INDEPENDENT SPIRIT
Osona Cycling Tours provides the compass for a satisfying jaunt through the mountains of its Catalonia home
Sitting us down to explain a bit about what we could expect from an Osona Cycling Tours experience, it didn’t take long for Raimon Pericas to veer off track into a monologue about Catalan independence. “Don’t get him started on this,” says Darren Gatehouse, another of the ride guides for our visit and an adopted Catalan from London.
And you know what? We really didn’t. They say sport and politics shouldn’t mix but in the case of cycling – an activity that revolves around travel, culture and borders – the two are inextricably linked. Raimon, a Catalan native who grew up in the Osona region that gives the company its name, is fiercely behind the independence cause. The UK’s turbulent politics has given me more than enough to digest over the past couple of years, which means Catalan independence is something I’ve only a very vague understanding of, so it was interesting to learn more about an issue that elicits such emotion.
Osona Cycling Tours (OCT) isn’t actually Raimon’s thing; he’s really only involved through his wife. He’s already got three jobs – he’s a nuclear physicist who lectures at two universities and does work for a private US company. A fourth job might well send him… well, nuclear. With OCT he’s the talkative other half of Cristina Cortes Soler, a
“They say sport and politics shouldn’t mix but in the case of cycling –an activity that revolves around travel, culture and borders – the two are inextricably linked”
policewoman, keen cyclist and yoga instructor. OCT is a new venture for her and one she’s hoping to go full-time with alongside her business partner Sandra Fondós, who brings nutrition knowhow to the equation, by virtue of a diploma from the University of Barcelona. By combining their skills and knowledge of their home region at OCT, they’re offering a cycling holiday package in which all your needs, both on and off the bike, are taken care of.
“This has been a dream of mine, turning my passion into my job,” says Cristina. “I have two passions in life: the bike, which I’ve loved for 15 years, and travel. Ideally both at the same time. Being able to build a business out of showing off Catalunya to tourists, and Osona in particular, with its quiet roads, gastronomy and culture, excites me.”
Capital of culture
The capital of Osona, Vic, with its magnificent old town, was our base for the weekend. Think of Catalonian cycling and you may well think of Girona, a city that’s home to many professional cyclists given its climate and accessibility to mountain roads. The team at OCT insists that Vic, 60km to the west of Girona but almost the same distance to Barcelona, is a comparable, if not better, option for cyclists, claiming the hilly roads that sprout from Vic in 360° are more accomodating to cyclists. That may or may not be true – I haven’t ridden in Girona – but we were largely unbothered by
motorists during our long weekend, notwithstanding getting in and out of the city.
Day one took us southeast, deep into the Montseny mountain range, twice taking us from Vic’s 1700ft altitude all the way up to around 4000ft. On a humid but cloudy day, where the sky looked forever on the edge of breaking, even though it never quite did, conditions were perfect for the ride’s profile, which did nothing other than point either up or down. The first part of the ride circled, without ever going up, the toughest, highest and, some might say, best mountain in Montseny: Turó de l’Home. It rises to above 5550ft, but there’s plenty of effort involved in skirting its lower slopes. We climbed up to 4200ft and descended back down to 1600ft, before heading back up to 3800ft, climing the ‘easier’ side of the Coll Formic. Easier, yes, but you still climb over 2000ft in six miles. The fast, thrilling descent down through the towns of Seva and Tona, eventually leading to Vic, is often used as a climb at the Volta a Catalunya pro race.
With mountains part of everyday life for Cristina and Raimon, it’s no surprise they have a shared affinity for them. But it goes deeper than cycling. They met several years ago on the Maratona dles Dolomites gran fondo in Italy. Raimon didn’t finish the event, because of stomach problems, but his trip was far from disastrous, as he and Cristina got together after returning home. Three years later they came back, together, to the Maratona, with Raimon carrying an engagement ring around the course before proposing at the finish. At lunch on day three of this trip they showed us their wedding photos, which saw the pair riding their race bikes wearing full wedding attire. Hooked on cycling doesn’t quite cover it with this pair.
Gran fondo goals
A rest day followed our exertions in the Montseny mountains before the final ride of our trip, which happened to be the Osana region’s gran fondo: La Marxa Jufre.
Cristina wouldn’t be joining as she was on duty helping to support the police operation for the event. Unlike the UK, scores of gran fondos take place throughout the summer in Catalonia, so while some of the 800 competitors will have travelled a long way to get here, Raimon says the event has a very local feel, as most come from within spitting distance of Vic. It’s organised by Josep Jufre, a retired pro who used to ride for Astana and is based in the village of his birth, Santa Eulàlia de Riuprimer.
It played out like a classic Euro fondo: obscenely conditioned amateurs, riding 115km over a lumpy course at frightening speeds. The La Marxa Jufre course headed in the opposite direction to our opening ride, northwest, into the hills with the still snow-capped Pyrénées (our visit was in late May) teasingly out of reach.
A great climate, pin-drop quiet roads, challenging mountains and a thrilling gran fondo – Osona has that rare combination in its favour and with Osona Cycling Tours, the perfect hosts to help you to experience it.