DAY 5

La Seu D’ Urgell to Sort – 54 Kilometers

Today was the hardest day yet. We set off early, as usual, under cloud cover. Our GPS uncharacteristically lead us astray for a few minutes but we got back on course. Last year, I had nicknamed our GPS lady-voice “The Bitch”, but this year our girl rocks–I haven’t given her a name, but we love her and couldn’t do a thing without her. I kind of think of her as Gabriel’s young mistress, but it’s a relationship I totally support. She’s kind of like my sister-wife. We also got held up by some mechanical difficulty with my bike, which Gabriel managed to fix (thank you Jaime, the Helen’s Cycles employee who Gabriel paid 30 bucks to come to our house and give him a rudimentary bicycle mechanics lesson). Half an hour back on the road we hit the first hill, pretty short but incredibly steep. And after that, Gabriel turned to me and said “That was it. The worst part is over, Baby.” And then we kept climbing–and climbing, and climbing, and puffing and sweating. The cloud cover was gone and the sun was out in full force. The worst was absolutely not over, the worst hadn’t even started yet. After a couple more hills he said: “Ok, now the worst is over.” He ended up saying it a total of 3 times until I finally said: “SHUT UP! You don’t know! All you know is what Google Maps says!” Him: “You can’t get mad at me today Baby, its my birthday.” Me: “BULLSHIT.” Him: “Are you in a bad mood or something?”

Hours went by. We kept climbing. Gabriel ahead of me, me pumping slower and slower… 2 1/2 hours. (I was looking at my little digital timer on my bike). I thought: I wonder how slowly I can turn these pedals and still keep this bicycle upright. We pulled over for a break. Gabriel forced me to eat malodextrin. I squatted and peed. A car drove by and saw me. Like I cared. We kept going. I looked down at my timer thing– 2.8 miles per hour…3 1/2 hours. My knees were rebelling–pain. I tried to focus on using my hamstrings and glutes to take the pressure off my quads and knees. The sun poking in and out of the clouds were making shadows on the mountains, changing the shades of green of the pine trees. I had read somewhere that a famous photographer said that the light in Spain is the most beautiful in the world. Its true, I thought. Did I really read that or did I make it up? Those purple flowers remind me of a collage I made in kindergarten. The sun is back out again. There’s a gnat buzzing around my face and a big drop of sweat running down my cheek but I can’t take my hand of the handlebars to swat it when I’m going this slowly. I really should stop and re-apply sunscreen. What was that Catalonian song Gabriel taught me last year? How did it go? What is that bird called? A flush? A crush? What the hell is it? A Thrush. That’s it… and on and on goes my stream of consciousness…

Now its my lower back that’s hurting. 3 British guys ride by us: “Where are you headed?” We ask. “Sort.” They say. “Us too!” “See you there!” They call out and then they pass us and are gone. I really hope we do see you there, I think. I really hope that very soon we are all sitting around an outdoor table drinking a pint of beer and swapping biking stories. Cos at this rate I’m really not sure that we will see you there, or see anyone anywhere, ever again.

At one point we puff and pant to the top of another hill — silent and empty and beautiful– except for a workman on the hillside repairing I don’t know what. Gabriel is a few feet ahead of me and says “Hold on, Baby” as he pulls over to the side of the road. But sometimes when you’ve been on the bike for so many hours your body is just not responding quickly to your brain’s commands and he slowed down but couldn’t kick his feet out of the clips before his bike stopped. So when that happens you fall down. Just totally violently on your side because your feet are clipped in to the bike and you can’t break your fall. So he falls and I go: “Oh baby, are you okay?!” and I stop to help him but the same thing happens to me– I can’t tell my feet to get out of the clips fast enough and I fall too. I call it a sympathy fall. It happened to us once in LA. I fell and then when he tried to help me he fell too. Anyway, we were both lying on our sides, clipped in to our bikes on the side of the road and I burst out laughing, cos it was just so funny. And of course the workman had seen the whole thing–mouth agape watching us. He walked over to see if we were okay and I just lay there and laughed harder and harder, imagining what it must have looked like from his point of view: working alone up at the top of that mountain, nothing happening for hours except for the occasional car passing. And then out of nowhere this clown-colored bicyclist with big yellow packs and a Spanish flag flying comes puffing up over the crest, wobbles, and falls down. And then right after him, another one–his wife–rides up and she falls over too. And now there they are just splayed out in the road. Oh God, I wished my friends could have seen it. “It looks like you have a cut on your leg” the man said, pointing to Gabriel. Gabriel: “No, no its okay.”. Little did he know we were far beyond the pain of a scraped leg, far behind embarrassment. We told him we had come from Seu D’ Urgell and he nodded, eyes wide. “Are you sure you’re okay?”. “Si, gracias.” We got back on the bikes and wobbled off down the road.

Finally we reached the real top of the mountain and now the worst really was over. Now it was downhill–16 winding kilometers of pure exhilaration and views that I can’t even describe. It really felt almost like flying. And I kept chuckling to myself thinking about our fall and the poor workman. In total, the ride lasted 5 hours and even Gabriel was totally beat at the end. We got to Sort, found the hotel, showered, ate, napped, walked a little (not much), ate more. Its Gabriel’s birthday but neither one of us had any energy to do anything about it. We will tomorrow, maybe. Anyway it doesn’t matter. For him the flight down the mountain was the best birthday present ever.