Posts tagged “girona”  

The Tour de France is racing in Spain today, through Girona, and arriving in Barcelona. In 2006, we rode Girona on roads like this. It wasn't raining for us.

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

Well-timed for National Bike Month, another New Urbanism piece and this one is focused on how destructive cul-de-sacs are. In the years I've been riding in Seattle, Lake Washington Blvd (a standard Seattle-area bike route) went from a quiet road to a highway when I5 is gridlocked. Farmland I'd ride out and back to is covered in houses and the State widens roads just to have them fill up with cars.

Slow Down

Going out for coffee in Girona, we noticed that no one got "coffee to go." They ordered a drink and then sat down to drink it.

Point is that part of a new urban community isn't just less cars, road diets, and biking to work. We need to shift our thinking and slow down. An adjustment I made riding Bettie was that bike is slow and low. It takes double the time to get anywhere and I eventually got used to it.

If we're to depend less on cars, we've got to eventually accept that we can't zip around everywhere. Ride to get coffee and take a few minutes to enjoy it.

Hat tip to Seattle PI.

A Pez-Fan was either ahead, behind us, or nearby in Girona! Check Thom Fox’s report on his rides in Girona, the food, and more. Tom stayed at BeauneImports and hooked up with BikeCat. A few miles away, we stayed at the Moli de Mig and rode with maps provided by Cicloturisme.

Read more about our trip and see the photos. We agreed with Tom, Girona is cycling nirvana.

Our stay at Hotel Moli del Mig near Girona Spain was more than we expected. From the friendly staff, roads, food and modernist remodel, it’s a new destination for cyclists and only a few had ridden the roads. It was also how we’d approach a cyclo-tourism hotel, nearly exactly. Notes

• Open less than a year, the “middle mill” was restored from a 400 yr old water mill.
• Cycle tourism is new to the area — treking has been around and actively promoted by the tourism board.
• From the lighting to the background music. furnishings, and more, much attention to “modernists” details occured in the renovation.
• Welcoming people, roads, and almost no one here — it’s off season and about 70 degrees.
• Most people spoke some english and we’re happy to accommodate us with our phrase book in hand. The language here is Catalan, but they also speak Spanish.

One of many roads to the Costa Brava near Girona Spain. See more photos in our Spain 06 gallery and posts tagged Spain.