morning.

Welcome to Vilafranca

It turns out we are staying in a house nestled in the middle of some of the most dramatic rock formations we’ve seen yet. At some point during our tour last night, the host got his tourist attractions folder out and told us about the 7,000 year old cave paintings that we must visit. I remember thinking he was really adamant that we go, but simultaneously thinking that there’s no way I’m riding out to some caves. But I can see them from the bedroom window, and that’s enough to get us curious, so following a very lazy morning and a round of massage chairs, we head out on foot to explore.