Laia Palau: "Girona, by bicycle, is another thing"

GironaWhen Laia Palau (Barcelona, 1979) stopped playing basketball in 2022 to start a new stage at Uni Girona, she bought herself a bicycle. For years, contracts had forbidden her from cycling to avoid injuries. She went into Decathlon and came out with “the horse,” as she calls the bicycle that today is an extension of herself and accompanies her everywhere, even to buy bread each morning. "When I start going to Fontajau every day, I think I'm taking a wonderful path – she explains as we cross the bridge over the Ter River. I cross the Devesa, I cross the river, I see the mountains, some amazing sunsets... I thought of all my people from Barcelona and said: 'You guys are losers!' Every day I thought: 'How lucky I am'.

For years she had known Girona from the window of the pavilion. The bicycle revealed a completely different city to her. She arrived in 2018 after a long international career, convinced that she would finish her sporting career there. What was supposed to be a final stop, however, has become her home. When she retired from the track, she took on the "Spar Girona's sports management and, further on, became part of the technical staff. But that new stage didn't quite fit either. After months of reflection, last December he put an end to his connection with the club. "For me, it wasn't leaving just any job. Abandoning the ship is abandoning the team a little," he admits.

Since then he has not returned to Fontajau to watch any game. Nor has he repeated that daily commute that he had come to love so much. “Life is very surprising. Girona is small and I know a lot of people there, but during the first three months I didn't meet anyone. Anyone.” The one who has remained faithful is the horse. “Girona, by bicycle, is another thing.”

Life change

We are on the bike path that passes under the viaduct. It's only been fifteen minutes since she left the gym and she arrives punctually on her bike. She has just returned from filming La travessa VIP, one of the first projects she has accepted after definitively leaving basketball. For the first time since she was a child, she doesn't live waiting for a training session or a match. “You can always keep chasing excellence... but now I don't feel like having that responsibility. I've already had it for many years,” she says. For Palau, the team was a “living organism” where things always happened. A “non-stop” wheel that never allowed her to disconnect. “I am discovering things about myself that I didn't know until now, and I am doing things I have never done before. It's very enriching, to be honest with you”.

For the first time in decades, she doesn't live waiting for the next sporting challenge. And this is where cycling makes sense: it's a way to get around, to look at the city, and to inhabit a new time. When I ask her if she will ever dare to do the same routes as the hundreds of amateur cyclists who fill the roads of Girona, she laughs. She confesses that she had a “terrible time” on the climbs in La travessa VIP and that mountain bikes are not for her: the position strains her back, her weak point after the operation. She doesn't talk about watts, climbs, or kilometers. Her bicycle is for going to the gym, buying bread, or crossing Girona. “We have to differentiate between the competitive cyclist and people who get around Girona,” she states emphatically.

Status issue

Arriving at Fontajau every day by bicycle also helped her realize that mobility still carries many prejudices. “It’s a matter of status,” she says bluntly. She explains that, at times, she had the feeling that they looked at her as "the poor fool" for showing up pedaling at the pavilion. She, on the other hand, lived it with pride: “I thought: 'I’m the most modern one here.'”

I ask her if she will ever dare to take a bike trip. She smiles. She says yes, that she would like to go to the beach one day or take a quiet route, but without looking at the clock or chasing any challenges. Just for the journey. The answer fits with the new stage she is living. After a lifetime of competing, her horse no longer serves to arrive before anyone else. It serves, simply, to go.

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