At kilometer 30, we are at the top of La Callada de Toses, followed by a long and quick descent that brings us to Planoles, a small town on the south face of the Pyrenees. Once there, we start to climb the second categorized climb of the day, “Collet de Cal Climent”, a very narrow and quiet road that weaves through forest and meadows. Listen closely: this road is a secret that I’m sharing with you, as it does not appear on any maps. It is five kilometers of pure joy!

After a few flat kilometers, we start the hardest climb of the day, “El Coll de la Creueta” from the Castellar de n’Hug side. It is more than 20km uphill, and brings us to 1,992m in altitude at the top.

It’s a long climb but rather enjoyable. The first 10km takes place on a very narrow road in the forest. Once we pass the town of Castellar de n’Hug, the road widens but still carries almost no traffic. The green meadows allow us to have a phenomenal view of Catalunya, with some iconic places in the horizon – Pedraforca, Montserrat, Montseny – and on a clear day, you can even spot Barcelona with the Mediterranean Sea just behind. It’s a gift for our eyes, and today we were also fortunate to spot a few marmots!

By this point we have done more than 100km, and the hardest part of the route is behind us. Before starting the long descent towards Bellver, we stop in La Molina to put on our rain jackets, take some deep breaths, enjoy the views, share some opinions about the route and reminisce on adventures that Dani and I have shared.

Dani knew some parts of the route as he so often visits La Cerdanya; in fact, it was on these roads that we met during a training ride four years ago. Since then, we try to see each other as much as possible, and La Cerdanya, midway between Barcelona and Andorra where Dani and I live respectively, is the perfect place for us to catch up and go for a ride together.

As for me, since I discovered this mountain ten years ago, I have tried to come back as frequently as possible.

In a way, it’s because of the Tour of Catalonia that we are doing this course today, because every year we ride the queen stage up any of the climbs that we have just done. “La Volta” is the race that I like the most, and where I usually perform the best. I think that’s in large part due to the very special relationship that I have with this place.

Between laughs, chats, films and photos, sunset is already upon us. It’s time to start the descent back towards where we started. We take advantage of the first part of the downhill to chill down and recover from what’s been a very hard ride. But we cannot refuse to race a little bit in the last sharp corners just before we hit the town of Das. One drives cars and the other one rides bikes… but in the end, we are two pilots!

For the last five kilometers of the ride, we ride along an easy, narrow and beautiful road, and I start to reflect on our ride and on the metaphor of cycling in life. Sometimes we have an obsession to achieve a goal, but what really matters is to be happy during the time that we spend trying to achieve our goals.

I hope that you enjoy this route as much as we have today: you can choose if you want to do the full loop or not, but enjoying the ride is mandatory! Remember, Carlos said so.