lanterne rouge

morning views from the first pass of the day

It's a perfect climate for cycling - no wonder there are hundreds, no, thousands of Europeans here on cycling holidays.  We stop in Port de Pollenca and Gayle has a morning dip in the bay.  An older English couple see our loaded bikes and stop to chat. They're cyclists.  Come every year.  Their hotel has a huge basement lock-up full of bikes - they leave them here because it's cheaper and easier.  (What a good business move that is.) We're amazed.  We've only just arrived, and the cycling so far, apart from the high number of rented cars, has been really good.  But we've just come through Greece and Italy where the only cyclists are locals and the scenery is fabulous.  Why would you keep coming back to the same place?

Pollença

We take a country lane through farmland to Pollença ,stop for a bit of lunch and then opt for a low valley route on a tiny country road which winds between old stone walls. Makes us think of Yorkshire.  The road rolls along and we are swept up by a peloton of Spanish cyclists.  You can't escape the buggers.  They soon leave us for dust.  

just like Yorkshire......apart from the barbed wire fence and the olives

We arrive in a large sleepy village on a hill.  The one-way system is soon ignored because we don't want to descend and then climb again.  Campanet is quiet. 

It's the end of the afternoon and in the main plaza the cafe waiters only half-heartedly try to tempt us to sit at their tables.  Loaded up with water we push on and down into another valley, sticking to the edge of the northern hills.  We are looking for a camp spot but there is too much fenced land.  We pause in Binibona, a mere blink of a village, and on to Caimari.  Too many of these stone walls.  Gates all locked.  Majorca is proving to be a test of our wild camping skills.  We cook our dinner in Caimari, foregoing the plaza which is full of mums and tiny kids all rampaging around - the kids, not the mums, opting for the church carpark.  Gayle goes for a walk to look for a camp but no dice.  So, we gird our loins and start the steep climb out of the town and into the mountains north of town.  We have woods on our right and ancient terraces on the other.  The terraces are old and look neglected in places.  Olive trees in various states.  As the road climbs a track appears and it leads into the vallley floor.  We abandon the road, dash down the track and choose a terrace with a bushy tree to hide behind.  Phew.

Over breakfast we hear cyclists puffing up the road opposite.  We soon join them.  Plodding up slowly as the road zigs and zags through the trees, to false passes, constantly climbing.  A leg burner.  The stream of cyclists on road bikes is incessant.  We get a few comments of the "You've got a lot of gear" type.  When the trees fall away and we get good views Gayle stops to take photos. 

The cyclists just keep pedalling away, heads down, arses up, rocking back and forth rhythmically, staring at the tarmac ahead of them.  Can't see the pleasure, myself.  The ride is wonderful and we reach the pass to discover a pair of walkers who we saw at the bottom have made it up the footpath quicker than us.  We really are the slow-coaches.  At a cafe we have a pee and ignore the plate asking for 1 euro.  A paunchy Englishman in lycra tells us he's on his day-off.  He's climbed this road already, just the other day.  "So why are you doing it again?" Gayle asks.

At this point the road splits.  We want to visit the monastery in the village of Lluc and we need to buy some food.  The road is straight downhill.  We will have to come back up the same way.  Oh well, here goes! 

Lluc isn't a village with a monastery.  It's just a monastery.  Thankfully there is a shop with a few groceries so we're not going to starve.  We are going to be fleeced.  The monastery gardens seem like a good place for me to get over it.  We take it in turns to wander around the grounds and the buildings.  The place is humming with the steady arrival and departure of tourists.  The carpark is full of cars and buses and cyclists crowd around the cafe, because that's what they do.  

I think they do a rolling mass for the coachloads of pilgrims and tourists

Climbing back up to the high road isn't as hard as we expected and we're soon floating westwards and enjoying the views northwards.  A broken wall gives us access to a field to enjoy our lunch.  We sit in the shade of a tree and ponder whether to camp up here.  But it's only 2 o'clock.  Instead we carry on, the road busier than ever with cyclists.  We sing the opening bars of "Daytripper" as they whizz past.  Norwegians, Brits, Dutch, Danes, Germans, Belgians.  Clipped-in, helmeted and lycraed in matching colours.  Even the socks.  What's with all the black shirts - is it a fashion to make yourself harder to be seen??  These cyclists are riding these hills every day, riding 100 km routes in circuitous loops from and back to their hotels.  It's their holiday.  We mooch along in our low gears. It all looks rather competitive considering there's no competition.  Or have we stumbled into the Tour of Majorca? In which case we surely are the lanterne rouge.

Majorca is popular for walkers - but in macho Spain only males are allowed to carry backpacks

our lunchspot

After quite a beautiful stretch of changing views full of chasms, craggy peaks and coastal cliffs (dig the alliteration!) we come to another junction - with a road off to Sa Calobra.  This is today's objective for many of the cyclists - a ride over the pass and down to the sea and then back up.  Bradley Wiggans trains on this road in the winter.  But seeing as neither of us has any, ahem, asthma medication, we give it a pass.  

 
Further along we come to a reservoir.  Above the road are woods and we seek out a nice spot in long grass on a shelf above the road.  The only trouble is we have to unload the bikes and get everything up there without being seen.  It's on a long straight stretch of road, so when there's a lull in cars and cyclists we strip the bikes bit by bit and hide the panniers in the trees.  Up and down in about five goes and then the bikes too.  Is it worth it?  It's always worth it.

cooking dinner whilst nursing my hernia

"Gayle is this elephant grass?  Should we keep an eye out for Big Game?"