Enric Mas has done it. "I have dreamed my whole life of winning like this," he said in Granada. At 31 years old, he has climbed to the top of the Vuelta a España podium in Granada. After years of dreaming of being able to win one of the three grand road cycling tours, the greatest triumph in the history of Mallorcan road cycling has arrived. If in track cycling the rider from Porreres, Joan Llaneras, broke all records with his four Olympic medals, in road cycling Enric Mas will be the benchmark from now on. "I have felt nerves, a day with a mixture of emotions, all positive. Now I must continue with what I am doing, I am already thinking about the next objectives. In sports, sometimes there is no time to enjoy the victories," explained the Mallorcan, who was accompanied by friends and family from Artà.

When the day begins, you often can't imagine the surprise that fate has in store for you. Last Monday, the staff of a hotel in the Alta Cerdanya did not know that, shortly after lunch, the best cyclists in the world would knock on their door seeking refuge. A storm of those that inspire fear ended with a happy ending in the Vuelta a Espanya thanks to the hospitality of the staff of a one-star hotel, the IGESA Village Club Les Sorbiers.

The cycling Tour of Spain started this Saturday with a time trial in Monaco, won by Slovenian Tadej Pogacar (UAE Emirates), a five-time Tour winner. Pogacar dominated the 9.4 km individual time trial held in his city of residence with a time of 10.57 minutes, averaging 50.4 km/hour. Second place went to Briton Ethan Hayter (Soudal), and third to the day's main protagonist, Welshman Joshua Tarling (Netcompany Ineos), 4 seconds behind. Riders from all teams wanted to show their affection for Tarling, who decided to participate in the race despite the death of his younger brother Finlay last Friday in the Tour of Portugal. Ineos had given Josh permission not to participate as planned, but after Finlay's funeral, the older brother decided to be at the race which will end in Granada on September 13th.

After winning the Spanish road championship last June, everything has gone quite smoothly for Marcel Camprubí (Barcelona, 2001). The triumph was a final duel with fellow Catalan cyclist Joel Nicolau on the tough Sabiñánigo climb. “Joel is a rival and a friend,” Camprubí explains to ARA. “He rushed a bit at the final sprint and I was able to finish him off and win. I also have the sadness of seeing him cry as he crossed the finish line. It was a bit bittersweet,” Camprubí concludes. His sports director at the Pinarello Q36.5 team is also Catalan, Àlex Sans, who he highlights was key to his victory and how he helped him through the earpiece with key phrases he received at the right moment: “He told me to come in third in the sprint.” And Marcel did. Also that “it would be a long sprint,” and so it was. And at certain moments Àlex made Camprubí understand that he was the strongest cyclist in the group and to trust himself. “It was brutal,” Àlex Sans recalls via message to ARA. Ambition shines in Marcel with his broad smile as he waits to see how his body will react when the action kicks off at La Vuelta on Saturday when the cat is let out of the bag.

We arranged to meet at a quarter past nine in the morning in Castelldefels, but I arrive late after an hour of traffic jams on the AP-7 and the ronda de Dalt. The photographer, Pau de la Calle, calls me, a little startled: Juan Antonio Flecha (Junín, Argentina, 1977) has already passed, as his surname indicates, like an arrow, with his two daughters sitting on the back of the bicycle. I catch him just as he has dropped them off at school, in Gavà Mar. From there we will cycle to his house, where a podcast recording awaits him.

Every day, whether it's cold or a heat that cracks stones, more than a hundred residents of the Remei neighborhood in Vic pedal to Santa Eugènia de Berga to work at the slaughterhouse. They don't wear jerseys or cyclometers. The bicycle is simply the vehicle that allows them to arrive for early morning shifts and return home at odd hours. It's a daily scene that goes unnoticed, but it explains a large part of the area's reality.

Arrives at El Celler de Can Roca cycling, with a backpack on her back. “In my locker I always have a change of clothes for cycling and another for street wear, and a towel to be able to arrive, shower and get ready. The curtain opens: I put on the service uniform. It closes: I put on the cycling outfit”. Marta Cortizas (Culleredo, A Coruña, 1992) is a sommelier with a meteoric career. She arrived in Girona in 2021 with a single suitcase and her bicycle for a four-month stage alongside Pitu Roca. She hasn't left since: in 2024 she was recognized as the best sommelier in Catalonia and in 2025, of the entire State and the Iberian Peninsula.

It's impossible to cross paths with him and not look at him. Wool jersey, knitted shorts, 1950s cycling shoes, a flat cap instead of a helmet, vintage glasses and a spare camera on his chest. But what draws the most attention is the bicycle. “It's Dutch, from 1908, made of iron and little else. An uncomfortable racing bike in terms of position, without gears and with spoon brakes over the tires, with which I have ridden hundreds of kilometers”. Isma Garcia (Granollers, 1992) has been steeped in cycling since he was very young, growing up in a family linked to the almost centenary Granollers Cycling Club. But it wasn't until his twenties that he began on his own in a hobby with which he has ended up finding a large community on social networks: restoring century-old bicycles.

When four years ago I returned to work from Girona, after years covering political information in Madrid, I set out to understand the cycling boom that the city has experienced. One of the first people I spoke to was Anna Gibert Sau (Riudarenes, 1977), a Mossos d'Esquadra officer specialized in gender-based violence and co-founder of Girona Gravel Girls, a community made up exclusively of women that now exceeds 430 members.

Àlex Sans (Barcelona, 1976) was clear that he wanted to be part of the cycling world. He first tried it as a cyclist, but when he saw that he “couldn't be professional,” he looked for another alternative. His coach when he was a junior and under-23 was also a masseur for Antonio Pineda's teams, which this year have celebrated 40 years as benchmarks for under-23 teams in Catalonia under the name Club Ciclista Camp Clar. Sans began to learn the trade with them. The leap into professional cycling came in 2000, when he joined the MemoryCard–Jack&Jones team as a masseur and at the same time also as a masseur for the Kelme team as a freelance. He combined races with both teams and at the end of the year, both teams offered him a contract. He chose the Danish team. “It appealed to me. It was more of an adventure,” Sans justifies to ARA in this first week of the Tour. And he continued with a project that later became CSC Proteam, with whom Àlex won the Tour in 2008 with Carlos Sastre. Consolidated in the peloton for decades, he now directs the Pinarello Q36.5 Procycling Team, one of the teams participating in the current Tour de France.

The Tour has said goodbye to Catalonia with the third and final stage between Granollers and Les Angles with apprehension due to the serious fire 60 km from the finish line in French territory and the fire in Les Gavarres that is not yet fully controlled. The fire in Northern Catalonia continues to burn with a new episode of extreme heat with temperatures of up to 40 degrees days after a historic heatwave. The serious situation has caused the Tour's advertising caravan not to hand out gifts to the public and restrictions for attendees in French territory. Despite the heatwave, the great favorite, Tadej Pogacar, has won and is already wearing yellow. The Slovenian is getting down to business.

The Tour de France advertising caravan is a carousel of 180 vehicles with commercial brands of all types and colors that travel the entire 21 stages of the race at 30 km/h, throwing products and gifts to the public waiting for the cyclists' arrival. All the vehicles together occupy 12 km of route and a person in a fixed spot watches the spectacle for 40 consecutive minutes. The caravan moves 700 people who, on top of all sorts of brightly decorated vehicles, warm up the public who wish to be part of it. Barcelona will experience, starting Saturday, the first passage of the caravan 90 minutes before the start of the team time trial, which is 19.6 km, starting at Parc del Fòrum and ending at Montjuïc. First opportunity for the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, four-time winner of the Tour, to wear the yellow leader's jersey. To see the cyclists in action on the city streets, you need to consider the road closures and use the metro to reach the section you want to see. There will also be different giant screens along the route. At the Fan Park, on Passeig Lluís Companys, and also in Montjuïc, between the Olympic Stadium and the Gardens of Ramon Margalef López.

We explain everything you need to know to enjoy the Tour de France that will cross Catalonia: from mobility impacts to activities organized by the cycling race.

“When something gets stuck in my head, it doesn't leave, and now the bike has gotten stuck in it”, explains Paula Blasi, one of the Catalan athletes of the moment. This weekend she achieved the greatest success of her career, winning the 12th edition of the Amstel Gold Race, held between Maastricht and Valkenburg, with a route of 158.1 kilometers. A prestigious race where she beat the best female cyclists in the world with a great attack and in which she was not initially supposed to participate, but was called up by her team, UAE, at the last minute because other more experienced cyclists were missing. "I will need a few weeks or months to realize it. It's my first time in the Ardennes and I've had problems with positioning, I can't believe what has just happened to me", she explained euphorically.

A group of cypresses, the tree that symbolizes welcome and hospitality, surround the kiosk that functions as a bar in the Parc dels Jardins de les Pedreres in Girona. Josep Maria Esteban, who has worked there for ten years in a totally altruistic manner, mentions this symbolism of the cypresses because he believes that welcome is one of the essential characteristics of this urban park, which in past years the residents of the Pedreres-Fora Muralla neighborhood avoided due to its state of abandonment and which today they have made their own as a meeting place, for birthday celebrations, for snacks, for an outdoor classroom to practice Zumba or yoga, to walk pets there, and to celebrate spoken-word performances, among many other activities.  

Cycling fans know that this season is historic. At 27 years old, the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar seemed poised to achieve a never-before-seen feat. Pogacar, full of ambition, had decided to rewrite the history of the sport in general by achieving one of those milestones that are remembered for decades. Today he sought to be the fourth cyclist of all time to win the five monuments, the five historic one-day races. But Pogacar wasn't content with a success like this. If he triumphed in Paris-Roubaix, he seriously aspired to win all five races in the same season. In 100 years, only three men have won these five races, and he wanted to do it in the same year.

The GI-531 road is one of the most congested in the Girona region. It crosses the Llémena Valley, a river basin dotted with small villages surrounded by nature, from Sant Gregori – west of Girona – to Les Planes d'Hostoles in La Garrotxa. The road is narrow, with significant changes in gradient, a single lane in each direction, very sharp curves, and a virtually nonexistent shoulder. Private vehicles share this route with other traffic. groups of cyclists who do sportHeavy goods vehicles from companies working in the area and school buses also use this road.

In a global context marked by the erosion of rights, a means of transport like the bicycle has become, more than ever, an ideological symbol. Consequently, political polarization directly impacts decisions regarding sustainable mobility. The 2023 municipal elections marked a turning point in many cities: the arrival of new governments has influenced the management of bike lanes, often citing arguments of safety or freedom to move around by car. We have seen this in Castelldefels, Palma, Elche, Valladolid, and Logroño, and Lisbon has drawn attention for impounding bicycles parked in public spaces. At the same time, in Barcelona, ​​the socialist government of Jaume Collboni has maintained the infrastructure but reduced the push for new traffic-calming measures. In Girona, however, the dynamic is different. It has become established in the last decade as the cycling capital of southern Europe, and businesses linked to the sector have multiplied almost fivefold. If at the beginning of 2014 there were only eight cycling shops In the city, there are currently 41. The bicycle has also become an economic and tourist engine: if in Barcelonaexpanded He lives in a rented apartment costing over 2,000 euros and drinks specialty coffees costing 5 euros; in Girona he is accompanied by a high-end road or gravel bike and equipment worth over 4,000 euros.

The Girona City Council wants to limit the granting of licenses for new businesses related to cycling. Cycle tourism is thriving. an extraordinary boom in the city, especially in the Barri Vell, where in recent years, every time an iconic business closes, a new one opens a new store linked to high-end cyclingDesigned to attract primarily foreign customers.

The support of the Barcelona Provincial Council The inclusion of cycling in major events, such as the Volta a Catalunya, the 2025 Vuelta a España Femenina, and the 2026 Tour de France, demonstrates the Corporation's commitment to promoting cycling in the province. The benefits of cycling are numerous, both in terms of sport and society. On the one hand, it is an accessible and healthy sport that contributes to improving the health and quality of life of the population and helps prevent cardiovascular disease. On the other hand, using a bicycle as a means of daily transport improves sustainable mobility and reduces the environmental impact of transportation. Furthermore, cycling is an excellent excuse for socializing, participating in, and riding with the many cycling clubs in the municipalities of Barcelona. Therefore, the Provincial Council's Cycling Promotion Plan aims to leave a sporting legacy in the province that will allow for the continued promotion of road cycling, both on open roads and on the municipal cycling circuits within the region.