I saw everything in Barcelona that I wanted to see except the Picasso museum. Instead of visiting the museum I spent half a day looking for a motorcycle mechanic where I could get new break pads for the front wheel of my bike. Since on a bike you use the front break a good 95% of your breaking time thus wearing down the front pads a lot faster than the rear ones. Especially if you are riding lots of little curved roads where you break frequently as I did. As far as I know break pads should be changed every 15000 miles. My bike has now 18000 miles.
I found out though that on Fridays half of the city seems to shuts down at noon. Small non tourist shops close during noon and sometimes don’t open again until Monday next week. I had found one shop that would do the work but they wouldn’t do it before the weekend. Carrying out this kind of work myself is something that I wanted to avoid under the circumstances that my bike is essential for the whole journey and there was no time for mistakes.
A review of Barcelona on the internet had said that driving through the little lanes of the city was so much fun. I didn’t experience that. It was annoying. Traffic is extremely heavy almost all the time except after 10pm. You stop and wait a lot more than you move. All that while being exposed to direct sunlight at around 35 degrees or more. Additionally the traffic rules don’t seem as important as in the UK for example. People cut you off or completely block the lane next to the parking lane. There are always cars stopping right in front of you for no apparent reason. Often the lane on the right is not usable because there are so many cars parked there. Exploring the city on foot was more comfortable anyway though. Despite the fact that you could actually drive through the tiny little lanes where people usually walk. This seems to be common throughout Spain.
For the time being when I was stuck in traffic I gave up my self imposed ATGATT rule for a little while. The heat was so bad that I felt it was a bigger risk to be stationary in the glaring heat baking in my cloths then riding without my jacket. Of course I could have stopped and parked the bike for the day but I figured at the speed we were moving the risk was minimal and I didn’t want to lose another day.

After having checked all the accessible shops I realized that I would not get new pads in Barcelona. There was still some bike maintenance that could and had to be done though. And that was lubricating the chain. It was bone dry. Riding many miles and the heat together made the oil evaporate extremely quickly.

I spent the rest of the day with more sightseeing and headed towards Valencia late afternoon. I wanted to get to Valencia the same day but everything went slower than I had hoped. Riding off the highways slowed me down as well. It was getting dark and I was still not close enough to Valencia to make the decision to push through.

So I started going further and further away from the main roads trying to find a good camp site. Finally after an hour I discovered a forest with a path through it. I rode 10min into the forest and found a nice spot next to a dried up river where I set up my tent in the light beam of my bike.

As expected this night would be a little cooler since I was a bit elevated and in the forest and in the middle of the night I actually had to get my down sleeping bag out. Usually I either don’t use any at all or just a very thin single cloth layer sleeping bag.