(texte original: Merida International)
The freedom a bicycle gives you never stops amazing me. After many years of riding and racing, it’s something I still keep discovering. During the long lockdown in Spain, I knew that when I could finally ride outdoors again, only a proper adventure would do to celebrate, so I planned a 200 km trip from my home in the mountains to the sea, exploring the side roads and dirt trails I’d never ridden before. While training schedules and a racing calendar dominated my professional career, my ‘retirement’ has given me many opportunities to dive into little adventures and just ride for fun. I still ride a lot and can’t properly shake a training regime (old habits die hard) and I still enjoy long days in the saddle. But what certainly has changed is that I appreciate far more today, what freedom a bike can give you.
As I had done the route on my SCULTURA road bikes many times before, I had a good idea of the basic layout, but doing it on the SILEX gave me the chance to divert off the tarmac whenever possible. Whenever I did it on asphalt, I always noticed smaller roads, trails and cycle lanes that run parallel, which made me dream of doing the same route but adding these exciting off-road elements. I am a mountain biker, after all. While the pure road route is already breathtakingly beautiful, adding these diversions would let me dive into the landscape even more. I was excited to discover all these little pockets, which I never paid much attention to in the past when I was completely focused on percentages, watts, cadence and interval times.
It wasn’t long before I crossed the historic Gothic-style bridge from the year 1138 in the town of Sant Joan de les Abadesse which is located on the very edge of the Pyrenees. This gave me the feeling that I had covered some ground already and that one of my ‘checkpoints’ was now behind me. Rolling out of town, I found myself in the central area of the province of Girona, which is famous for its natural beauty and volcanoes, near the town of Olot. Doing the route on the SILEX gave me the opportunity to get more into the culture and the hidden detail of the towns. It also allowed me to discover paths as interesting as the Via Verda Lane, a gravel route that takes you towards the coast through some breathtaking countryside. The route used to be a railway line which was used to transport textiles from the industries that were located in the valleys of the Pyrenees to the coast.