The third stage of the the Challenge Mallorca pro race was the most mountainous. You can see a 25 minute highlights video here. It’s long enough ago now that I am not going to try to keep the winner a surprise: as the title of this post reveals, Cancellara won (the video kind of misses how he did it; you see him in the big breakaway group a few times, like at 14.00 minutes-in; then you see him attack just after summitting the highest point of the day, 24.10 mins-in; but you never see him overtaking the little break of three that was ahead of him—oh well). The route shows many of the best mountain roads on the island: roads which you’ll ride if you take a holiday with us. The race started in Port de Soller, and climbed south over the Coll de Soller (the climb starts 5.33 mins-in; they summit at 6.25 mins-in; and descend until 7.15; the pic is a screen-shot of the helicopter view of the descent, at 6.38 mins-in). The Coll de Soller is a must-ride route (since the cars go through the tunnel, it’s a traffic-free mountain pass), but the two most common places people stay in Mallorca for cycling holidays put it out of reach: from Port de Pollensa/Alcudia area it’s over 60km to the base of the climb; from Palma Nova in the west it’s about 50km. That highlights the benefits of not using a company that puts you in an out-of-season seaside hotel: stay with us and you’ll be near the best routes. From our hotel or villa in Alaro,...
This is a pretty long day in the saddle at 146km, but the hardest climb—the Soller pass—comes at the start when you’re fresh enough to really enjoy the hairpins. The pass is lost in a time-warp (as this old postcard image suggests), as since 1997 all the traffic to Soller goes through the tunnel, leaving the old 57-hairpin road to the cyclists (and the Brit who runs the cafe at the top). You can load the gpx file via the link at the bottom of the page. © OpenStreetMap contributors Download file:...
The second stage of the Trofeo Mallorca (aka the Challenge Mallorca) ran from Pollensa to Andratx: that’s the width of the whole island East to West. The peloton started at the base of the famous 365 steps in Old Town Pollensa (just 200m from our villa). I won’t give away the result of the race, as you can see the highlights video here. From the start the race headed south and east to Alcudia before looping back on itself and climbing up to Lluc monastery by the north-east ascent (you can see them whizzing past the monastery turn at 11 mins in). Then it’s down the wonderful Lluc to Caimari descent (the cameras didn’t catch this, sadly as it’s a road very well known and well loved by all our clients; but you can see them zoom through Selva itself at 11.54 mins in). Instead of going through Inca, the route turned through the not-very-picturesque village of Lloseta before passing through the much more picturesque Binissalem (where they had their feed zone—as do many of our clients: Restaurant Robines and Can P’dal are our favourite bars). Through Santa Maria to Esporles, the peloton moved from roads very familiar to Cycle Mallorca clients to more westerly roads, less familiar. Apart from one intrepid adventurer who road solo to Andratx and back from Campanet, it’s really only clients from our Alaro villa who have ventured this far west (here is a route that takes in all of the best roads in the northwest corner of the island, but it’s still a 146km route). They report that it’s great riding here: the...
The Challenge Mallorca race took place last week in Mallorca. This year the race has been moved earlier in the calendar, I guess to make room for the Dubai Tour, which started today. There’s a video of highlights of the stage here, so I won’t give away the winner. This first stage covered the south of the island—areas that most Cycle Mallorca visitors don’t get to see as we focus on the north where the mountains are more. But there’s some beautiful riding here as you can see from the video, roads that we’re now incorporating into the first day of our Tour of the Island. This tour starts in the little seaside resort of Sant Jordi, down the west coast from the Bay of Palma, and heads east to the second night’s stop in PortoCristo. Watch the video and get a taste of the atmosphere of those...
Today is a special day for Cycle Mallorca as it’s my father-in-law’s birthday. Whether or not I’m in Mallorca on the day, I always think of what’s going on there on this day of the year. A birthday tradition for him is to go up and see the almond blossom. This pic is taken on the road between Campanet and Selva (towns where two of our villas are located); it’s about 200m above see level and is an almond-growing area. the blossom is good today—sometimes the 3rd of Feb is a little too early for the best of the blossom, but this year, with the mild winter in Mallorca just as in the UK, it’s out in abundance today. The blossom will be out for a while if you fancy hopping over to get that spring feeling; even a trip in mid-March shouldn’t be too late. Unlike California where the almond trees are mostly clones of one parent plant, in Mallorca they grow the old varieties and so the blossom varies in timing and in colour: some pure white, some very...
