Recently I had the pleasure of working on the websites of a friend of mine who runs a business organising mountain biking expeditions. This made me think even more about how much I wanted to get out and about in the beauty of the countryside where we live, so when Dave offered me the opportunity to come with him on a mountain biking trip, I eagerly agreed. I did a quick count of how many years it had been since being on a bike of any description, didn’t like the answer, so decided it was high time to set matters right!
Dave provided me with one of the excellent bikes he hires to his clients, and after getting used to the techniques of managing the mountain bike – I had never been on one before – we set off on our trip from his base in La Drova. We made our way along country tracks to the Barxeta Valley and on to the village of Barxeta itself where we stopped for a coffee in the village square. The weather was great, and the sun was warming up nicely by now, so I was keen to carry on and tackle the next leg up out of the village, through olive groves, and up and down the landscape towards our next stop for lunch in Pla de Corrals. It was really great to be out in the natural surroundings of the region, and even though I have lived here for over five years already, Dave was taking me along routes and tracks that I had never known existed until now.
After lunch we biked upwards and over the pass that leads back to the La Drova valley, and then downhill over some quite rough ground, but with excellent views of the whole area to the coast in the distance. It turned out to be a 30km ride in total, ascending over 800 metres, so I felt pretty good that I had been able to achieve this after so many years of not even riding a bike of any description at all – never mind mountain biking over tracks and trails!
Although I keep fit, exercise and go running, the next day I most certainly knew I had been using muscles that I had not used in a while – but nothing too bad and certainly not enough to put me off repeating the experience in the future. It seems a pity – almost a sin even – not to make the most of the lovely surroundings in which I live, so I am already looking forward to going on another mountain biking trip sometime soon.
