Bike ride from Sant Boi to Begues, Barcelona

On Wednesday I told you I finally decided to write this blog, and as I felt relieved by this initiative I have had in mind for a long time, I also decided to enjoy this Spanish bank holiday to start again practicing sport. As I already commented, I love doing sport, but recently I’ve been busy with trainings and I had much less time to do sport.

So I decided to biking and explore new tracks in the mountain closed to my house. I live in Sant Boi de Llobregat, a small city near Barcelone, in a district at the periphery of the town. So, after having had a quick look to my 1:25.000 map of “El Massís de Garraf”, I got on my mountain bike and started cycling. In the next city called Sant Climent I asked a woman the way to go to the “Coll de la Creu”. She indicated me the direction of the cemetery but advised me that the slope was quite stiff, and it was. After the slope, the street became a trail, which soon led to the cemetery. The cemetery is in a quiet place in the nature and it seems to be a point of interest for most neighbours of Sant Climent. The trail is well indicated: at each junction there are signs with directions and distances in km.

Near to the cemetery, I met many groups of old people walking in the nature. I was so happy to have discovered this great place without traffic nor houses, that I said hello to all of them with much enthusiasm. They were all really grateful and I think a bit surprised to see a young woman biking alone in this quiet place. Some of them tried to help me with my way, but my map was so precise that I didn’t need their help. Moreover I wanted to remember what I had done, and for that I needed to check on the map by myself.

I discovered that I could ride some kilometres in the nature without even crossing any road and I felt so happy alone with my bike listening to music and looking at the wonderful winter landscape that I felt like I was travelling. Many times we are looking for some remote places to escape from our lives, but we forget that we can discover new places and feel like having travelled just looking around us. The pity was that I didn’t bring any camera to immortalize this wonderful impression and share it with you. It was quite magic, as the colours were changing as the sun was going down.

I kept following the main trail in direction of “La Carrerada” until I crossed many tracks without any sign. I first planned to keep going until Begues via the peak of Roques del Barret, but it started to get darker and I didn’t want to be there alone by darkness. When the trail went 90º to the right with an important slope I knew that it was the trail going up to Roques and I decided to leave it and took a smaller track which carried straight on. The density of the vegetation was much higher and of course it was darker. There were many trees on the way, which I supposed had fallen down during the big storm of January 2009. Many tracks were not indicated on my map and I wasn’t too sure where to go. Even if I could have found my way easily with my compass and the map, I decided to listen to my instinct and ride as quick as possible in order to leave this track before it was completely dark. I hadn’t seen anybody for several kilometers.

I first wanted to go down in order to join a bigger trail and find the road in Bruguers, but then I decided that it was wiser to go up to find the road from Begues to Gavá, even if it is quite dangerous at night, as cars are driving fast, and as it is a mountain road with many bends, they only see you at the last minute.

After some time going up and listening to cars in the nearby, but never seeing them, I was wondering if I had made the right decision. It was almost dark, and with the anxiety I started to feel tiredness and went down of my bike several times to push it up the slope. When I finally found the road, it was really at nightfall. I put the lights on, but I discovered that my rear light wasn’t working. Luckily I had a fluorescent t-shirt, but I didn’t feel really well and went down as fast as possible in order to spend the less time as possible in this road. I felt so much relieve when I saw the lights of Gavà, but my shoulders were really tensed. I went through Gavà and then Viladecans, and came back to Sant Boi.

I join you the map of my bike ride for people living in the nearby of Barcelona, because it’s definitely a circuit I would recommend, but not in the darkness! Hopefully next time I could do a whole tour avoiding roads. And I’ll take pictures for you!

You will soon be able to read through the story of my bike trip in Menorca last year via el Camí de Cavalls. You’ll find it in my pages, in the Spanish section.

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