day 3: 3-may-2016

Today was our first riding day but first we spent an hour and a half on a guided walking tour of the city. Girona has an association of tour guides and VBT hired a woman named Margarita to take us on a walking tour. While we walked past many areas that we had walked by the day before it was really interesting to have commentary about what we were seeing.

When we got back to the hotel, we met one of our VBT tour guides, Itziar Uriate. "Itzi" is from the Basque region of Spain but she has been living in France. She escorted us to a bus that would take us to Girona. The streets are so narrow in these old parts of the city that a standard tour bus would not fit. So the poor guy had to double park a block away.

We arrived at a small town, Centenys, where we met the other tour guide, Andrea Chlebova, a Slovakian professional climber in her previous life. They gave us an orientation, fit our bikes and we took off on our short "warm up" ride (12 km, 7 miles). Two women from the village provided snacks and prepared sandwiches for us to take with us on our bikes.

On this trip our bikes were matte black Fuji Sportive LEs with Koval wheels. They looked really sharp. They were equipped with shimano 105 components and they were pretty responsive. They were probably new bikes from this season.

The ride took us along back roads, some dirt, and finished at a church by a lake. We met Andrea there who was driving the van, ate lunch, and took another quick loop around the lake.

On the way we saw these guys, probably triathletes, on trainers on a dock out in the middle of the lake.

After the ride, we had a few hours on our own in Girona before dinner. We hit two bike shops, a book store, took a walk up to the defensive wall that protected the old city. You really get a sense of the fear that must have driven these people because of the enormous effort they put into making these walls. The view from the top of the wall was pretty spectacular.

Here's Mike and Jaime on one of these defensive walls.

Girona is a destination for a lot of pros and pro cycling teams for training. Apparently an American rider had a little place in Girona before he was banned from cycling. So there were a lot of bike shops and coffee shops that cater to cyclists. The first bike shop, Bike Breaks was centrally located in the old city and although it was small, it was the most full service bike shop we had ever seen. They sold the usual: bikes, bike accessories, clothing, performed bike repairs and rented bikes. They provided people who rented bikes with suggestions on bike routes. If you needed a shower after a ride, their washroom contained a shower stall for five euros. The most unique part of the bike shop's business was selling gear previously owned by pro riders. They get a lot of stuff and they could give it to the shop to sell on commission. It was one of the coolest bike shops ever.

https://www.gironacyclecentre.com

The second bike shop we stumbled on was Bike Cat. It was the alternative shop in Girona. 

http://www.bikecat.com

We never saw Lance.