Volcanoes, labyrinths and weight-loss injections: a desperate cyclist and his struggle with excess weight!
The next day, Sunday arrived. Inspired by a successful trip, I hastily cobbled together another rough route. And while on Saturday I rode mostly south of Olot, this time I decided to push north. The track wasn't as ready-made and convenient. Part of it was also a via verde (greenway), but some sections I had to draw blindly along roads and trails.
This time I arrived early, afraid of missing the bike bus (there are no alternatives, after all), and so I even managed to grab a coffee at the bus station cafeteria. I took a pic for you of the loft vibe there, and the huge departure boards, still with segment displays rather than monitors. So vintage!
I was riding solo this time; apparently, Sunday is a sacred day, nobody wants to pedal. But I decided to check out the volcanoes of Olot this time, since it was too cold to hit the road right away anyway. A volcano is a volcano alright: the sand around isn't sand, but volcanic grit, and the shape is suspicious too. Up top there's a crater, obviously, all overgrown with grass. Also a chapel and a couple of towers, to keep watch. Climbing the 20% gradient wasn't easy; I walked, otherwise my knees would have fallen off. After the volcano, I plunged into some labyrinths of roads and stairs, so much so that I barely made it out of the city.
A digression on the topic of knees. Yesterday I actually did an official Zwift workout for beginners, and I understood one of the reasons why my knees ache a bit. It's insufficient cadence, meaning the number of pedal revolutions per minute. It's considered that it should be at least 80, unless we're talking about a very steep incline. I realized two things are stopping me from hitting 80: lack of fitness and the fact that my knees keep hitting my belly. And while the first can be fixed, the second is trickier: I got fat again. I'm so sick of it that I even started looking into whether they prescribe semaglutide (Ozempic) in Latvia. It's a drug that lets many people lose weight without major side effects, although not everyone. It costs a hell of a lot (150+ a month in Europe, 1200+ in the US), but what can you do. Yesterday on a TikTok stream, I asked the famous Estonian pharmacist Alexey Morgunov if semaglutide is used in Estonia for weight loss. He replied that the drug is so popular that there are now shortages for its primary diagnosis — diabetes. And that's how we live.
The comedy of hunger, anchovies and crappy coffee: the crazy adventures of a bike tourist in the castles of Spain
On the way back from Olot I rode through several cute little towns with castles, where there were no shops, but plenty of tourists. Towards the evening I got hungry and was looking for a place to grab a bite, or at least drink some coffee. I spotted a huge parking lot with buses, albeit a bit off the greenway. I turned in there and found myself in an incredibly beautiful castle with a bridge. The place is called Besalú, in the comarca (region) of Garrotxa. The Romanesque bridge over the river Fluvià dates all the way back to the 12th century; it's very delicate-looking, and with an arch in the middle. Inside the castle there are narrow streets, little stairs, small shops, and just an unbelievable amount of tourists. It's not very convenient to walk through a dense crowd with a bike, but I tried to be careful, and no one complained. I locked up the bike and dashed into a small shop to buy some souvenirs. The girl behind the counter turned out to be Russian-speaking (a Ukrainian, I think), and she even hooked me up with a discount, hallelujah. Then again, I bought a whole mountain of stuff, since I was always too lazy to do it before, and here it just fell right into my lap.
I managed to get a snack too — a crepe with anchovies and crappy coffee. I didn't finish the crepe, it turned out to be completely not my thing. I probably leave food uneaten only once a year, so you really have to try hard to displease me that much. Nevertheless, it didn't ruin my mood. I still had a very long way to go, but I had intentionally decided from the very morning not to rush, but to savor my last bike ride in Spain before flying out. In the end, I arrived at the next town, a bigger one, right at sunset. Before that, I crossed over some hills with almost no vegetation, where it was brutally windy. I realized that without another refuel of calories and coffee, I wasn't going to make it anywhere. In the town, I found an open bakery with a high rating — cal flequer. That in itself was a little quest, since the schedule in Spain is quite peculiar, especially on a Sunday. At the pastry-bakery, pies were being handed out by a pretty black girl, very young. From Algeria, I think, or something like that. She gave me a bright smile — I think it's because after all those kilometers, I looked pretty grubby.
After refueling properly one more time, I saddled up again. It was dark, and I was seriously exhausted, but where are you gonna go from a submarine! I fired up my mega-flashlight, put on some upbeat tunes, and headed home.
Rode 79km, with 750m of elevation gain in 8 hours.
If you subscribe, I'll have not three subscribers, but four!