Andreu recently bought the compound off his good friend, and world famous FMX rider Edgar Torronteras. It’s basically a perfect square of ground with a massive foam pit and matte black crane towering in the middle. His most recent addition to the spot is the mountain bike line. When putting MTB jumps next to moto ones they usually look lame, tame and small. A lot of the time this is not the case, they are actually pretty big. It’s not a problem here. The roll–in reaches the same height as the crane and feels so narrow when you are at the top. It sends you straight into a 12 metre gap with a metal FMX ramp jacked up on bricks. I can honestly say that the MTB line looked bigger than the FMX one. It made a nice change and highlighted how fast things were moving on in the sport, or in Andreu’s head. Expect a WILD edit from him anytime soon. Unfortunately when hitting jumps of that size you are at the mercy of the wind. The windsock said no. I didn’t argue with him. He seemed like a serious guy.

By this point I had forgotten about rain and the misery of the UK and was dedicating any spare moment I had to pointing myself towards the sun, trying to wash some of that grey out of my skin. That evening we headed into Barcelona and got a tour around the sights. It is an amazing city, such a mix of old and new all tastefully thrown together and lived–in, used and abused. It was cool to hear Andreu talk about the city and his love for it. I would love to have that feeling of pride for where I live. I suppose London’s okay, bit rainy.

After food we headed out on hardtails to ride some street. My experience of street in England is poor. People don’t build houses as if they want you to ride up the side of them. In Spain it seems they do. There are sections from skate and BMX videos everywhere you look, plus you always get to see a lot more of any city if you’re riding a bike. We found the famous Barcelona quarter/wall ride thing and Grant reluctantly set up his camera. This thing has been shot so much. Kind of felt like tourists stood next to the leaning tower of Pisa throwing the peace sign. In the end Sam got a puncture and we headed back to the van to wash in the sea and go to sleep.

Waking up in a Sprinter van filled with fart and feet–smell is rank, you wake up fast though. Certainly set me up for the day. I was happy to get into Andreu’s truck to go for some shuttle runs nearby. His brother, Lluis, joined us for the day to guide us down the mountain. This place was amazing. I was sucking on my short travel as was Sam, but Bernard and Lluis flew off loving it. There were loads of different runs and the uplift had some fairly wild 4×4 action too. Lluis told me about the local hero here. He lives in the town in the bottom of the mountain and is widely known to all the locals as the World Champ. Needless to say he embraces it. I imagined people applauding as he drives by. Signing autographs in the street, getting with all the hot girls. What a guy!>>