Catalonia Ride-out – all by myself

A few weeks ago, one of the few days of March-April with no rain, as my husband was away for the week-end, I decided to do something I hadn’t been doing for ages: go for a ride-out on my own, and stop as much as I wanted to take pics…
Let’s go…

That Spring Sunday, I woke up at about 8.00am, and after breakfast I put on my leathers, together with the recently bought rain jacket (the old one had just died- or at least its zip, after 7 years of intensive service), and I went out… the trip started at last.

I took with me a small cool-box, where I put 2 sandwiches, a coke can, my winter gloves and my rain pants (to keep them cold…).

I started the day taking the C58 road to Manresa. The stunning views of Montserrat Mountains with their peculiar shapes emerging from the mist woke me up completely.

I followed to Manresa, and then I took the C55 through Súria, Cardona… and turned just before Solsona to go up to Sant Llorenç de Morunys through the road of “la Llosa del Cavall” reservoir.

There I stopped for the first time, I was surrounded with fields of small white flowers. So I stopped on a perpendicular road, where some people were flying remote-control scale-model planes.

The second stop was on the reservoir of la Llosa del Cavall. That day was a little strange, with kind of a light mist around giving the landscape a dreamlike aspect. And the reflections were just incredible.

There I HAD TO stop on a bend (with a big hard shoulder though) because the scenery was just too much. I felt like I was somewhere in Scotland, by the Loch Ness or something like this, more than on a road of the Catalan pre-Pyrenees…

After stopping in Sant Llorenç de Morunys to refuel, and make sure of the right way asking to the gentleman in the filling station, I followed the path he indicated. The idea was to go to Coll de Nargó by a road I had taken last summer.

But I got lost, when I arrived to the Pass, I was so concentrated on the road because the tarmac was full of potholes, that I followed the bend on the left, and I didn’t even see that there was another road that was going straight.
So after a good while riding, I realised that the landscape didn’t ring a bell… but it was too late, I was already back in Solsona…

No bother, I had all the day, and nobody would stop me from going to the planned road. So I followed the road that goes to Bassella (and its motorbike museum), a very nice road too, though that day there was a lot of traffic (but also many safe places to overtake). At the cross, I followed in direction of Andorra, and at last I arrived to the cross I should have arrived to from the other way… just after Coll de Nargó.
From there I had a 40km piece of twisty roads in the middle of nature, with almost no traffic at all (I hardly saw 2 or 3 cars).

With this big detour, it was almost 1pm, and I started to be hungry, so I started to look for a place to stop to eat my sandwiches. There was a nice pass, but it was too windy and cold, even though the views were impressive, so I followed.

After about 10km I saw a road that seemed to go to the depths of a valley and looked nice. But I saw it too late and I couldn’t find a place to turn back. So while I was looking for a place to turn back I found another place to stop for lunch. It was a group of 4 houses, with a nice waterfall, and stunning views over the valley. I went down a cement path, quite steep, to the “center” of the “village” (no tarmac there), and there I felt a little like an intruder so I turned back as I could to park the bike half way to the top. Between the houses there was a man and his son (I guess) doing some repair job on a Montesa.

While I stopped, we could only hear the sound of the waterfall and some bird singing from time to time. It was so peaceful.

After having my lunch and taking a good rest, I took some more pics of the bike and went on.

This time without the rain coat, as the sun was now shining and it was much warmer than in the morning.

After a while I overtook a car that was quite slow, and after a bend I found this landscape…

It was more stunning in live than on the pics, there was no hard shoulder, and the road was going down, so I stopped and took the pic from the bike, with the helmet and the gloves on, just in case the car I had overtaken before would arrive…

Then I stopped once again and for the last time a little more down the road to take more pics…

While I was stopped, the car passed me again (I’m sure he’d thought why the hell is she overtaking for losing time stopping all the time afterwards… ).

After a while I got to the Pass I had got lost before and overtook the car again…

And finally I proceeded to Sant Llorenç de Morunys again, with no more pic stops as the weather was starting to get worst now and I preferred not to get rain on the way home (and less a mountain storm).
I refuelled again in Sant Llorenç, and luckily it was not the same gentleman, he would have thought I was crazy going around in circle…

I went down the road through la Llosa del Cavall reservoir, where I had a few rain drops, and with the views not as nice as in the morning, there was now a little bit of wind and no more reflections…
Even with the detours and kilometres, I arrived home quite early, after exactly 372km… and I cleaned the bike from all the insects that had ended their lives on my bike front… and on the helmet… Yes, Spring finally arrived!

V’s