Review: Racing Through The Dark

 It's easy for me to be cynical about professional cycling as a sport. When I read that the speed of the current top racers are higher than during the EPO-doping era, I find it hard to believe that the sport is clean. Racing Through the Dark is David Millar's memoir about his cycling career. Like many professional athletes, he graduated high school and proceeded to aim directly for a career as a professional bike racer, with a half-hearted application to an art school only as a backup.

David Millar must have been extremely talented, because by his account, he did not dope and in fact, won many of his races clean, including his debut at the Tour de France. His account of his descent into doping was largely a story of being influenced by the culture, first, with teammates injecting themselves with vitamins and iron for recovery (interestingly enough, with no scientific studies showing that this was better than eating or drinking those nutrients), and with his team, Cofidis, deliberately turning a blind eye to drug use, employing metrics and bonuses that paid of with race results. Of course, at that time all professional cycling teams were like that, so it wasn't as though you could join a team that was clean.

The book was written and published before Lance Armstrong confessed to being doped up when winning his 7 Tours and being stripped of his title. Millar confesses that he didn't know one way or another whether Armstrong was doping, though he must have heard rumors.

Ultimately, Millar served his suspension and returned to racing, though much older. He describes his work and advocacy of anti-doping agencies, as well as his struggles against the French tax authorities because his agents had setup tax avoidance schemes on his behalf. I thought the book was well worth reading, and depending on how you view his credibility, makes it seem like it is possible to race professionally and win against dopers with good results. Then again, even if he was doping, he would lie and say that anyway, right?

First Impressions: Santa Cruz Blur

 Competitive Cyclist/Backcountry was offering a 2024 Santa Cruz Blur C at $4300. That in itself was a good deal, but what sealed it was that they offered an upgrade to T-type transmission for $800, and I would get to keep the old non-T-type parts for converting one of my other bikes, which I've been wanting to do for quite some time.

I will commend Backcountry for their excellent customer service. The bike arrived with a broken cassette, 

and they promptly sent me a new one, and paid for a local bike shop to do the cassette swap and also tweak the derailleur.

The bike showed up, I waxed the chain, and took it up Table Mountain/Charcoal Road. While the bike is a good 4 pounds lighter than my old hardtail from 2014, I'm not sure I could tell the difference in weight. The big differences are the AXS transmission shifting system, which shifts perfectly every time and don't get stuck in a gear like my old bike, and the remote lockout. I had no idea what a remote lockout was when I bought the bike, but now that I have one I love it!

The remote lockout lets you twist your wrist which pulls a cable to turn off suspension on both front and rear at the same time. I found myself using it all the time, disabling suspension on a fire-road climb and then turning it back on for every descent. The result is I felt way less beat up on this bike than on my older hard tail.

My big complaint about the bike is the same as my complaint about most stock bikes -- the gearing is simply way too high. I would have preferred if the bike came with 30t or 32t chainrings instead of 34. As usual, bike manufacturers spec bikes for strong 25 year olds, not people who have creaky knees and much prefer spinning up mountains than mashing up them.

Regardless, I set PRs on several downhills on my first run on the bike, indicating that yes, not having rear suspension was holding me back on descending. I also executed several jumps, which meant that the bike wasn't too heavy to get air time!

I guess I don't need to return this bike!

New Touring Bike Concept

Bicycle technology has evolved significantly since I built my custom touring bike in 2008. Back then, I used medium-reach caliper brakes (57mm) and a triple chainring (24x39x50) with a 9-speed 11-34 cassette. These brakes limited tire clearance to 35mm with fenders. After Avocet closed, quality tires wider than 28mm were scarce, so I rarely exceeded 25mm.

When spec'ing a custom Lynskey for my friend Arturo, we modeled it after the Rivendell Roadeo. By then, wide-range doubles with 10-speed cassettes were available. We used SRAM integrated brake levers paired with a mountain bike drivetrain (24x40 chainring and 11-34 cassette). This setup worked because SRAM road and mountain components shared the same cable pull — a compatibility Shimano still resists. Despite a rear-brake-bridge height error — which Lynskey fixed after Arturo returned the frame — the setup proved effective for touring.

By the time I acquired my Co-Motion Periscope, 10-speed 11-36 cassettes were standard. Later, when rebuilding my touring frame, I adopted a 1x drivetrain using a Shimano M5100 cassette and Microshift friction shifters to bypass Shimano's indexing incompatibilities. Removing the front derailleur proved so successful that I have omitted it from every family bike build since.

After retrofitting my touring bike to wireless AXS, I was convinced enough by the ergonomics — and the reliability under load — to start designing a frame around the new drivetrain. Note that if you don’t like having electronics on your bike, SRAM now makes a cable-operated T-type derailleur, which eliminates the need for batteries, and yes, someone has experimented with friction-shifting it!

My touring priorities are reliability, robustness, and light weight. Since my CPAP machine requires nightly power, I always have access to electricity, making electronic shifting a viable upgrade. SRAM's T-type transmissions are particularly tough; the derailleur mounts directly to the thru-axle, eliminating fragile hangers. Individual parts can be replaced if damaged. I’ve long been willing to pay in additional weight in exchange for a more robust drivetrain, and the T-type compromise is well within what I’m willing to accept (it's not clear to me that the T-type dropouts would cause the frame to be heavier than one built for a derailluer hanger).

I remain skeptical of disc brakes. They are heavy, prone to squealing, and difficult to service in the field. Many claim they work better in the rain, but with Kool-Stop Salmon brake pads, I’ve never had any trouble stopping in the rain. Others have argued that rims wear quickly in the rain and wet, but in many years of touring I have yet to wear out a single rim while touring — the reality is that if you’re touring for scenery when it rains your vision is usually too compromised by the precipitation to see much scenery anyway! The reinforcement required for disc forces also adds weight and stiffness to the frame, compromising handling. For example, Ritchey's rim-brake Road Logic frame is 230g lighter than its disc counterpart, before rotors and hydraulics. Given that I'm 140 pounds (and at my heaviest was 155 pounds), the additional stopping power of discs is wasted on me. Years of tandem touring on dual-pivot calipers have also strengthened my grip — enough to skid both wheels in an emergency stop.

My ideal touring bike would combine a T-type transmission with rim brakes. The 142mm thru-axle spacing matches QR 135mm, allowing a stronger wheel with equalized spoke tension provided the hub was not built to support disc brakes. White Industries can custom-build the rim-brake-only-designed MI5 hubs to this spec. Paired with a lighter custom frame built for Tektro 559 calipers, this would clear 42-45mm tires without the weight and stiffness penalties of disc mounts.

A matching quick-release front fork designed for the same 559 brakes would complete the chassis. Yes, it would look odd with a QR front wheel and a T-type thru-axle rear wheel, but the benefits of the stronger wheel and T-type robustness are worth it.

There is one niggle with the T-type chainline, which is designed for 55mm chainlines. However, you can adapt SRAM road-type cranks with 3rd party chainrings to get a 47.5mm chainline which will work with T-type transmissions. Alternatively, a Shimano GRX crank would also work, giving you a 46.9mm chainline, which is just short of the 47.5mm requirement the SRAM specifies for a 142mm thru-axle bike.

The result is a sport-tourer with the robustness of a T-type transmission, the precision of AXS shifting, and the simple maintenance of dual-pivot caliper brakes. This design offers massive tire clearance and field-serviceability without the fragility of traditional derailleur hangers. The hard part is finding someone willing to make it: pairing a T-type dropout with rim brakes is an unusual ask, and tradition-minded builders tend to push back against mixing standards this way. With Paragon Machine Works out of business it might even be difficult to source the frame parts necessary to make this frame. And there is no danger that any mainstream manufacturer (or even custom bike maker) would even consider making a production bike out of this design.

I’m probably not going to order or build such a bike myself for some time. I still love my custom built Strong frame, and it can clear all the tires I need it to clear for the road (35-38mm). But if I should crack my frame, decide to take a gravel-oriented tour or my sons start to get tall enough to steal my backup Roadini, I would start shopping for a custom builder, and this is the article I’ve written to guide him or her as to my thinking.

Upgrading the Touring Bike to AXS Wireless

I've been using the M5100 rear derailleur and cassette on my touring/commute road bike since the 2021 rebuild after the frame cracked and was replaced under warranty. The 1x philosophy has proved correct: the gear range is wide (I only ran out of high gears trying to hang with a fast pack), there's only one shifter to keep track of, and you never drop the chain because the front derailleur was shifted at the wrong time. The M5100's gear jumps are big enough to handle the rapidly changing Bay Area grades, which also force a fresh shift quickly enough that being between gears never lasts long.

My wife's Lynskey GR300 from two years ago, however, was instructive. The disc brakes still squealed annoyingly, but the shifting was amazing — quiet, and so smooth that when Arturo tried her bike he thought a shift hadn't happened until he noticed the pedaling getting easier or harder. By contrast, my M5100, while reliable, would occasionally flub shifts under load. When we built her Ritchey Montebello, I went 1x Eagle AXS again, and that bike performed admirably too: it never missed a shift, and the battery life has been superb.

My White Industries rear hub could be retrofitted with an XDR driver, letting it accept an Eagle cassette. All I'd need was a wireless rear derailleur and dual-control shifters/brake levers. However, SRAM had stopped making those levers, and eBay prices were well into the $700 range — too rich for my blood.

In 2024, SRAM upgraded the wireless Blips to pair directly with their derailleurs, without needing another SRAM device to handle the initial pairing. At $105 a pair, the Blips could be mounted anywhere on the bike. The batteries aren't user-replaceable, but SRAM claims 4-7 years of actual use, and they're light enough to carry a spare pair on tour. My other touring friends had steadily converted to AXS — its wide range and easy pack-up made it attractive for anyone flying with their bike.

In April, I spotted a deal on backcountry.com: a Santa Cruz Blur with GX AXS for under $5K. It got better when a customer rep told me that for $800 I could upgrade the bike to T-type transmission AND keep the original parts — enough to convert my touring bike to AXS. On a mountain bike, T-type has real value: there's no fragile hanger to bend, and those bikes are meant to get trashed. I sprung for the upgrade. After enough riding to confirm I wanted to keep the Santa Cruz, I bought the White Industries XDR driver and a pair of wireless Blips. I already had a waxed Eagle NX chain ready to go.

Rather than do the install myself, I took it to my local shop, The Bicycle Outfitter. I described what I wanted: Shimano driver replaced with XDR, old chain removed, Blips installed under the hoods where the Ergopower thumb-shifter lever would have been on my 2008-era Campagnolo Record brake levers. "But that'll be too fat!" said the shop employee. "Try it!" I said. We took the Blips out of the retail packaging, pulled the hoods back, and slotted them into indents in the plastic body of the brake lever, almost as though molded for them. After we pulled the hood back down over the Blip, it looked right. "OK, but if it falls off or you don't like it, it's on you!" "No problem. Just look at it, it looks as though it was designed for it!"

A couple of days later, I swung by to pick it up. "That hood placement worked out really well!" declared the same shop employee. "It makes the whole setup feel like integrated brake lever shifting. In fact, I'm going to steal the placement idea for an AXS conversion on my own bike. I just ordered the Blips for myself!"

I rode it on my commute for a couple of days and then took it up Montebello Road. As expected, the bike shifted well, and the hood placement let me shift standing, on the drops, or rolling along on the hoods. Moving my hands on a climb from the top of the bars to the hoods to trigger a shift was no worse than bar-end shifters — actually a bit better. I triggered a false-positive shift exactly once. I also programmed the "push both Blips at once" function to push the lap button. (It can also be programmed to show the map screen on the Garmin Edge 840.) The biggest difference would come off road in rapidly changing terrain, where flubbing a shift might mean having to get off and walk. While the Garmin had a gear indicator, I never used it, relying on the bike computer's beep whenever I hit either end of the cassette.

In retrospect, I should have made this conversion much earlier. The shifting is smooth, and the added 10t sprocket would have let me stay in the draft of the fast touring group last year. I wouldn't call it a "game changer" — the engine didn't change — but it's a nice quality-of-life improvement. I can see myself swapping to a smaller chainring eventually to get a lower low gear while still keeping a higher high than the M5100 offered. (As it stands, all I've gained is a higher high — enough that I wouldn't spin out even at 32mph, which is probably much too high!)

(Bike shop employee's converted blip-enabled AXS bike. Note that you can't even see where the shifters are at this angle) Note that this type of conversion can only be done using SRAM AXS components. Shimano does not have any equivalent to the wireless blips.

Recommended.

 

Mallorca Recommendations

 This was my second trip to Mallorca, and I stand by my assessment from the first trip: first, it's really hard to justify a trip to Spain if you're a Californian, since the best weather in Spain coincides with the best weather in the Bay Area as well. Having said that, apparently we got lucky because while it was sunny in Mallorca it was raining in the Bay Area, and it only rained our last day in Mallorca and it cleared up in the Bay Area by the time we got home.

Staying in Pollenca was the right move. We took advantage of both shuttles to get to places we couldn't easily get to and got to do our one way rides, and I had alternate routes that I thought would have been worth doing from Andratx as well. Of course, the return to the hotel was something we did multiple times and the repeats there couldn't be helped.

Xiaoqin thought we could have done well to split time between Pollenca and Soller. That would have given us a chance to ride Puig Major. Maybe 5 nights in Pollenca and 5 nights in Soller would have been ideal, since that would not give you a chance to get bored. The logistics would have been challenging, though: in addition to transporting bikes you'd also have to transport the bike boxes as well, and you might end up giving up some discounts you get from staying in one location for more days.

To my surprise, Trek Travel, which I always considered expensive, is actually very price competitive if you're traveling by yourself. They charge $2000 per person, and include a bike rental as part of the price. Of course, their accommodations is inland and wasn't right on the coast with easy access to Alcudia and the Assos Outlet store, but in exchange you get van support during the day. Of course, for a family you can't beat the way we did it. The single person charge for one person with Trek travel paid for us to have lodging for 8 nights, and still have had money to pay for a guide for the kids the one day we wanted to do the long ride and couldn't bring them with us!

The last time I visited the island someone told me that it was a mistake to bring our own bikes instead of renting. I think that's because he wasn't accounting for a family of 4. The cost savings of bringing our own bikes was over $1000!

The riding in Mallorca is excellent, and different enough from the Bay Area to justify a trip. None of the grades were steep, the drivers were much more polite than California drivers, and riding on the island is like being on a big event ride (century or fondo) every day, day after day. Big groups of cyclists of every type (men, women, fast, slow, old, young) would pass you every minute no matter which direction you were riding. It's just something that you need to experience once in your life, to be in a place that's so oriented towards cycling that bicycles are far more common than cars.

To be honest, even if you're not into cycling, I think it's worth a visit to Mallorca. First, there's plenty to do for non cyclists. Secondly, if you have a decent sized family, hiring a guide to cycle you around might give you an idea of what the sport is about and you might discover that you enjoy it when you're not having to cope with American drivers and bad traffic and are surrounded by many other cyclists to inspire you and maybe even challenge you.

Boen was phenomenal on this year's trip. He tackled every climb with aplomb and learned to use his gears. Watching the "chase cam" videos of him shot by Xiaoqin was a little disconcerting. He handled his bike well, but all the time I found myself aware that if he'd made a bad decision there was little my wife and I could have done about it.

I enjoyed the trip. While I wouldn't repeat it every year, I think that whenever I find myself bored by riding the same local roads for the ten millionth time I will find myself thinking of Mallorca and Girona.

Review: Ritchey Classic Zeta Wheels

 I got the Ritchey Logic Classic Zeta Wheels for around $300 from a mailing list used. At that time, I was just wanting new wheels for Bowen's Roadini that weren't as heavy, and these seemed to fit the bill. I was unprepared for how amazingly well thought out and designed they are for travel.

Without tools, you can remove the freehub body, axle, and driver. These not only come off to make the wheels flat for packing, you can also stuff them back into the dropouts to provide the much needed stiffening for the rear triangle of the bike when packed into a hard case box. This saves the need for a separate stiffener to lose, and stiffens the drive train. As a result of all these optimizations, Bowen's bike packs very nicely into a Performance hardcase (or Trico Ironcase). Much better than all the other more expensive fancy bikes!

I only wish they came in XDR, but if you find a pair of these for sale (used or new), grab them as long as you're still using Shimano HG drivetrains!

April 11: Cap Formentor and Cami de Boquer

We woke up at 6:30, ate some granola, and then rode out with lights on as it was still dark at 7:00am. The ride through town was beautiful in the early morning with no traffic and surprisingly few cyclists. By the time we got to the first pass, we had two groups of cyclists pass us. They were faster than Xiaoqin on the climb, but on the descent I caught and passed most of them—they were clearly English cyclists who were not used to the kinds of speeds you can regularly approach in the Bay Area or Mallorca.

Riding up past the tunnel, a pair of male goats started fighting each other in the middle of the road in front of me. I stopped to take a quick picture and then Xiaoqin caught up and we kept riding with vim up to the lighthouse. It was so nice at the light house with no cars, and just a few cyclists. We took selfies and admired the scenery and then descended.

At this point, I wanted to get back to the hotel to ensure the kids could eat—they had been denied entry to the dining room when not accompanied by an adult at one point during the stay. So I put in a burst of effort and set PRs all the way back to the hotel. I worked hard enough Garmin to re-assess my FTP at 187W, which was a downgrade but perhaps understandable given that I was coming down with a cold and of course was fatigue with a week of fairly hard riding.

The others had already started their ride by the time I got to the hotel, where I parked my bike and started gathering food at the breakfast room. Xiaoqin showed up after a bit and we ate a leisurely breakfast before going back to the room and changing. We packed some water into our backpacks, and then took the bus towards Port Pollenca downtown, where a 10 minute walk took us to the trail head for Cami de Boquer.

The trail took us up high and granted us views of the seaside town before weaving amongst the hills. The terrain was a lot like a desert, wind up and around the hills, but when you saw the mediterranean it was glorious, with cliffs falling straight down to the sea. Even though the forecast was for rain later that day, it was sunny and warm. The thing about hiking in Europe is that you can’t expect a wilderness experience except in a few select places, and Mallorca was not one of those select places. There were lots of people no matter where we went, and on the beach even though there were buoys marking off the swim areas it was quite clear that the water was not yet warm enough for anyone to want to jump in and swim.

We hiked back to the bus stop, and once there, rather than getting of at the hotel, we took the bus all the way to old town in Alcudia, and explored the old town, stopping at a tapa place for Bowen and Xiaoqin to sample their Tapa platter, buying ice cream and eating it before taking the bus back to Club del Sol.

We got back to the hotel early enough to start packing bikes. We started with Bowen, this time with myself being smart enough to not remove the stem but instead remove the removable front plate of the face plate of the stem. As I took  his seatpost off his bike I noted that he had an inch or so left before the minimum insertion line. We had raised both kids’ seats during this trip. We packed his bike, and then started work on mine, which was straightforward and easy --- not having paint on the titanium bike meant that I didn’t even bother wrapping the frame with pipe insulation, trusting the hard metal to resist any scratches from the softer aluminum and steel parts stored in the same box.

After that, we did Xiaoqin’s bike, which also took in the chain oil and liquid wax, as well as any tools not needed to pack Boen’s bike, which we would save for the next day. When we were done we had all the bike boxes back in the luggage storage and the balcony was free of bikes except for Boen’s.

It was Mark’s birthday, and we scrambled around trying to find a birthday present for him in vain, until Arturo had the smart idea that he could sweet talk a waitress into finding a candle and presenting him with a cake.

So it was that at dinner we sang Happy Birthday to Mark, along with the rest of the dining room as a cake got served! I gave Arturo the wine that was in our room that was untouched. It was going to rain the next day so we had no regrets about having the bikes packed so early that there was no chance to ride the next day.

April 10th: Lluc to Sa Calobra via Bike Shuttle

We ate breakfast early and started riding towards the pickup location at around 7:30, with pick up time at 7:45. We rolled into Port Blue exactly as the shuttle bus was rolling in. Stephan and Otto were getting into their “private shuttle” as we rolled out of Club Del Sol. He would later tell us that the “private shuttle” was actually a rescue van that was delivering repaired bikes all over the island. Nobody had told the driver that he was to carry a tandem, and the driver had to do some work to fit that long bike into the trailer.

Unlike the Andratx transfer where Port Blue was the last stop, Port Blue was actually the first stop and the shuttle pulled into Port Pollenca where there were more bikes waiting for pickup. I used the rest room and got a nice picture of the shuttle.

The shuttle ride was relatively short—it being early there wasn’t a lot of traffic to slow down the van with its trailer. We were dropped off at the Respol gas station where Otto and Stephan were already cooling their heels (they’d grabbed some food and popped back into the shuttle) waiting for us.

With that, we started riding towards Sa Calobra. Arturo would later explain to us that the name meant “The Snake” in Spanish, an apt metaphor for the twisty curves the road would take all the way down to the Mediterranean from 2400’ up.  The approach was not flat, but a series of easy rollers along baby-bottom smooth roads that characterize that part of the island.

At the high point, I kept going, only to receive a text message from Xiaoqin later saying that the kids had reached the high point and refused to keep going. Arturo said later, “It was clearly pre-planned. Boen even looked a bit disappointed.” I assumed the kids would ride home from there, since they knew the route, but they had misunderstood and would wait there the entire time. I was willing to let them do this—one of the reasons Boen brought the single was so that he had a modicum of independence, and if you don’t give your kids any rewards for independence then they would just learn to dependent the whole time.

We made it to the Sa Calobra intersection, waited for everyone to gather, and then I gave instructions: if you’re going to take pictures do it on the way down, because on the way up you might not feel like doing so. There’s a climb to the saddle, and there’s a café at the bottom so we’ll regroup there so those who want to ride the entire descent in a flow state won’t feel obliged to stop for regroups. Watch out for traffic because there are places where the road turns into a one lane road and the cars will go in both directions.

We then started the 200m climb to the summit. Once at the top, it was so warm that I decided to just start riding down without waiting for the others. I might have stopped a few times to take pictures, but by and large I just took advantage of the relative quiet to enjoy the flowy descent. At 7%, it was just gentle enough to enjoy the views while still gathering serious speed between corners.

At the bottom, I parked my bike unlocked, walked into the self-service café, bought a cup of coffee and some cake, and waited for the others. They arrived just as I’d taken the first sip. I waved the folks over and we all had a snack at the coffee shop to fuel up for the climb.

Before starting the climb, I mentioned the beach to the group, so we made the customary journey to the tunnel, passed through both tunnels, and reached the beach. It was already bustling with sunbathers, swimmers—most wearing wetsuits—and tourists.

We took photos and walked back, except for Joe, who’d realized that with his speedplays he was better off riding to the tunnel. Once we were back, I told everyone to do the climb at their individual pace, and that the regroup was at the intersection where there was a café. However, if you got there early and got bored, you could turn right onto the main road and ride 200’ up to the tunnel. Past the tunnel, you’d get a nice view of the lake/reservoir.

With that, we were off. Today was the day my training program called for a high intensity of effort, going for 180+ watts for the climb. This proved to be challenging—while 180W seems easy at the beginning, after a few minutes my heart rate started to rise, and it would keep going until it hit pretty high intensity. I tried sustaining this, but after 20 minutes I fatigued and had to back off a bit before resume that intensity. It turns out that learning to hold this power for longer is one of the differences between a structured training program and “riding any old how” the way I’d always done.

At the top, I paused and sat down for a bit. Mark caught up and we rode together to the tunnel and visited the lake. Mark was feeling frisky and rode all the way to the end of the lake and back while I turned around and went back down, parked my bike. Arturo and Joe showed up, as did Mark, and we grabbed a table in the shade. Joe was in a hurry to get back to the hotel, so he left pretty quick, but I bought a couple of cans of coke for Arturo and Mike and a glass of fresh squeeze orange juice for Xiaoqin.

When Xiaoqin came back we started riding back, because Joe texted us that our kids had been waiting for us the entire time and were hungry. Unfortunately, I’d bonked and wasn’t making good speed, though by the time I got to the kids they were already reassured by Joe that I was coming, so they weren’t antsy, though complained a bit about how long we took. “I thought you were going to go straight back to the hotel!” “Mom told us to wait!” “Really?” “Um.. maybe…”

I rode the kids to the Respol garage, where we parked our bikes, and bought a bunch of food to eat. I immediately started feeling better, and by the time Xiaoqin showed up and ate her fill we were raring to go again. The ride back down Col de Feminia was easy, despite the headwind, and when we got to Pollenca I turned on the GPS and routed ourselves back to the hotel along another of Mallorca’s narrow, beautiful backroads, dumping us within a block of the hotel at the main road.

Over dinner, we debated what to do. Everyone was so tired that Puig Major was out of the question. Mark had a proposal, which was to do parts of the roads he’d missed on the first day of riding. That didn’t appeal to me, so I decided that we would do Cap Formentor again, but early in the morning so we wouldn’t get any traffic. The kids didn’t want to ride at all, so we’d get back, eat breakfast, and then take them for a hike.

The others debated options back and forth. Stephan wanted to take both kids on the tandem (Benjamin would fit on a WeeRide, but the constraint then became to get him back to the hotel before he fell asleep). The rest eventually decided on doing the reverse of the short loop we had done 2 days before.

April 9th: Col Feminia

My jet lag was almost completely over, getting up at a normal time and eating breakfast. We hit a snag—Boen had lost the key to his bike at the bike shop! It was a 5 Euro penalty for the bike shop to break the lock, but they were pretty forgiving about it. (I”d tried to pick the lock with various tools, but the lock was clearly of better quality than the locks I had picked on Montebello road 30 years ago)

Leaving the hotel at 9:00am, we rode towards Pollenca and then headed on the gentle climb after drafting a couple of cyclists. Boen was flexing his muscles again, riding hard up the hill drawing thumbs up from the many cyclists who passed him and yet were impressed by a 10 year old riding these big mountains on his own single bike. Whatever else you can say about Mallorca, the feedback from other cyclists were making Boen quite enthusiastic. Boen finally mastered drinking from the water bottle while riding, and then placing the water bottle back onto the bottle cage.

At the top of Col Feminia, I doubled back down to pick up Bowen, who wasn’t actually very far back. From there, it was a couple of climbs before we saw the Respol gas station, which had more cyclists than a typical century lunch stop in the US. The place probably made far more money selling food to hungry cyclists than it made from selling gas!

After that, we descended down to Lluc and followed the limestone cliffs. The road here made Serpentine switchbacks along the cliffs. I had to keep reminding myself to slow down so as not to goad Boen into exceeding a safe speed, but Boen crowed with joy when he caught up t the tandem by finally shifting into his big chainring and pedaling hard.

We rode down to the valley and then back again via the bike route we were now all too familiar with. We dropped the kids off at the hotel but made sure that they didn’t keep their bike at the bike shop, but rather in the balcony of our apartment unit, since we had an early ride the next morning.

Xiaoqin had decided that her shorts were too small, and Mark was also interested in visiting the Assos Outlet so rather than just stop riding I picked up a backpack, stuck Xiaoqin’s shorts and receipts in there, and we rode to the Assos Outlet, only a half hour by bike rather than a 40 minute bus trip wich interminable waiting times at bus stop. Arturo took a look at the prices on Assos’s website and complained that a full kit from them cost more than his bike (which was an exaggeration). I was too tired to explain that only the shorts are worth it for me (though Xiaoqin loves their jerseys)  and they were 40% off at the Outlet rather than paying inflated US prices.

I’d been dreading riding the Playa du Mura strip, but to my delight our Garmins routed us onto beautiful backroads, including a gravel bypass which was a delight. Even the short section on the strip wasn’t oo bad as trains of cyclists dominating the road chased away annoying cars!

I was so impressed by the Assos half-shorts that I was determined to buy a second pair for touring use this summer. Xiaoqin exchanged her shorts for one sized bigger (despite the staff continually telling her that she really was in the right size), and found a nice pair of sunglasses as well as another item at a great price. We made it back to the hotel in time for dinner (and for Arturo to say that he would have come with us if we’d told him we were riding there instead of taking the bus) Mark didn’t find any tops his size but did buy shorts as well as the deals were really too good to pass up. We also bought cereal and lactose free milk for breakfast the next morning, as well as instant noodles and mortadella.

At dinner, we ate well. Stephan had managed to arrange for a private shuttle to take him to the Respol gas station the next day, since his tandem wouldn’t have fit in the regular shuttle and the regular shuttle was sold out anyway. He would report later that the “private shuttle” (which was not at a big premium to the regular shuttle) turned out to be a driver who was delivering repaired bikes all over the island.

The kids complained about riding the next day. I pointed out that the bike shuttle was basically giving us a free 1700’ of climbing!

That evening, Mark did extra homework and gave us a new route that started from the Respol gas station instead of Lluc proper. In addition, he noticed that there was the possibilities of using the backroads through Pollenca instead of the main road we had ridden the day before.

April 7th: Andratx to Club Del Sol

Waking up early, we ate breakfast in our room, which had a kitchenette so we could make instant noodles and a couple of coffee pods. Mallorca is on the far end of the central European time zone, which meant it would be dark fairly early in the morning, but in exchange it stayed light enough for cycling until 8:00pm.

The bus ride was  uneventful. I’d always assumed that people taking the bus were all going to do the gorgeous coast route, but in fact, the English cyclists who shared the bus with us were planning to use the easier inland route. They were very impressed when they heard that Stephan and Otto were also going to do the coast route.

The coast route to Estellences starts with a 1000’ 5% grade. Joe was worried about his battery lasting the entire day, so he chose to do the first couple of climbs without battery assist. Once past the first climb, the ride develops an undulating character, swooping up and down the contours of the terrain, granting beautiful views of the mediterranean that rival California’s highway 1. What made it better, of course, was that first, the road was in exceedingly good condition, amost perfectly smooth, as though repaved only in the past year or so. Mallorcan drivers are also far more polite than their California counterparts.

We stopped for coffee early on, and ate Empanadas and had coffee to fight jet-lag. After that we rode to Esporles and then towards Deia, where a supermarket lunch was the order of the day. At this point, the group was broken up—Xiaoqin, Joe, myself, and Mark Brody in the forward group, with Arturo providing support for Stephan and Otto on the backend.

Past Deia, the road does one final climb before descending to Soller where rather than ride Puig Major we would ride Col Soller, itself a 1600’ climb from almost sea level. What sucks about Soller is that the road pavement is terrible, and up until the auto-only tunnel, cars and bicycles share the same road. At the tunnel entrance, however, bicycles get to ride the old road rather than the tunnel. While this adds 1000’ of climbing, in the mid afternoon the shadows were long enough to provide ample shade, and there’s a café at the top that wasn’t there the last time I rode by 7 years ago.

I was feeling bloated and mildly nauseated from having eaten so much over the day, so all I did was order a lemonade to share with Xiaoqin. Mark came by, and then we all elected to ride together the rest of the way. Mark had routed us through Bunyola, where we did decide to give the Orient valley a pass for lack of time. From there, it was not 10 miles of riding before we hit the bike path we saw 2 days ago. Since I now knew all the short cuts I took over navigation duties. I even had enough energy for a finishing spring kick.

We made it back to Club del Sol just in time to take a shower before dinner with the kids., who had gone for a ride with Adria Bauza, a guide highly recommended by Brad Silverberg. Ironically, the kids had ridden the Orient Valley via ar shuttle (which had newly paved roads) , and they would be the only ones to ride the Orient valley on the trip. Bowen even had a flat which highlighted that his front tire had worn out. Good thing we had a spare tire with us!

Arturo, Stephan and Otto would make it right after dark, giving themselves 15 minutes to load up their plates for dinner. That night, Arturo's call for an after dinner walk got no takers.

The kids had had a great time with Adria, and they considered the ride with him one of the two best rides on the trip.

April 6th: Cap Formentor

The last time I’d gotten to Mallorca, I’d ridden every road I could, but at the last minute Linus Gerdemann had informed me that I had neglected to include Cap Formentor. This time, I was determined to rectify that oversight. Rosie would join us today so Stephan and Otto had a chance to rest up in preparation for Tuesday’s cross island tour.

We rode North from the hotel, through the beach area of Port Pollenca before finding the main road to the Formentor lighthouse. Stephan had ridden this route earlier, and said that he’d never seen so many road cyclists on one road. Indeed, even though the hour wasn’t late there were cyclists in both directions (the route was an out and back).

After the first climb, the road descends almost all the way down to sea level before winding away around the Peninsula. As we started the second climb, Bowen rode up and said, “My shifter doesn’t work.” One look and it was obvious that his shift cable was a goner, along with the barrel adjuster on his downtube. Arturo happened along, which was fortunate. He ripped the cable away from the stop and make-shifted a knot. The chain settled onto 4^th gear, which would let Bowen finish the ride albeit without the ability to shift.

To Bowen’s credit, he refused to let this obstacle stop him. He kept going on a single speed, demonstrating that even if he kept professing that he didn’t like riding, once he got started he had the will to finish. The ride passed through a tunnel, and then a final descent before a short climb to the lighthouse itself. The final approach had turned into a parking lot—there’s no metering for parking at the lighthouse, and despite it being a Monday the parking lot was already full and cars were now jammed up along the road, with many drivers making the ill advised decision to do a 3 point turn on a single road adding chaos to the clutter. While everyone agreed that the ride was gorgeous, we all agreed that the traffic was the least favorite thing about the ride.

I started descending from the lighthouse but then I heard Mark shout “Piaw, wait up!” A cyclist caught up to me and asked me if I had an 11s quick link. Normally I would have an extra quick link, but because Formentor was so short, I had swapped out my normal saddlebag for my extra small saddlebag which did not have any spare quick links! I was flattered that everyone thought that I was the kind of person who would have such spares and normally I did, but not today! I would remember much later that I actually did have a spare quick link in Xiaoqin’s saddlebag but she’d already gone on ahead!

The return felt far easier than the outbound leg of the journey. Part of it was that Xiaoqin was going to pace Bowen while I paced Boen. Boen had elected to bring his single bike on this trip and he was making the most of it, attacking each climb with vim and working for all he was worth, able to stay in any draft on the flat.

At the top, we waited for Bowen before doing the hike and then doing the descent to Pollenca, where we went to find a bike shop that could replace his derailleur cable. It took 2 tries since the first one we tried was about to close for lunch. I had also assembled the crank wrong, leaving too much space on the left crank, and I tried to borrow a Shimano tool to fix it, but the shop mechanic said he’d just fix that as well.

Boen wanted to head back to the hotel to play with Otto, so he rode off with Arturo while Xiaoqin, Bowen and I had lunch while waiting for the bikes to get fixed. Just as we had finished eating, the bikes were done. The charge—15 Euros including the replacement cable.

We rode back with no incident. To my delight, the buffet dinner was different every night and would remain so every day of the trip. Joe had arrived and picked up his rental bike. We had to get up and leave at 7:00am the next day for the shuttle to Andratx for the ride across the island. We discussed various options. Mark suggested that we leave out the Orient valley to save about 1000’ of climbing, and that appealed to most people.