Full Circle
Silvie, Wouter, Ashleigh and Carl outside the Rocacorba Cycling front door.
I didn’t even realise it was happening but there it was: a Dutch couple I’d met at the Boels Rental Women’s Tour in September last year at my doorstep. I couldn’t place them right away, but I knew I knew them. They reminded me; after I had won the QOM jersey on stage one, we met and I gave them my podium flowers. Now, here they were in Spain, at Rocacorba Cycling, and making our vision into a reality. Let me explain…
When we first started Rocacorba Cycling, I had my racing life and my business life. When we opened our doors, it was about more than being a hotel and cycling destination. Rocacorba Cycling was and is part of a big dream to bring the parts of cycling together, to marry the right hand of cycling passion with the left hand of sustainability. We wanted a place where everything could viably function together so there were no barriers between cyclists, cycling stakeholders, and everyone in between—a positive feedback loop, so to speak.
That positive feedback was loud and clear when Wouter and Silvie came to stay. We’ve had fans become guests, guests become friends, and friends become family over the years but having fans come to stay because I had connected with them in person at a race was something special.
Racing life and business life have really become symbiotic and that alignment feels so organic and fulfilling. Seeing that connection grow and gain momentum is motivating and uplifting—we hope for our guests also. We aren’t just a hotel. We aren’t just a cycling destination. There’s so much more to experience and feel, not only at Rocacorba Cycling, but beyond our ancient stone courtyard.
We welcome everyone to join us in 2020 whether it’s following my races and preparation for the Tokyo Olympics, coming for a cycling holiday, staying at the hotel and enjoying Catalunya, or connecting with us on social media and being part of our journey from afar.
From our family to yours, best wishes and we hope to see you in 2020!
Our First Olive Harvest
None of us ever thought we would buy a giant vibrating comb. That’s essentially what an electronic olive-picker is. If you thought you would never read a sentence like that in your life, think about how we feel writing it! First and foremost, we are cyclists, not farmers. Nevertheless, with Can Campolier we became the caretakers of over 100 olive trees and so the farming began.
As with most of our farming endeavours, it all began with a Google search. We needed to know everything: when to harvest, how to test if the olives were ready, how to pick them, press them… and pretty quickly after that: “buy electronic olive picker online”.
An electronic olive picker is basically two big-tooth combs on the end of a long vibrating stick. With a large net covering the ground around the tree, up and into the branches goes the vibrating comb while the farmer (that’s us) makes a combing motion.
Waterfalls of olives fell from the branches and, with the help of a few extra hands, in the space of four days we had collected over 400 kilos of olives. Of course, the only thing to do with 400 kilos of olives is to press it into oil. Locals had directed us to a specialized olive oil pressing place (yes, those exist) near Roses and so we drove our harvest towards the coast.
In the end we picked 900kg of olives, made farmers out of 10 people, and came home with 100 litres of home-grown, cold-pressed olive oil. It didn’t just taste good, it tasted satisfying.
Contact us if you would like to join the olive harvest in 2019 and get your hands on the giant vibrating comb!
