Raül and I have known each other since high school, where we not only shared a desk, we also shared hobbies, interests and motivations. The years have been separating and bringing us together, as often happens in friendships, but for some time now, Gravel has brought us together again, and has become the perfect excuse to spend more time together.
For quite some time now we had been thinking about doing a bikepacking initiation, and when we finally set a date and time, it was clear to us that some summer storms were not going to make us hesitate.
Wednesday afternoon and all set for our adventure... We set off from Valls in the direction of our first objective, the monastery of Santes Creus. We arrived safely, took a couple of photos, some video for my youtube channel and went for what was supposed to be the hardest part of our adventure...
It didn't take long to feel the first raindrops, so we decided to take shelter while a good storm fell.
As soon as we see that things calm down we start pedalling again and little by little we pass the first demanding ramps... we take the puddles that await us as a " Fright or death!" until in one of them the water gets up to our knees and, from then on, laughs and pedalling...
In this section we start to feel the weight of our bikepacking bags and the mud that sticks to our bikes.
We find ourselves on very hard ramps, which only give us the option to push our bikes, slowing our pace even more.
Although we planned to finish, we checked several maps and got down to work.
We rightly shouldered the bikes, walked our way back to the road and once there we returned to remove as much mud as we could and reconsidered our route.
Raul had chosen the Megamo West and I chose the Megamo Jakar, two ideal bikes for an adventure of this nature and with a wheelbase more than enough to overcome muddy terrain...
although it seemed that the clay soil of the Conca had beaten in the first set, we were convinced that we had not yet lost the game...
Fortunately, the uphill stretch on the road gives us some hope and we start to feel better. We reach our goal!
We stop to take some photos, get some fresh air and clean ourselves up a bit. We have mud even in places where it's better not to even think about it. It's past midnight, so we have to look for a place to rest and make that hot soup that we had been dreaming about for hours...
We inspected several rural constructions, the truth is that we found a bit of everything: one house without a roof, the other one was ideal but full of jerry cans... until we finally found the perfect place to spend the night.
It was a hut in perfect condition and without a padlock, which made our night! Soup to rehydrate, bivouac cover, mat and off to rest.
High spirits, laughter, the sun gradually warming up, a long, long climb up the track to the Parc Eòlic Tallat and down the road to L'Espluga de Francolí.
We didn't want to imagine for a moment what a new encounter with a muddy path could be like... Luckily it wasn't like that, and although the route to our next point was only a few kilometres long, the headwind made things a bit more difficult for us.
Finally, Poblet! We had practically made it! All that remained was to return to l'Espluga and from there to Valls, the starting point of our adventure.
At midday we finally arrived home, dirty as hell and with our bikes full of mud. The truth is that we had some difficult moments, we even considered giving up, but the fact of going on and doing it together filled us with a feeling of fulfilment and friendship for having made it to the end.