Yesterday Nicki and I did a little exploring—heading out of San Llorenc, we took the Cami des Pou and the headed north on the Cami son Drago, it’s one of the loveliest 6km of road we’ve ridden, through farmland, meadows and pine, olive and carrob groves. The little lane comes out on the Ma-15 San Llorenc to Arta road, so you can either turn left back into San Llorenc, or use the road as part of a route to Arta (perhaps coming back on the ‘Greenway’ cycle path, having ridden the wonderful road up to the Betlem monastery). The Greenway is a 2-year old ex-railway path, surfaced with a compacted clay/gravel top. We rode only three days after heavy rain, and it was firm and dry—an easy ride even on 700c x 23mm...
It’s been a busy cycling week on the island, with the Mallorca 312 sportive / gran fondo last Saturday, and the half-ironman triathlon today. The triathletes today are competing in a steady rain, but the sportive riders a week ago had beautiful weather. The winning time for the 312km was 8 hours, 52 mins, 38 secs; while the slowest on the results sheet was 13hours 53 mins dead. If you fancy the challenge next year, drop us a line and we can build a holiday around the big day. The roads of Mallorca have never seemed so full of cyclists to me; on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I rode the climb of the Col de Sa Batala up to the petrol station and back down each morning. Perhaps because the descent is on the triathlon route course, the usual throng of cyclists going up or down was boosted by many triathletes, distinctive on their aero bikes (they were all out on their race set-up, best wheels on), and with their triathlete-dress (I have seen many sleeveless jerseys and compression socks, and best of all: sleeveless jersey with compression arm-warmers, leaving a white gap of skin on the shoulder in between). I feel a bit sorry for them; riding all week in the beautiful weather we’ve had—22-24 degrees and blue sky—only to get 19 degrees and steady rain today. Our clients here on holiday this week saw the wet day coming on the forecast and planned a rest day for today, but the racers have no such recourse. I fear there might be some riders sliding out on that Sa...
The Strada Bianche race is today, over the gravel roads south of Siena. It’s the most beautiful race of the year, perhaps, and surely the most beautiful race of the spring. I’ve compared the finishing climb into Siena with the climb out of Bunyola to begin the Col D’Honor before—a short steep climb between the houses. But this year, as excitement builds for the race I realise that the gravel roads aspect of the race is Mallorca-like too. Once, of course, all the roads in Mallorca were gravel, but steadily they’ve been surfaced, partly for the cyclists who come. But there’s still miles of gravel roads around. A recent issue of Cyclist magazine asked how many bikes you need (the answer was lots), and a gravel bike was one of the essentials they listed. Perhaps we could run gravel bike tours of Mallorca! It would take some scouting (normally I’m checking lanes to make sure they are good pavement!). Get in touch if you’re interested! These pictures are taken from PezCycling News’ excellent preview of the new sector of the course,...
The track world championships start today. If you’re in a country where the UCI hasn’t sold the broadcasting rights, then you can watch their livestream of the event here. In the UK, the BBC is showing loads online here and on TV. But the broadcast schedule won’t catch all action as it happens, so if you want to know whether the world record falls for the team pursuit this afternoon (as Wiggins says it will), without having to wait for the highlights program tonight, then the results will be going up live on the Tissot Timing...
Which picture do you prefer? The track world championships start tomorrow, Wednesday. The top picture is the 2014 Madison winners: Muntaner and Torres. David Muntaner is a Mallorca-boy, of course; he runs the Cycling Planet store in Alaro, so if you want to buy a new tube or gel from a world champ, stop in. This year Torres is listed on the Spanish team, but it seems Muntaner isn’t in the team. But of course we’ve plenty of reason to watch on Sunday afternoon as Wiggins and Cavendish ride the madison for GB. They were the world champions in 2008 (don’t they look...
