Mallorca 2017

Last week we were in Mallorca for a family holiday with a bit of cycling thrown in. Simon's wife had organised it all, which made our life easier as all we had to do was book flights and a hire car. Amanda had even found out a cheap place to hire road bikes (Venska in Palma, only just over 60 euros for the week for a basic but perfectly good ultegra equipped aluminium and carbon framed bike). We were staying in the beautiful village of Deia which is on the north west coast of the island and is where a lot of the classic Mallorcan climbs are. The idea was to get some warm weather training in while also having a good family holiday too and in the main, I thionk we got the balance right.

Our first ride was a 64 mile effort, with a start climbing up the Col de Soller, just outside the town of Soller (suprisingly enough!) before heading down over the other side and then going towards Bunyola and Orient. We stopped in the village of Alvaro which was wall to wall lycrs from all over the world, including a few Austrians who were sinking a few beers before getting back on their bikes. I still can't work out whether I should be horrified or impressed.

Alvaro Square. Lycra city.

The next day was a family day at Port de Soller on the beach but in the evening we got out for an evening spin for a couple of hours, again cycling from Deia and climbing Soller and returning home. 2 hours before eating from the barbeque. Perfect.

The next day I have to say I was feeling a bit second hand but we had another big day planned. This time riding from Soller out to Sa Calobra and then back. It was a relatively modest distance at 44 miles but the Sa Calobra climb is as brutal as it is beautiful. Literally contless hairpin bends it requires a lot of concentration on the descent with some very big drops if you get your lines wrong, but it is a truly stunning piece of road. By the time we had descended to the port I was already feeling pretty wiped but had a big plat of pasta, coke and chocolate ready to ride home. Unfortunately, it didn't do the trick and I struggled back up as the temperature climbed. The rest of the ride which also meant another climb up Puig Major was a bit of a slog, but if youre going to bonk it might as well be amongst some stunning scenery.

The next day was another rest day, which was a walk into the town of Valdemossa and some shopping and sightseeing, with another evening gentle spin, this time heading in the other direction along the Ma10 towards Valdemossa. The light ran out on us a bit but the descent back to Deia was fast and furious, being a long gentle descent with sweeping bends enabling us to keep the speed up. it was a complete grin-fest.

So we decided that our last ride would be a bit of a monster, and so it turned out. 88 miles with over 12,000 feet of climbing, including Soller and a descent and climb of Sa Colobra again. It was actually much better this time and I was a couple of minutes quicker up than two days before, despite not going at it as hard. Simon was considerably quicker than me up it but being over 10kgs lighter than me, he was always going to be pretty quick going up, particularly as it is a couple of percent higher in gradient compared to the other climbs we were doing. The descent back into Soller is just epic, taking a good 10-12 minutes and with long sweeping bends we were comfortably over 70kms/hr at times. It didn't do much to bump up our average speed but it certainly gave our battered legs a bit of a rest.

I really feel it's given me a bit of a boost and next week's ftp test will let me see how much. In the meantime it's time to get my head down and get some proper running in ready for the Outlaw. It's also about time I started thinking about getting wet, because at this rate I'm not even going to make the cut-off for the bike!