Ada Xinxó or “Ada non-stop”: energy, enthusiasm, and two wheels to change life
REAL STORIES
Published 28 Oct 2025
/
By
Ona Canales
“Vayas donde vayas, siempre te encontrarás catalanes”, me asegura. Y me lo creo. Ir en bici le ha permitido conocer a sus mejores amigos y a gente de todas partes; en su casa y fuera de ella, bien lejos. Incluso en Nueva Zelanda. En una competición, hizo unos amigos belgas, y al cabo de tres años se los volvió a encontrar, pero en otro país y en otra carrera. Esta es la magia de la bici, según Ada Xinxó.
45 años, el sello de Sabadell en la piel y una pasión que involucra dos ruedas y muchas ganas de hacer piernas. Cotilleando su cuenta de Instagram, veo que se define con una frase que dice que la vida contemplativa la deja por otro día. Cuando hablo con ella, ratifico lo que ya me intuía que quería decir: “que no me sé estar quieta. Aunque esté de vacaciones, tengo que hacer una aventura u otra.”
Wonderful, I think, we are facing yet another case of extreme dynamism. Let's see if we learn.
Ada competes in MTB races (or mountain biking, since now we also want everything with acronyms), both long-distance and ultra-distance, as well as stage races here and there. This translates, for those of us who are just humbly introducing ourselves to this subculture, into races of 70 to 120 kilometres in the case of long-distance and 500 to 1000 in the case of ultra-distance. Not to mention the stage races. I faint.
The most curious thing for me is discovering the origins of this hobby. Because Ada hasn't always been dedicated to it. She was an executive secretary at a company and one day she said enough. She shifted to the cycling field, which she recognised as her passion from the age of 30, and held positions in bike shops, as a bike guide, and in online sports shops. Once the Covid-19 pandemic was over - or at least under control - she returned to being a bike guide (both on road and gravel) especially for tourists eager to soak up the beautiful landscapes in southern Europe.
But why cycling? And more so, why at 27 or 28 years old? “I wanted to change the unhealthy life I was leading,” she says. “Working, partying on weekends, smoking…”. She set the goal of reforming her habits and started running, but found it exhausting. I empathise, Ada. Later, she tried cycling and she liked it. That experience turned into a healthy practice that also had a significant social component and took her to places she had never been before. To top it all, one day (and as if by chance) she was amazed after cycling 80 kilometres. Then she saw things clearly and started entering races.
She adds, holding back laughter, that she went from going to bed at 5am to getting up at 6am to go cycling. What a plot twist, Ada, I admit it. “I was very clumsy as a child,” she confesses to me. It seems she had tried many sports as extracurricular activities, but none of them quite convinced her. However, during the holidays her cousins and she used to get around on bikes. When she tried it again as an adult, it suited her perfectly. Also, partly, because it took her for a while into the midst of nature, which is always a good thing.
Before asking her about Salssa (no, she still hasn’t tried any pouch), I try to delve into the link she maintains between food and sport. I’m left speechless when, without any kind of fuss, she remarks that “I’m very much about eating what I feel like and trying to do it balanced.” She doesn’t overthink it, which, in reality, I don’t think is bad at all. Each to their own!
To finish, I resort to a typical question that suddenly seems mysterious: could you be okay without doing sport? “No. I need to move,” she declares with a mix of enthusiasm, energy, and liveliness.
No wonder they call her “Ada non stop.”
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