Gritliner Spotlight Series Issue 03 - Judit Muñoz

A teacher, a cycling editor, and 320 km that taught her something else

Judit rides out of Girona and L'Escala, on the coast. She teaches primary school during the week and writes for Nafent Magazine on cycling and the outdoors. In 2020 she made cycling a serious habit; this year she rode La Traka 320, and the night section through Brunyola taught her something she has carried into every long ride since. She has a strong opinion on coffee stops.

Where she rides out of

Judit rides out of Girona and L'Escala, depending on the day. Born in Catalonia and shaped by a childhood near the coast, she has been on bikes since she was small, but cycling became serious in 2020. Before gravel she rode mountain bikes, which taught her the bike-handling skills she still leans on and the taste for being off-road. Her week splits between a primary school classroom and the team at Nafent Magazine, where she works on cycling and outdoor content.

Her Catalonia

Her home loop starts in L'Escala. From there she rides up through Sant Martí d'Empúries and Torroella de Montgrí, into the quiet gravel roads of the Alt Empordà, and back to the coast: around 80 km and 900 m of climbing depending on which variation she takes. The loop has, in her own list, everything: gravel roads, small villages, Mediterranean views, the constant sense that you're still discovering something new.

She is more diplomatic about cafés than most. Coffee stops are a part of the riding, not a postscript, and choosing a favourite feels like choosing a favourite child. Pressed, she names La Maglia in Girona and Rustik out near the Empordà, but the broader advice is to keep finding new ones.

Asked when to come, she says late spring or early summer, the window when the sunflower fields are open, the temperatures are still right, and a swim in the Mediterranean is a viable post-ride decision. To anyone visiting for the first time, her note is to not fixate on the famous climbs. Leave room for getting lost on small roads and stopping for coffee and views, she writes. That isn't softening the ride. That is the ride.

A ride that changed something

La Traka 320. Physically she felt strong that day. But the night section through Brunyola where the head has to do most of the work taught her something she has carried into every long ride since: approach the distance as an experience, not a challenge. Trust the process when the final kilometres feel endless.

It's not a piece of wisdom you can absorb from reading it. You have to ride it.

What she carries beyond Brunyola is the same shift the night taught her, scaled up to her calendar. She used to sign up for every event she could. Now she chooses rides and races that genuinely excite her: a new adventure, a new place, an experience she knows she'll enjoy. Fuelling has improved alongside that, she says. But the bigger change is the one about choosing.

Approach long rides as an experience rather than just a challenge.

What riding gives her

What riding gives Judit, in her own word, is perspective. The screens come off, the routines come off, and the simplicity of the moment becomes the moment. She doesn't say it more than that.

The ritual part is more specific. There is almost always a coffee before the ride or after the ride, sometimes both. The pit stop is not negotiable. Cafés are part of the route, not a footnote to it.

What's next

What Judit is working on, twelve months out, is improving as an all-round rider and saying yes to adventures that put her outside the comfortable side of the calendar. The route at the top of her list on Gritline is The Pedraforca Loop, a route Issue 02's Théo Tommasini named as his home loop. The rest is open. That, she suggests, is the point.