THE funny thing about long-distance cycle rides is that after a while all that pedalling in fine sunshine sets up a kind of numbing rhythm in your head that makes you a little bit mad.

Soon after I began my skedaddle through the lush region of Garrotxa in northern Spain, I found myself reflecting quite intensely on the fact that this ride was jolly easy because I was on an old railway track - and railways are flat, right?

Next moment I found myself almost falling off in a paroxysm of uncontrollable giggles because it occurred to me that the trains in Spain run mainly on the plain.

Yes, well. Luckily, there was nobody around to witness this side-splitting insanity. In fact, I was mostly on my own over the next three days, lost in a strange, solitary green wash of trees and volcanic ridges, silences and birdsong; this gentle, distorting madness of tranquillity and motion. And it was lovely, if faintly weird.

The world's best cycling holidays

The best bespoke holidays, from a five-star dawdle in the Lakes to an epic pedal in the Cambodian ricelands

10 cycling challenges

10 testing routes, from easy in The Hebrides to extreme epics in Mallorca and India

BACKGROUND

• Cycling with the Italian cyber guide

• A bespoke weekend in Devon

• Wheelie weekends around Britain

• Paris in a spin

• Tour de France... in Kent

Related Internet Links

• More than 50 articles in our Active/Cycling travel section

This is precisely the atmosphere of the vías verdes, or greenways - old railway lines that are being converted into cycle and walking paths all over Spain, signposted, level and fine, covering at least 950 miles (1,500km) so far.

The line I was testing runs for just 40 miles between the city of Olot to the hotspot of Girona. It began with a flight into the bustle of Girona, where I was picked up and ferried to the seclusion of a faintly anonymous hotel on the outskirts of Olot.

I would set off from here next day with a sheaf of trail notes, my bag winging ahead. What's to say about Olot? A lot, obviously. Britons hardly know the place, yet it offers all the squares, nooks, galleries and surprises of better-known cities but without the flagrantly touristy distortions.

At noon the next day I hit the vía verde, beginning, dead centre, in Olot. One moment, city bustle. Next: this green, lonely, flat gorgeousness. Such a strange transition.

I flew through cuttings. Over tiny bridges. Beneath low mountains. Through woods. Pedal, pedal, pedal, following a sweet, sandy strip sometimes straight, sometimes curving into quiet lanes, past or often through small villages... to Les Planes d'Hostoles, where I wheeled my machine up the gravelled drive of an extraordinary hotel: the Can Garay.

Think of a gigantic pinkish birthday cake covered with creamy frills and twiddles and you've an idea of this Art Nouveau confection. Inside, gloomy period furniture and a gentle greeting from the Spanish-English owners. Outside, a ramble of gardens and tables, where I sipped chilled sherry, nibbled ham and olives and probably muttered to myself - legacy of the trail.

This was my base for two nights while I took that side-loop into local valleys, probing tranquil silences, encountering a magical waterfall and a church in a hamlet where I listened to bees and nothing else at all.

But it was a lunch that really rocked my socks. Catalans love big midday meals and for once I decided to do it their way, so in the wonderful stone village of Sant Feliu de Pallerols, at the bar Cala Matilde, I wolfed down salad, paella, huge portions of chicken, crème Catalan, coffee, and chilled red wine, for £8.

Then I carefully carried my stomach back on to the bike to spend the rest of the afternoon working it off up sweaty hills. “Dinner at nine?” they inquired, back at the hotel, and wondered at my sickly smile.

The trail grabbed me back then, dashing me in and out of pooled sunlight, as I half-ached to get to Girona, half-longed to remain in rural silences. Nearing the city at last, I paused for a final trail-side picnic of cheese, tomatoes, and - well, yes, more cake - finding myself shouting manic Holas! to the growing numbers of bikers passing by, reluctant to go, reluctant to stay.

Yet getting into Girona in the end was stunning. The trail made its final thrust through shaded woodland and vast rich allotments, so the change to city roar when it came was oddly instantaneous.

Bikeless now, I wandered Girona's ancient walls, recovering urban sensitivities with sips of rich tempranillo in a dark bar, El Café in Carrer dels Ciutadans. I gasped at the cathedral. Bought yet another cake. Indulged, in other words, in all the bustly charms that make cities worth visiting.

But the truth is that the journey itself, that flying ride down the once-iron line, was the thing that gave both Girona and Olot their acute sense of place. Do try the vías verdes. You'd be mad not to.

NEED TO KNOW

Inntravel (01653 617906, www.inntravel.co.uk) offers a four-night independent cycling break in the Hidden Valleys of the Garrotxa from £449pp, based on two sharing (from £578 for a lone cyclist), including transfer from Girona airport, B&B, three dinners, maps, cycle hire with panniers, but not flights.

A seven-night trip, cycling the Lakes & Volcanoes of the Garrotxa, costs from £622pp, based on two sharing.

Information on the vías verdes network: www.viasverdes.com

Times recommends

• New York's top 10 new hotels
• A Scottish monastery retreat
• Welcome back to Rwanda