I went to Girona recently.
Northern Spain in the Catalan region.
Ancient City but (in small part) famous and infamous to cyclists.
Lance Armstrong lived in Girona with most of his team in a compound because training was so good and because it was in Spain and you could evade the authorities much easier than France.
Many other professional cyclists have based themselves there and there is a small but strong cohort of professional cyclists still basing themselves and living in Girona and the surrounding area. Most notably, as far as i'm concerned, is one of my all time heroes David Miller who lived and has immersed himself in Girona culture. As a result of this there is a very vibrant cycling sub-culture in Girona which ties in to the 'people like us (PLU)' mentality which Chris Barrow speaks about often. Cyclists in Girona are 'people like me'.
I went with one of my oldest and best friends, Craig Wales a Maxillofacial Surgeon from Glasgow that I went to dental school with and it was one those trips where the starts all line up.
In the lead up to this we realised they were organising a small sportif event called 'Girona Gran Fondo' with about 300 cyclists starting on the cobbled streets up beside the cathedral and riding 75 miles around the Girona countryside. It's a small and particular group of people that do the 'Girona Gran Fondo' but they come from Canada, America, Japan and all over the place and it was a pleasure to ride with people I had never met whose stories I was able to hear about as we went through the day.
The next day we rode Rocacorba and it was so good that I had to write about the separately.
We cycled for the four days we were there but one of the greatest highlights was going to La Fabrica. La Fabrica is the coffee shop owned by Dan Martin who is a professional cyclist with Garmin and his wife. It's a PLU place. It's pretty much for cyclists, people who like coffee people who like healthy food but mostly for cyclists who like coffee and healthy food. Craig and I sat and had breakfast at La Fabrica. It's basically in a basement with a small courtyard outside. There is a hook on the sliding steel door where it's written in chalk "please take a cushion and sit on the steps". The steps are ancient and travel up towards the cathedral, you can put a cushion down and sit on the steps and eat your breakfast outside La Fabrica.
The breakfast was amazing (for cyclists in any event) and the coffee was fantastic - in fact it was so good that I came home and wrote a blog about it so that anybody else who goes to Girona to ride their bike will go to La Fabrica and in fact that is why I went, because we had read about it previously.
This is how PLU works, this is how your create your tribe.
La Fabrica has its own cycle kit which is not cheap, which I will buy (when i've lost a bit more weight) that's how PLU works, that's how you build your tribe.
It's not trying to be McDonald's and in fact it doesn't want the McDonald's guys because they don't bring the food fast enough and it's not cheap enough (although it's not particularly expensive) It just applies to everything I have ever written or thought about about the race to bottom and the race to the top. A mile from La Fabrica is a Domino's, a McDonald's and a KFC but we didn't go there for breakfast even though it was cheaper.
Blog Post Number: 981
Leave a comment