Girona - Sant Martí Sacalm

This was my first real climb of the year, and I picked the one every Girona rider knows: Sant Martí Sacalm. Rolling out across the Pont de les Peixateries Velles with the pastel façades mirrored in the Onyar, I already knew the legs would have a story to tell before the day was over. The cathedral disappears over the shoulder and you're onto the quiet back roads south-west of the city, spinning easy through the farmland of the Gironès with nothing to do yet but wake up.

Anglès comes and goes, then Amer — plane trees in the arcaded plaça, bakeries venting warm coca and coffee into the street. It's the traditional pre-climb stop, and I wasn't going to argue with tradition. From there the road narrows and the Guilleries start to show themselves: flat-topped limestone cliffs rising abruptly out of holm-oak forest, spring meadows absurdly green beneath them. Somewhere near Susqueda I passed three donkeys grazing roadside behind wire, completely unbothered by a cyclist rationing his gels.

Then the climb. The Pujada a Sant Martí Sacalm doesn't ease you in — it just starts switchbacking up through the forest and keeps going. Dappled light through the oaks and pines, tight hairpins, the occasional damp patch where the sun hasn't reached. It's a proper mountain road: narrow, quiet, blind corners, the kind of surface where you keep an eye out for gravel washed down over winter. My heart rate settled into that first-climb-of-the-season honesty where you can't hide from how the winter actually went.

The summit sign at 815 m is plastered with club stickers from half of Catalonia, and the trees finally open onto meadow and sky. On a clear day you get the Pyrenees in the distance; I got enough of them to feel pleased with myself. A short breather, a photo of the brown village sign for St. Martí Sacalm, and then the descent — fast, technical, the kind where you trust the tyres and the line more than the brakes.

The run back across the Selva is rolling farm roads and forested lanes, a steady tempo that lets you digest what the climb just did to you. Osor slips past, the Ter valley opens up again, and before long the Onyar bridges reappear. I finished at La Fábrica, because of course I did — first real climb of the year ticked off, and the espresso tasted like it had been earned.