Poet

Manuel Roca revaluates the calendar. Two days from the end of August; for him, the very end of the year. The herd celebrates New Year’s Eve on the 1st of January; Manuel Roca does it on the 1st of September. The year culminates at the end of summer. Like reaching an orgasm, it is an escalating flow of events that terminates on the 31st of August. Soon, the leaves will start falling from the trees. The wind will toss them in the air. Melancholy, he likes. The gathering of memories and living tightly related with a reality tasting of dream. All is now exaggeratedly extraordinary. Life is certainly tough, painful and at times humiliating but, besides the physical exercise that constitutes a truthful goal, it turns into a valuable source of initiative, action and courage: it teaches not to count on anybody or anything which is extraneous to the ambience naturalness but to rely only on one’s self, bare as one is. All of this just in order to reach the coveted personal goal. Manuel Roca is prey to doubt, to pessimism, slave of anxiety: 3 invisible monsters that day by day seem to devour him. The sensation of being on this planet to do something important which he cannot fully perceive. What is it doing here, on earth? Sometimes, the idea of wasting his time invades his tranquil land. He must possess a talent, an ability to express; everybody has at least one that renders us individual. The motif of his presence here, the sense of life, a good reason to keep on fighting or simply breathe to survive. Sincerely, he is not sure to be happy or not, surely he has liberated himself from lots of useless things he used to think important. Reading, watching movies, listening to music, remaining sat in silent. He takes pleasure with the company of his new imaginary friends. It occurs very often that Manuel Roca is more in syntony and intimacy with writers, film directors, poets and musicians than with people that have known for many years. Some books lines, movies dialogues or song lyrics seem to echo his inner voice. He lives isolated but never on his own. He is surrounded by people that interact with him via their works, their art masterpieces.

Jean-Paul Sartre

It is difficult to come up with two human activities which are more different than cycling and writing. The former implies physical action, whereas the latter involves mental commitment. However, in the opinion of Lucio Royas there is a connecting thread tightening the two; the sense of freedom they guarantee. As a cyclist, he feels free to choose routes, intensity and companions. This is pure luxury in a world where people are bound to respect and submit to an endless number of laws and rules. As for writing, Lucio Royas enjoys the freedom of juggling with words to transfer on paper all is going on in his head. Writing is when he does not have to allow notions he inherited to take him over. Writing is trying to think things up for himself. Writing is his form of resistance to the taken for granted and to the conventional. Jean-Paul Sartre maintained that people are condemned to be free. Condemned, because man did not create himself and from the moment he is thrown into this world he is responsible for all he does. Being responsible for all his future actions, Lucio Royas feels condemned to cycle and write.
Lucio Royas is convinced that mankind will not inhabit planet earth soon. It appeared millions of years ago purely by chance and, in his opinion, will not survive for very long. For that reason, he would like to feel sad but, deep down he likes seeing how it is exterminating itself. Probably, if he was born in a less defeatist world, he would not enjoy his existence so much. Or, perhaps he would not be the same sort of person. Considering himself diverse and out of the pre-imposed schemes cramming people everyday lives make him feel content. Yet, there are issues with his personality he would like to change and that he will work upon little by little. He loves being able to model those features, amend elements he does not like, create mental environments in which to imagine living. For him, reality is what he creates in his mind, and in his mind he has originated a personal reality. The limits are what surrounds him, nevertheless, also these are modifiable. Often, he asks himself whether his thoughts can be objectively deemed as being better than those going on in the majority of people’s mind. The answer is yes. His thoughts are authentic since generated by his proper mind and therefore free from all the pre-established thoughts inflicted upon people by powerful and controlling lobbies such as religions, politics and Media. In his view, these institutions secretly teach people the way to think and act creating a reality which eventually favours the maintenance of the institutions themselves.

That was Pecol

That was Pecol, laying in silent at the bottom of the valley. It was a fast finish did Manuel Roca think after spending 7 hours on the saddle. In one way it was a shame not to terminate the race with the first group he ascertained, but the problem he had with his left knee did not permit him to fully put all his concentration in the race. In the back of his mind the pain he experienced was too vivid to allow him to push the pedals as hard as he wanted. At any time he expected to feel the pain which fortunately, never occurred. His pedal strokes were gentle like he was strolling on his bike in the mountains surrounding Pecol. In the end he was just too happy to be there and not in bed with an aching knee and for that reason he smiled as he crossed the finish line. Determined to start the race, he felt better and better as he went along. He passed the first route split and without thinking he opted for the long option. On a double carriage road, he pedalled on his own. He could have waited for someone to share some work in the wind but he preferred to carry on with the pace he found most comfortable. As the race left the wide road, it entered a tortuous territory full of ups and downs. Manuel Roca felt great on most of them; his legs span fast, his heart throbs were regular and well within its limits and his lungs distributed oxygen to all tissues. When he reached the second split, Manuel Roca faced the biggest dilemma of the day. Long or medium route? In all honesty he did not brood over it for too long and decidedly turned left heading for the long route. Soon the road plunged into a narrow valley, Manuel Roca took a quick peep to the speedometer and read 74 Km per hour. He went ecstatic and a sense of pride went through his spine. Like a bullet Manuel Roca acquired more speed and as he took another look at the speedometer he noticed this showed naught. Immediately he realised that the magnet tilted on the spoke and the sensor could not read anything. Manuel Roca stopped to verify whether his intuition was correct and attempted to fix the problem. Unintentionally, he touched the rim and found out that it was very hot. He imagined the brake pads clenching it to come to a halt and figured out why he scalded himself; he smiled. He looked for the magnet and realised he was right. He tried to fix it but this was too loose and therefore would have needed a screw which he had in his tolls bag under the saddle. He decided to take the magnet off the spoke and carry on without the support of his speedometer; he did not like the idea but did not want to waste much time. Nobody caught up with Manuel Roca who carried on accompanied by his own thoughts.
He crossed a bridge over a river that in that point screamed all its monstrous fluvial power. This went through a very narrow gorge that increased its rage before flowing into a spectacular reservoir. Manuel Roca felt the vigour of Nature siding with him and immediately shifted the chain on to a harder gear; his knee was not aching. He left the marvellous sight behind and started climbing a long but steady slope where he overtook a group of riders that included a girl. After a few hundred meters, with 2 more kilometres to climb, he got caught by a group of 5. Manuel Roca joined them without problems since their pace was perfectly bearable. Three of them were taking turns in front whilst the remaining two remained on the tow. Manuel Roca copied the latter and did not feel guilty. A long winding descent cut through fields crammed with hundreds of sheep. Manuel Roca did not trust the woolly animals and feared that they would jump in the middle of the road. For that reason, he began pulling his brake levers too often and lost touch from the group of riders he was part of. He did not despair and as they tackled the following climb he managed to reel two of them in. The stronger ones became smaller and smaller up the road, Manuel Roca thought he could stay with them but, at the same time, he did not want to take any risk to put his life in danger.

The pace was good as the three took regular turns in front. Manuel Roca felt the urge to piss and was forced to stop and leave the two guys fly away from him. He did not like the idea but the need to stop was too strong. The second feed station is in sight, Manuel Roca stopped and grabbed as much food as he could, possibly too much. He went off on his own thinking how beatiful it was to pedal in such an extraordinary place.

Manuel Roca never felt really tired and reached the end of the race well within his limits. He was pleased he finished and that his knee did not stop him on the course.