Marika's Tour de France

Stage 06 - Girona to Barcelona - 181.5km

Stats: 152.11km, 8hr 13min
Average speed: 18.51, Max speed 54.69

June 9th, 2009

Five hours sleep or less for days running had taken it’s toll on all of us. After getting to bed at about 2.00am we decided to sleep in till 7.30. However the lazy get up time set the pace for the rest of the morning and we found ourselves still in the hotel car park at 11.00am.

Spirits weren’t exactly high, Damian’s website wasn’t working, everyone was tired and the day was already stinking hot. Dale and I decided to lift our spirits with a fun game of I wish, which involved trying to outdo each other making statements on how the day could be better, ie. “I wish it was hotter,” “I wish I was more tired,” “I wish my seat was a bit harder,” “I wish we could go one more day without washing these shorts.” etc. It got us in the zone for the day ahead.

We finally headed out and I tried to stop my autistic brain calculating the estimated arrival time for the day. It was too depressing.

The first thirty kilometers was a constant uphill, not the best thing for improving the mood. Although there wasn’t really a chance to be in a mood because we were on a fairly major highway and you needed your wits about you just to stay on your bike. Cars flew by on the three lanes besides us, we carefully dodged roadside glass and debris and were very wary of the exit and entry ramps. I wondered if this was a road I would contemplate riding back in Australia even with the support car.

The uphill haul was rewarded with my fastest speed to date as I shrugged off caution and tried to keep up with the boys, pushing my nose close to the handle bars. A modest 59.5km. It felt like a lifetime ago that I was pumping my breaks the entire way down category four hills, even though it was just a few stages ago and it was taking longer for the boys to get smaller on the horizon in front of me. Maybe I was starting to become less of a hack cyclist after all. Maybe.

We hit Sant Felu de Guixoles after about 30k’s, a town who’s main street went downhill all the way to the beach. It was such a beautiful little town, almost as beautiful as the next 20km. The route took us along a coast line that was similar to the great ocean road and apparently Cinque Terre in Italy. A cliff face met the sea and we wound our way around and up and down until we reached a lookout where we stopped for a break, after completing about 46km.

The view was sensational and we couldn’t help but linger here, no one was all that keen to get back on the bike. After a snack of banana’s, nutella sandwiches and lollies, we topped up our drinks, took some photo’s, lingered a bit longer and then begrudgingly kept going.


















We continued along the cliff face climbing and descending and feeling like our progress was really slow. A category four which felt like a category two was placed in there to keep us on our toes.









We shifted slightly in land and the terrain flattened and straightened out. I became aware of a sharp pain in my leg that felt like a knife was stabbing me every time I pushed down on my pedal and tried to ignore it.

We passed through Malgrat de Mar, a fairly sizeable town and we all bunched up so that it was easier to direct us through. By now the pain was excruciating and I had began to cry which made focusing on traffic and where John was going extremely difficult, not to mention avoiding looking at Damian and Dale so that they didn’t see the tears falling out from under my glasses. As Dale would say I had an extreme case of the sweaty eyeballs. I tried desperately to suck it up, it was tough enough being a girl rider, I didn’t want pain to be mistaken for emotion.

I started doubting that I was going to finish the stage. I honestly couldn’t see how I was going to ride much longer with the pain and at the same time I could not give in. So I battled with an internal debate of giving up vs riding on while the saying pain lasts a moment but quitting lasts forever played over and over in my head. And I debated this for the next thirty k’s, all the while crying and pedaling with one leg.

I gave a huge sigh of relief when the guys pulled over, one of the times that I was thankful to be lost. I was hoping they thought the huge industrial area would make a nice setting for lunch but unfortunately we’d already organized with Tara and Nancy to meet at Caides d’Estrac, a spanish beach side town, and they had the food so we had to push on. I went as fast as I could go, trying to keep up with the boys. They went as slow as they could go trying to make me feel better.

We spotted Nance and Tara and we pulled in for some lunch. Tara the amazing masseur got to work on my leg straight away and did a world of good for it. However my leg wasn’t the big problem anymore, it was the fact that it was 6.00pm and we still had 75km to go.

About five k’s out of town we hit the first of the category three climbs and I was again left questioning the Tour de France organizers rating criteria as I did my finest impersonation of Darth Vader to date. The next climb was just as tough and quick but before long we found ourselves back on a highway putting some k’s behind us. I wondered again if cyclists were allowed on this road just as we were overtaken by a professional. This didn’t sit so well with Damian and he opened up and chased him down. We lost him for a while there but he returned triumphant, he’d managed to sit on his tail for a few km’s.

We continued along the road, John behind us in the emergency lane, cars whirling by us.
With our heads down we rode into Badalona and stopped for a break. It was about 8.00pm, we all needed a drink and a toilet stop. We pulled up on the sidewalk and Damian and I headed to a café serving tapas that would possibly have a toilet stop. We found a small bar that looked like it hadn’t changed from the 60’s, and possibly the patrons too. Over the last couple of days I’d become used to being stared at by locals as I try to convey the urgency of a toilet so this place didn’t fuss me too much. We got some ice creams and took them back to Dale and John. We discussed the route and how to get into Barcelona from where we were and hoped back on the bikes. We’d been pulled over for about half an hour and still had 50k’s to go.

Again we found ourselves on a major road heading into Barcelona, only this time it was getting dark as well as dangerous. Cars flew by us, the fading light was making it hard to be seen and see others, none of us had lights on our bikes and it all just got a bit much. At 9.30 with 30k’s to go we pulled the pin. The road was far too dangerous for us to be riding on at that time. We managed to find a small dirt paddock off the road and we pulled over to put the bikes up. We all said it was too dangerous too ride and we will make up the extra 30k’s tomorrow on the rest day. I couldn’t help but feel awfully guilty because I know we would have been almost there had I not slowed everyone with my leg. We finished the day feeling deflated and a bit defeated as we drove into Barcelona.