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.

April 12-13: Epilogue

 

We had breakfast in the morning at 7:30am, with everyone gathered around. Outside it was cloudy but not raining, though the wind was definitely blowing. Arturo and Mark were going to the airport at 10:30, Joe was going to Palma to pick up his wife, rent a car, and explore Mallorca for a couple more days before flying to Seville, and Stephan, Rosie, Otto, and Benjamin were headed home directly to Munich.

Our own flight wasn’t until 8:00pm, so we had all day. After breakfast, we packed Boen’s bike, which was in a cardboard box. We removed the front wheel, jammed in the fork stiffener, removed the rear derailleur and duct taped it to the frame. We then removed the handlebar from the faceplated stem, and then dropped the entire bike like that into the box, and then piled in all the padding we had brought with us from the US. I extracted all the duct tape I needed, then dropped the remainder of the roll into the box. We then taped up the box and put wheels at the bottom and rolled it back into the bike storage area.

That gave us plenty of time to get back to the hotel room, wash our hands, and pack and then check out of the hotel. We were all done by 10:00am, just in time to see Arturo and Mark off—their taxi had arrived early!

We took the bus to Alcudia, and this time found the city wall where we could walk on it—like a mini Girona! It was windy and we started feeling raindrops, but that did not stop the continuous stream of cyclists on the main road which we spotted as the bus drove us to Alcudia. I reflected later that given the large number of cyclists from England the rain might just be a familiar thing for them to ride through!

We ate lunch at a relatively new restaurant (one that had just opened 2 weeks earlier), which had good sandwiches and empanadas, and on the way back to the bus stop spotted a Japanese restaurant ran by Chinese people. It wasn’t very good though!

Back at the hotel, we said goodbye to Stephan and family. Arturo had texted us that the left luggage at the Palma airport was under construction so there was absolutely no point getting to the airport earlier—we wouldn’t be able to explore Palma unless we were willing to lug our bike boxes around!

Our bus arrived promptly at 5:00pm, and we loaded up the boxes in the rain. The drive to the airport went without a hitch, though we did get a text notification that our plane was 15 minutes delayed. At the airport, we easily got carts that could handle the bike boxes and wheeled them to the SAS counter. We were informed that our bikes would be checked all the way to San Francisco (awesome!) and we wouldn’t have to retrieve them for our overnight layover in Copenhagen.

Unlike in San Francisco, however, where the staff just took our bike boxes, we had to manually cart them over to the oversized luggage area, where we gave them over and then we could clear security and have dinner.

The flight went without a hitch and once in Copenhagen I was impressed by how we could get to the Comfort Hotel at the airport without stepping outside (a big feature because it was 11:00pm by the time we landed!)

The next morning, we woke up to a fantastic breakfast. The place was so good that it was quite clear that a business meeting was happening next to us. After that, we had time to visit downtown Copenhagen and visit the famous street where Hans Christian Anderson lived. What was annoying was that there was an app to automatically pay for public transit on my phone, but the settings on the app was not sticky, so even though I’d paid for Xiaoqin on the way downtown, on the way back to the airport that setting got unset so when the ticket inspector came he gave us a ticket.

Back at the Comfort Hotel I had time to file an electronic appeal, and then we checked out of the airport and went through the airport to find our gate. We had to clear the passport control. The Euro-wide EES was fully implemented as of April 10^th, but to my surprise at 10:30am there was no one at the passport control for our gates. The lines piled up but eventually people showed up and we gave our facial recognition biometrics at which point the passport officer told us they would no longer stamp our passport.

Unlike every other international airport, Copenhagen’s waiting area for international flights did not have duty free shops! So we could not even buy any treats for folks back home. The flight back home was relatively easy, with only a slight scare when an airline representative came to the baggage claim area to tell us that all our bikes were lost. There were quite a number of Europeans who’d travelled to the USA just for the Sea Otter Classic so this was a big disappointment but to our surprise the oversized conveyer belt fired up and all the boxes started showing up including our bikes!

Boen’s bike was in horrid shape with TSA obviously having opened the box and not bothered to try to tape it shut, but when we got home we discovered everything was undamaged and even the leftover roll of duct tape had made it back!

Steve Wang gave us a ride home and we were all done!

 

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 8th: Emita de la Victoria

We all woke up late and had a leisurely breakfast. Before getting organized for the hike, I replaced Bowen’s front tire. I also took the time to rewax my chain and Xiaoqin’s chain rather than replace the chains with freshly waxed chains we’d brought with us. For the hike, Arturo was so impressed by Emita de la Victoria that we booked 2 taxis to do the hike. This was an out and back hike to the summit of the peninsula, which granted us a nice view of the area. Unfrotunately, Benjamin’s stroller couldn’t get up the super step stuff, so when we had all regrouped we elected to walk back to the bus stop at Bonaire.

The bus stop at Bonaire, however, turned out to be decommissioned, so we had to order taxis anyway though the taxi was cheaper this time since w’d walked a couple of klometers off the fare! Back at the Club Del Sol, Mark suggested going sailing on the Hobecat rental he’d seen in Pollenca. Boen was at first excited but as soon as they mentioned they were going to ride there Otto mysteriously got a headache and Boen decided not to bother. The kids definitely took the “rest” part of the rest day seriously.

Xiaoqin and I had spotted that there was an Assos Outlet and I determined that we could visit the Outlet by bus. It was a 40 minute journey, but once there I found what I had never found before in the US, which is size medium Assos men’s half-shorts (no-bibs) at 75 Euros. I actually test wore both the medium and the large and they both seemed to fit fine, but the staff there looked at me and said, “You’re a medium. Large is too large.” Xiaoqin had found some shorts, a nice jersey and a jacket as well. We spent our money and made it back to dinner.

At dinner, we discussed the next day’s route. I walked through all the options, including Ruda Cuda, which was an 82 mile ride. With fresh memories of the 83 miles the day before in mind, nobody was excited about that. I’d also suggested doing Cap Formentor again—in fact, everyone agreed that Joe who hadn’t done the lighthouse ride chose the next day to do so, and to do it early. With an e-bike, he could leave at 7:00am, bike to the top of the lighthouse, and get back to the hotel before the breakfast room was closed and avoid all the traffic we had seen on Monday!

We eventually decided on a short loop I’d designed to climb Col Feminia, and then descend to Lluc. I’d laid it out so that folks would have a chance to ride up Col Feminia which was the designated descent for Friday’s ride, where Sa Calobra would eliminate any desire to take the harder route back to the hotel if ridden at maximum intensity.