{"id":957,"date":"2009-04-16T21:34:15","date_gmt":"2009-04-16T20:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maricelenmoto.com\/?p=957"},"modified":"2019-07-07T21:35:58","modified_gmt":"2019-07-07T20:35:58","slug":"salida-en-solitario-cataluna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/maricelenmoto.com\/en\/archivos\/957","title":{"rendered":"Catalonia Ride-out – all by myself"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019t been doing for ages: go for a ride-out on my own, and stop as much as I wanted to take pics\u2026<\/strong>
\nLet\u2019s go\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u2026 the trip started at last.<\/p>\n

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\u2026).<\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I followed to Manresa, and then I took the C55 through S\u00faria, Cardona… and turned just before Solsona to go up to Sant Lloren\u00e7 de Morunys through the road of \u201cla Llosa del Cavall\u201d reservoir.<\/p>\n

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

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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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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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\u2026
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

After stopping in Sant Lloren\u00e7 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 Narg\u00f3<\/strong> by a road I had taken last summer.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t even see that there was another road that was going straight.
\nSo after a good while riding, I realised that the landscape didn\u2019t ring a bell\u2026 but it was too late, I was already back in Solsona…<\/p>\n

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<\/strong>, 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\u2026 just after Coll de Narg\u00f3.
\nFrom there I had a 40km piece of twisty roads in the middle of nature, with almost no traffic at all<\/strong> (I hardly saw 2 or 3 cars).<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t 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<\/strong>. I went down a cement path, quite steep, to the \u201ccenter\u201d of the \u201cvillage\u201d (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.<\/p>\n

While I stopped, we could only hear the sound of the waterfall and some bird singing from time to time. It was so peaceful.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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After having my lunch and taking a good rest, I took some more pics of the bike and went on.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This time without the rain coat, as the sun was now shining and it was much warmer than in the morning.<\/p>\n

After a while I overtook a car that was quite slow, and after a bend I found this landscape\u2026<\/p>\n

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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\u2026<\/p>\n

Then I stopped once again and for the last time a little more down the road to take more pics\u2026<\/p>\n

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While I was stopped, the car passed me again (I\u2019m sure he\u2019d thought why the hell is she overtaking for losing time stopping all the time afterwards\u2026 ).<\/p>\n

After a while I got to the Pass I had got lost before and overtook the car again\u2026<\/p>\n

And finally I proceeded to Sant Lloren\u00e7 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).
\nI refuelled again in Sant Lloren\u00e7, and luckily it was not the same gentleman, he would have thought I was crazy going around in circle\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u2026
\nEven 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\u2026 and on the helmet\u2026 Yes, Spring finally arrived!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

V’s<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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