The Gay Cycling Training Camp

On the Spanish island of Mallorca
Springtime (April)

Report

The Gay Cycling Training Camp has taken place each spring for the last nine years. It is a joint event with the Gay Sunday Walking Group, who have a walks programme. The weather at this time of year is ideal for cycling, usually sunny but not hot. It has been known to rain and again it can start to get a bit hot in which case there is always the sea to cool off after a day's cycling.

We start the week with a ride along the coast to Portas Vells, for a beach side lunch, the return journey being a choice of more gentle undulating countryside or a more inland route taking in the first "Coll" of the week.

For the rest of the week we split into two groups, with people moving between them depending on the routes. This gives us the mix of rides for either the more serious touring cyclists or the recreational cyclists. Being based in Palma city we have access to the coastal routes, the central plain and the mountain range. The climb to the monastery of Cura at 500metres gives stunning view across the whole of the island. Calvia, through the administrative centre for the major tourist resorts in a word apart in its own valley and offers a number of mountain routes.

We have a number of routes that have shorter options so allowing participant to give themselves a challenge but not to turn the event into one long slog.

While cycling through the interior of the island we were greeted by fields of brightly coloured wild flowers, poppies, daises and marigolds. The orange trees were also in full flower so whenever we passed an orange grove the air would be full of the smell of the blossom.

As we explore the island further year by year it is very clear that this island offers routes that can include the mountains to give as challenging ride as anyone could wish but also rambling countryside that is so pleasant that it is a joy to amble through on a gentle ride.

Booking details for the next Training Camp

Following is a selection of photographs that have been taken during the Training Camps.

Click on the thumbnail to get a larger picture.

Rachel's Diary of the 10th Training Camp

Trip to Mallorca

Sunday 6th April

I got here late last night after one of those ridiculously straight-forward journeys where everything is easy and on time and you don’t have to queue for anything. I didn’t even feel too sick on the plane (although that was in no small part because I resolutely didn’t read.) I forgot, of course, that passport control is minimal so you just waved your passport at them and in you walked. I took a taxi into Palma from the airport because the next bus wasn’t for half an hour and it was late, and I am rich and worth it. So I was in the hotel not long after 11.30 and turned the light out at midnight, which really wasn’t too bad at all. Bugger global warming, if flying is that easy. I had left home at 6.15.

When I opened my curtains this morning I couldn’t believe my view. The hotel is some way back from the Palma seafront but it is at the top of an alleyway, so my room has a clear view down to the water. The sun was shining from a blue sky and twinkling on the silver water, while massively majestic (and not a tad pretentious) yachts and gin-palaces bobbed in the marina. I have a little balcony with a table and two chairs. Not bad for £32 a night. Mind you, the rest of the hotel is stuck in the 1980s. I like it, though. No telly, no radio, no phones in the rooms. The bath is quite deep but tiny. Barely room for Rabbit, and not a chance of a look-in for All His Friends and Relations. If you sit in it cross-legged and pull your knees up you can just wriggle into it. I don’t know what anyone bigger than me (or Rabbit) is meant to do, though. Have a shower, I suppose.

I went down to breakfast at 9.00 and met all the others. We should be a group of 12, but one person didn’t get his passport in time so hasn’t come. They all seem nice. I only know one of them, a chap called Graham. They are all London Cycle Out members and I am the only Bristol person. I think the hotel is gay, or at least gay-friendly and gay-run. Entirely men, of course.

Getting our bikes was as easy as getting here last night. I have a German lightweight racer road-bike with fewer spokes than I’ve ever had. I got my pedals on first time. As I asked around for the communal pedal wrench someone asked me if I had grease. I was able to say I had, with an air, I hope, of someone who would never dream of travelling without a tube of lithium grease. I got my saddle on, too, with 98% success. It is positioned fine but I can’t stop it cracking slightly when I pedal. It didn’t bother me during the ride but I was aware if I was with other people that it must have sounded quite annoying. I suppose it’s not quite tightened enough, but I can’t get it any tighter. It was a comfortable ride all day, though. I think I shall have a happy week on that bike.

And off we set after not much of a group faff at all. The ride today was to be a “nursery ride” that was gentle and gave us a chance to get used to our bikes. We are a mixed-ability group and I think I’m near the top in the hill-climbing department but doubt I could hold some of them on the flat. We wove along Sunday-morning streets, with relatively little traffic. It really is the most excellent cycling area. Drivers are extraordinarily courteous to cyclists and there are a lorra lorra cyclists. There are a great many serious lycra-types – German and Italian Big Dogs hunting in sleek packs – and a small but pleasing number of women who seemed out to ride seriously. Mr and Mrs Average were also riding around on their holiday, as well as families out with small children. There are good quality cycle-paths (eschewed by the European Big Dogs, of course, who zipped past on the roads) which cross roads frequently but the cycle-paths have the right of way, which is brilliant. So there is no “Cyclists Must Dismount” nonsense like in England.

It didn’t take long to get onto quieter cycle-paths and the spring flowers were everywhere. The daisies, especially, are lovely and of every colour. I wish I knew more about flowers, but if ever there was an example of velleity, it’s my wish to know more about flowers and my inaction towards learning. We went past a large building set back in a huge garden and the scent of the flowers behind the fence nearly knocked you off your bike. I haven’t experienced anything like it since the June morning when I rode past the high wall of the rose garden at Mottisfont. There were orange trees and lemon trees in blossom. I know this because some of them still had their fruit from last year. There were palm tree groves (date palms, maybe? Oil?) and generally lots of rustling palm trees, whispering in the cool sea breeze. And there were pine trees smelling glorious in the heat. It felt like my days of riding in California or Brazil and it felt very good.

There were lots of sparrows being busy. Later on there were greenfinches, goldfinches and chaffinches. The most exotic bird I saw all day was an egret, but it was very nice to see so many little chaps. I realise how few sparrows there are in Bristol now. We came into Magaluf, which wasn’t too ghastly in daylight, and went to a café for elevenses. There hadn’t been tea for breakfast and I had quite cheerfully had orange juice but thought I might as well have tea now. I sat at a table in the warm sunshine with the cool sea breeze, looking out over the beach, through the murmuring palm fronds and could have been in Brazil. And the Brazilian experience extended to the vileness of the tea so I shall not be having tea for the next week and will thus prove to my friends and family that I am not the addict they believe me to be. At one stage the most enormous ice cream came out for one table, complete with large paper umbrella. I must have one. A young woman rode up to the café on a serious bike and took a table. She was remarkably easy on the eye, and clearly knew what to do on a bicycle. About five minutes later a young man rode up, also on a serious bike, and all my elevenses companions perked up at the eye-candy. He went over to the woman and sat down, and they were clearly more than just riding buddies. Peter asked me who was more disappointed, him or me.

We wallered on and took a rough, but surfaced, road up a long hill through a pine forest. The flowers were beautiful and the smell of the hot pines was fab. Then we bumped down the other side to a little cove that had no business existing at all. It was perfect, with crumbling red and cream cliffs and a sandy bay. Boats bobbed on the crystal-clear water hushing gently onto the shore and families played on the beach. So it was an excellent place for lunch and there just happened to be a little restaurant that did a fine Spanish omelette for us all. Little Graham (not the Graham I know, who is Tall Graham for the sake of distinction) told us a joke that a military officer goes into a brothel and says to the Madame “£100 for the pleasure of my company for the night?” And the Madame looks him up and down and says, “It’s a deal”. So he turns round and yells, “Com-pan-ay!” Well, I thought it was funny. And then we trundled back up the rough road and vibrated and shook back down the other side. Just a detour for lunch.

There was rather more climbing then along to Calvia, which is a dear little town nestled in the hills and olive groves. I knew my cousin Andrew lives there but don’t know where. We stopped for coffee (I stuck to hot milk – my Brazilian standby) at a lovely bar where old boys were sitting in the gloom, smoking to make the air thick and playing cards for money. Then we went up and up the prettiest valley with olive groves and sheep and lots more spring flowers, before turning up the Col de Sa Creu, for a good climb. I do so enjoy climbing. I think I may have mentioned that before. The view at the top, looking down into Palma was glorious. All along that section, Big Dogs were pounding up or whizzing down. This is serious cycling country. We took the hairpin descent fairly cautiously and in no time were back in Palma. The whole ride was only 62km and it hadn’t been fast and there had been a fair amount of waiting around for the slower riders, but it had been good fun. So four of us went off to find ice cream to celebrate. Daryl is going to be my ice cream partner in crime, I think.

Monday 7th April

It wasn’t as warm this morning and there was more of a breeze, so that sometimes you might be tempted to call it a wind, rather than a breeze. I kept my jacket on all day but the sun shone for much of the time and it was still very much warmer than it would have been back in snowy England.

Yesterday we turned right out of the hotel. This morning we turned left. We went down onto the seafront and rode along a beautifully smooth, clearly marked cycle path. It was quite narrow and although bikes could easily pass by in each direction, you did have to concentrate on being on your side. We bowled out in the blustery morning, past “my” marina that I can see from my bedroom window with the gin-palaces and multi-storey yachts, and on to moorings for just the more averagely affluent boats. Palma is clearly a major port for little boats. Streams and streams of cyclists came towards us. There were pelotons and phalanxes, groups and individuals, almost all lycra-ed up beyond the eyebrows and riding quality machines of carbon fibre at the very least. Almost all appeared to be German. We saw so many German riders today that I am fairly sure that if one were to go to Germany tomorrow, there would barely be a bicycle to be seen. They are all here.

We went through downtown Palma, past the very impressive cathedral, which is highly ornate and positively Gaudi-esque with all its twists and twiddly bits, but built after the Islands were retaken from the Moors, so predating Gaudi by just a bit. Maybe he got his ideas from it. Peter said its altarpiece was done by Gaudi, so perhaps I’m not the only one to see a similarity. The Royal Palace is just next to the cathedral, rather dwarfed by it, but pretty enough up on the hillside, with its creamy pink stone, looking out to sea. The path took us through a little park where I got another blast of that fabulous smell we had yesterday but that I couldn’t place. I think maybe it’s jasmine or mock orange.

The cyclepath wove tightly along the coastline, jinking sometimes at 90 degrees just to help us practise our bike-handling skills. I worried slightly about meeting a peloton of high-octane Germans on one of the bends but luckily we never met there. At one stage we rode along a wooden boardwalk, which was fun because I like wooden boardwalks. We rode past the airport, where it seemed an AirBerlin jet was landing every couple of minutes (although I did see one Ryan Air jet coming in too) and on to another stretch of coastal resort. One coastal resort looks much like another except that this whole stretch was as German as Palma Nova and Magaluf yesterday had been English. The menus and signs outside the cafés were all in Spanish and German – and sometimes Catalan of course – but not in English. We stopped at the ironically named Café Parisien for elevenses after about 12km. There was nothing French about it. I think ours were the only English voices there and everyone else was German. We shook our heads firmly at a steady stream of African men who were trying to sell us sunglasses, jewellery and watches. All of it was genuine Armani, of course. Actually, as my watch has packed in I was tempted, especially as it would have been Armani, but I think I’ll do better to wait until I get home. The café was also notable for me being challenged in the loo, despite my longer highlighted hair and being in cycle clothes. Nice to know I’m not losing my touch.

Fairly soon after elevenses we left the seafront with its thrashing palm fronds and turned inland up a rather busy road (certainly busy compared to the roads yesterday). It was a bit of a slog up the hill into the wind, but it was well-surfaced and had a good wide shoulder and we turned off it soon enough, to go along a delightful lane, with spring flowers everywhere and creamy-red dry stone walls between us and the fields of barley and orchards of almonds, olives and oranges. All the time, of course, nodding at the on-coming stream of German cyclists. We came to Sa Torre, which was a tower, so there are no complaints there for the name. Peter said it looked like someone had taken the top off Ely cathedral and put it on the ground. And it really did. Its architectural style was not unlike the cathedral down in Palma but it was much smaller. I’m not sure if it was originally part of a monastery or church or just if someone fancied having a tower. It was derelict until a few years ago but has been done up and apparently the Hilton group are going to make it into a hotel with a golf course. Oh well. As we were waiting for the others to catch up, I heard the scream of swifts and looked up to see them wheeling their scimitar ways across the Majorcan skies. That was very nice. I wonder how long it will be before they get to England. A group of riders came through and they were definitely French, which made a change.

The road then was fairly flat, although it was quite hard work to ride into the wind to Llucmajor, where we were to have lunch. The mountain behind it with the monastery on top looked impossibly remote. I couldn’t believe we were going to ride up it after lunch and be back in Palma in time for tea. It was 16km to town but kilometres go a lot faster than miles so we were there in next to no time. Llucmajor is a lovely little town, with a proper town square, complete with town hall, church, banks with a cashpoint machine that would give me some money (phew) and several cafés including the Café Colon (well, where else were Cycle Out going to choose?) We sat outside and I was only just warm enough but it was sociable and it was fun to watch the little town going about its business (and all the other cyclists coming and going). I had a tortilla sandwich and I think that is probably going to be my staple lunch. As it was in a French stick, it was a “bocadillo” in Spanish (a “sandwiche” comes between flat pieces of bread) but I saw that it is an “entrepan” in Catalan, which I much prefer. It does what it says on the tin. There was also freshly squeezed orange juice, so that was a must after riding past orange groves. And the café did its own homemade almond cake (a speciality of the region), so I had to have a piece of that, and I reckon that covered all the major food groups. I was quite chilled by then, though, so was pleased when it was time to ride on.

We took a really quite main road out of Llucmajor. There was no shoulder at all and a rather alarming sharp drop immediately beyond the white line down into a deep ditch. There was a similar set-up yesterday leaving Calviá, so clearly that is how they build roads around here. Entire populations of small German towns flew down the hill past us, as we toiled up, before turning off onto the quieter road for the monastery.

It was a climb of seven and a half kilometres, apparently. I loved every minute of it. I haven’t had a climb like that since Mt Mingus, or maybe climbing out of Oak Creek Canyon on the way to Flagstaff, Arizona. It was just steep enough to be a good challenge but not so steep you worried you’d lose your balance. The road wound obligingly, switchbacking up the mountain so you got alternate vistas in opposite directions. There were some very tight hairpins but the road surface was good and the climb was just glorious. It also warmed me up nicely.

The view from the top was even better and I sat on the wall, gazing out down the mountainside to the plains below and the sparkling sea in the distance. There were two whitethroats in the scrub just below me. Half a dozen hearty Norwegians came steaming up, slithered to a halt in the gravel, peered over the wall, cuffed each other about in Viking manliness, and then remounted and shot down the hill again. (You can normally tell the nationality of a group by the language on their cycle jerseys. There is usually at least one web address printed on them somewhere, so “.no” was helpful in identifying the Vikings.) We stayed a little longer and had a hot drink in the café before setting off on our plummet.

I think I really do prefer going up to down, especially when it is quite so steep and winding. I won’t say my brakes were smoking but the wheel rims were pretty hot when we turned off down a side road to take a different way off the mountain. That second road had even tighter hairpins, some of which were really quite hairy to negotiate, and that seems a poor way to lose the height you’ve worked for, but we were the only ones on that route so we didn’t have to get tangled up in all the descending Big Dogs, so it was a good choice, and the last few miles into Llucmajor were fast and straight with a more manageable descent. It seemed to take next to no time to get back to the town. Then you looked back up to the mountain and thought “there’s no way I was just up there” because it looked so very far away.

Then we hammered down to the seafront again. It was probably about 10 miles. The wind was predominantly behind us then and the road dropped and dropped. It dropped just gently enough that most of the time you could still pedal, but you could ride for long stretches at 50 kph (I’m not sure what that is in miles but I think it’s fast and must be over 30 mph). The surface was smooth and there was very little traffic. There were a few quarry lorries but it was late enough by then that I think they had mostly knocked off for the day and they always moved out round us.

Then we thrashed back along the seafront again to Palma. The surf was up, crashing on the shore in a way that was unthinkable yesterday, and the surfing dudes were all out there. The roller-bladers were also out in force, taking up “our” cycle lane, so there were many “Holá!”s as we came up behind them. They were a bit of a liability to pass because they swing so widely that you can’t be sure you won’t get a faceful of elbow at the crucial moment. Some at least would demurely hold their arms across their chests and freewheel when we passed, which was to their credit.

We were back at the Rosamar by 6.30, after a very pleasant 92km. I don’t think these are going to be high-mileage days (what’s 92 km? 55-odd miles?) but the climbing does make up for it so you do feel you’ve had a good blast. It was nice to have a hot shower and get properly warm. Last night we all went out to dinner, which was sociable and fine but I decided tonight to have a bit of time to myself so I nipped out and found my own supper and was back by eight o’clock to have a gentle evening in my room, looking out onto my view of the sea and all its twinkling lights.

Tuesday 8th April

We had breakfast on the terrace this morning. As we ate, more swifts screamed overhead. I’m not sure it was really warm enough to sit out but if you were in the sun with a sweatshirt on you were fine. By the time we were ready to ride, though, it had clouded over and the wind had got up so that it really wasn’t at all warm. But the sun was shining brightly from a cloudless blue sky, so that was very nice.

Our first mission of the day was to go back up the Col de Sa Creu, which we came down on Sunday. The wind was blowing fit to bust as we worked through town and sometimes it was a little unnerving, but we got to the foot of the climb without incident. Several packs of German Big Dogs came blowing through from behind and bounded up the hill but then they left us and we trundled sedately up. It is long and switchback and just steep enough but not too steep, even on the hairpins (so long as you concentrate), and the sun shone and I like climbing, so I had a lovely time. Of course, when your trip computer is in km you go so much faster up hills. I was hammering up at a very impressive 14 kph at one stage, which sounds really devilishly fast, but when you translate it to 8 mph it doesn’t sound nearly as remarkable. Graham (tall Graham, not little Graham the joke-teller, who wasn’t riding with us today) came through near the top and I decided not to give chase. I was too excited by the thought that I might have seen my first ever tree sparrow. It was slightly bigger than a house sparrow and with a very definite chestnut head. I’ve since Googled it and it definitely was a tree sparrow. So that was very exciting and made my day, even so early on.

We waited a while for everyone to catch up, looking down at the view over to Palma. Most of the people who came and went at that spot were Germans but I think there were some Austrians. They seemed to be speaking German with a hurdy-gurdy accent so I wondered if they were Swedish but someone had an Osnabruck logo on his jersey so I think Austrian makes more sense. Eventually we were all up and set off down the other side, into a wind that Mike Munk would have called “squirly”. It was actually hairier on the way down than it had been on the way up because you were going faster. With the switchback roads, sometimes it was with you, sometimes against you and sometimes it came cracking at you from the side. As well as the wind and the drop-off, you also had to keep a look out for flying German manhood whisking past you. The view out to the sea that way was wonderful. I hadn’t noticed it on Sunday because of course we had our backs to it.

After a while it flattened out and the road straightened out and we rode down the valley to Calvia, fighting into the teeth of the wind. I was very glad of my glasses to keep the grit out of my eyes, and I was fairly whiplashed by my windproof jacket. It was a descent so you could move forwards, but it was a real challenge. The sheep were still grazing in their almond orchards, like on Sunday. Some of them had bells round their necks (presumably because these were hornless sheep). There were some glorious flower-filled meadows, ablaze with red and yellow and orange. The daisies here are fab.

We fought our way into Calvia and stopped at the little supermarket for sandwiches. A lady at the back in the delicatessen section made them up for you and wrapped them in foil, then ran out from behind her counter to weigh your bananas on the fruit scales, and then ran back to take the next sandwich order. They were very classy sandwiches made with lovely crusty baguettes, rubbed with half a tomato, drizzled with olive oil from a brass oil can, and then carefully filled with your ham or cheese of choice. (I had cheese on the grounds that needs must and preferred it to ham.) There were also the most fabulous apricot pastries which wouldn’t have made it up the mountainside to Galilea stuffed in a jersey pocket, but I bought one and ate it as we sat outside in the sun.

Everyone had eaten and drunk well so there wasn’t really a need for an elevenses café stop, but I pointed out that us girls have different needs at cafés, what with having alternative plumbing arrangements so they agreed that a coffee would be fine. I enjoyed my hot milk and I enjoyed the café’s plumbing. Then we set off up the next climb to Galilea. It was another long, winding, hairpinned climb, through hot-smelling pine forest. The rocky hillsides are covered in a gentle olive-green scrub and looked lovely. This road had comforting crash-barriers where the curves were most alarming. Only two cars passed me in the whole climb of 7 km, although many Germans came hammering down the other way. I am not a little proud to say that no German passed me going up. I think all the Big Dogs had gone through and it was only 2nd-class riders like us left to climb by then. The little town of Galilea is very fetching. The houses all had their lemon trees and orange trees and almond trees and spring flowers grew everywhere. Several houses had great clumps of very tall yellow and orange daisies.

Lunch was at the church at the top of Galilea. The views were magnificent again and it was a very good lunch stop, so the picnic was a good idea. I had brought my waterproof jacket in my 2nd bottle-cage so wore that and was toasty warm, after being so chilled yesterday. The sun is warm, but it’s the wind that chills you, especially after a big climb. And then we wound down another road, creeping on the hairpins and finally straightening out and hammering down into the wonderfully-named Puigpunyent. There we split off from Simon, John and Tim who didn’t fancy a third climb, so we were down to six and we went up the next one.

It’s quite ludicrous really how much fun you can have doing the same thing again and again. Trundling up the steep switchbacks for a third time, dodging descending Deutschlanders, while the wind blew and the sun shone and the air smelled of hot pine needles. We had quite a long wait at the top this time and I started to think that it is really rather silly to wait for everyone at the top because that’s when the wind is strongest so you are most likely to get cold and then when everyone is up you are all bunched together again for the descent. It would make much more sense to go up and then ride down the other side and wait to catch up at the foot of the other side. I suppose, though, if someone didn’t appear it might be a heck of a long ride back to go and find what happened to them.

At the foot of the descent we could choose to go for tea and cake and then head back to Palma or we could go on to Valldemossa. Peter and Anthony chose the tea and cake, and Daryl, Graham, Mark and I went on to Valldemossa, over a fourth climb. Well, why not, when they are there to be had? The climb was as demanding as the other three but the descent was straighter so we had more of a good bash down to the town. Also I suppose it helped that the four of us are more evenly matched in riding speed. We came in to a very picturesque town, nestled among rocky mountains, surrounded with citrus groves and almond orchards. As we came into town, three riders from the RAF team came through and overtook us. It’s nice to see some good-quality Brits out on the road.

Chopin moved there with George Sand when he had TB. He hated it, rowed with George (silly name for a girl, I think, but maybe it inspired Enid Blyton for the Famous Five) and split up with her, and then died. In all, if you’d asked Mr Chopin how he had enjoyed his time in Valldemossa I don’t think he’d have said it was an unmitigated success. But the Valldemossa tourist board hasn’t let that deter them and the little town is almost wall to wall Chopin memorabilia and they have open air Chopin concerts all through the summer. We went to a café in the square by the church and had apple pie and almond milk. I’d never even heard of almond milk until that Beans book that the parents gave me for Christmas in which so many mediaeval recipes for beans required you to boil them up in almond milk. But as almonds in any form are popular in the region, and almond milk was a speciality of the house, I thought I’d give it a go. It’s not unpleasant, and it is quite milky but I’m not sure I’d rush back up there for another glass.

Then we plummeted back to Palma. The headwind made it more of a slog than it was yesterday, but we still were able to bowl along at quite a lick. Daryl was a hero, leading us back through Palma. We went right through the city, at peak rush hour, but he never got us lost and we were back in the hotel by six o’clock. Again, it wasn’t a high-mileage day at only 73 km, but the climbs had been spectacular and I certainly don’t feel short-changed.

Wednesday 9th April

This wasn’t really a riding day, although I did have a total of 53km by the end, just from trundling around. It was all on the flat, though. It was more of a rest day, although that was coincidental because really I wanted to have lunch with cousin Andrew and I couldn’t do that and go for a long ride.

We were off and rolling just before 10.00. It wasn’t terribly warm and there was quite a breeze blowing as we rode back out along the seafront to S’Arenal as we did on Monday. It was chilly enough for me to be glad I had my fleece on under my wind-proof. I fancy there were slightly fewer Germans out than there were last time, but maybe we were just a little bit too early.

When the group stopped at the elevenses place, I wished them a good day and just turned around and rode back to the hotel. On the way back I saw a lot more Germans, so they obviously just take a while to get that far along the path. I gave way to two chaps in Cofidis kit, who joined the path and looked like they were about to go to Mach 2. In fact they ambled along at tortoise-pace, side by side (two abreast is poor form on that path because it is only two bikes wide so no-one can overtake). Eventually I tried a polite “Hola!” and they looked around with an air of “Goodness me, there’s someone behind us” and moved in with a gracious flap of the hand to indicate that they would be magnanimous enough just this once to let me through because they had more important things on their minds. All very odd.

I had told Andrew that I’d be back at the hotel as from 11.30 to pick up instructions for the day. In fact his instructions suggested a 2.00 lunch. I hadn’t factored in late Spanish lunch-times. Luckily breakfast at the hotel is until 12.00 so I had time for a quick toast sandwich before they cleared away.

I decided to walk over to his suggested restaurant, rather than ride, so I could call in at the shopping centre and get a new watch battery. It’s nice to know the time again. I know it doesn’t matter much when you’re on holiday but you do need to know when to go down to breakfast and I’ve had to turn my mobile on every morning just to see what time it is. I went to Carrefour, too, to buy myself a new sweatshirt (I got pasta putanesca down the one I brought in half a dozen messy places on Sunday night and I really don’t think the grease stains are going to come out). I ended up getting a little sweatshirt jacket instead and it is either nice or nickadah but I don’t know which. I expect someone will tell me.

The restaurant was a Thai place, opposite the Palacio Mar I Vent, which is the King’s summer palace, a bit like Balmoral – except not, of course. It was lovely to see Andrew and catch up. He’s obviously a rather successful property developer and was pleased at some deal that was just happening. He took several calls on his mobile during lunch. At one stage he leant back and put his elbow on the top of the chair and looked so like his father it was uncanny. It’s funny how children probably don’t even know they pick up their parents’ mannerisms. Two and a half hours just flew by and he dropped me off back at my hotel by 4.30.

We had talked quite a bit about good philosophies of running your life and one of them was not to take things too seriously. As Mother had pointed out in her email this morning that I need to be on holiday while I am here, I decided that I should go for a gentle ride and be a bit more laid back about it all. This morning on the cyclepath back to the hotel I had found myself starting to subscribe to Janae’s attitude to “Casuals”, finding them to be rather in the way (although of course I was always polite to them and gave friendly “Hola!”s to them before coming through). So I thought I would test myself and ride gently along the seafront back out to where I left the others this morning. I stopped at the marina and noticed where some of the gin palaces are registered: Jersey, Hamburg, London, Stockholm and Manchester. How wonderful that someone has registered their gin palace in Manchester and then sailed it to Palma. I also had a good look around at the spot where the beautiful scent is. I found the trees with the blossom but they didn’t look like mock orange. Then I found some more trees with the same blossom and lots of last year’s oranges still on them. It was the “walnut trees in Georgia” experience all over again. Anyone with half a brain would have worked out they were pecan trees. Anyone with that same half would have worked out that if you’ve been riding past orange groves for the last three days you wouldn’t need your oranges to be mock. My only defence might be that the orange groves I’ve seen so far all seemed to have oranges on the trees, not blossom. Well, that’s the mystery solved, anyway. And I noticed a statue with a lovely goose flying in off the sea. And when I rode through the sandy scrub near the airport I saw a very handsome stonechat.

Shortly before S’Arenal I saw some of my group riding towards me. Each and every one of them looked right through me until Peter spotted me and waved. So I doubled back and fell in with them to ride back. I noticed a stately Spanish Galleon at the end of one of the marinas. I don’t know if it was an original or even if it was really seaworthy and had just come from the Isthmus, dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores, but it was nice to see it anyway, and I probably shouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t been going more slowly.

Thursday 10th April

It was very misty this morning and the wind had dropped to a whisper but it was not at all warm. Even with a sweatshirt on I only lasted for my cereal on the terrace before retreating to the bar for my rolls and jam. Peter decided on the spur of the moment to switch today’s and tomorrow’s rides so the big climb is delayed to tomorrow as a grand finale.

I decided against a sweatshirt for the ride, on the grounds that my waterproof would keep me warm, and I am very glad I did because it didn’t take long to get warm and muggy. There was a lot of low cloud over the hills but that lifted slowly through this morning and by the afternoon there was blue sky and warm sunshine. The wind got up when we were on the north coast, though, and that was chilly so I kept my windproof on for much of the day.

Little Graham seems happy to ride by himself, and Daryl and Simon wanted today off so it was just eight of us as we set off back out the way we’d gone on Sunday. Fairly soon we rode past the royal palace at Mar I Vent and the restaurant where Andrew and I had lunch yesterday. Then we followed the cycle path out towards Magaluf, turning off just before it to head up to Calvia, along a much flatter but less pretty route than going over the Col de Sa Creu. It was strange seeing it all again now I am a bit more familiar with the island. There were still plenty of daisies and spring flowers and it did still smell of pine trees even though it wasn’t hot, and I did get more blasts of orange blossom. I had clear lenses in my glasses, so things did look a bit different anyway, but everything seemed nicely new but familiar.

I had tried to pump my rear tyre before we left. The valve stem is too short for the trackpump, so I borrowed Tall Graham’s long frame pump to try and get some decent pressure in it. Of course, to start with I let lots of air out, so it took a good while to pump up again and I’m not sure that the tyre was much harder by the end than it had been at the beginning. But it had been quite hard work and I was twisting at not a very clever angle, so it meant as we made our way out of town that I suddenly became aware that I had a rather sore lower back. Fortunately it didn’t seem to bother me much when I rode and only really when I stopped.

The main road up to Calvia was pretty in its own way, but after Calvia (where we had to wait while John fixed a puncture, but while waiting I did see a poster for the Majorcan XI annual sheep and goats race) it got very pretty as we made our way across the hills to Andratx (that “x” is pronounced as the “ch” in “cheese”, according to Andrew). It was another fairly demanding climb but the scenery was rather different. At first there were the almond orchards with their grazing sheep in the flower-covered grass beneath the trees – and with rather more fig trees mixed in with the almonds than I have noticed so far. I keep forgetting to mention the fig trees. They aren’t doing much yet but I have a fancy that they might get a bit more lush soon. I didn’t see any olive trees at all. I wonder if that side of the island is a bit damper. Certainly when we climbed, the hillsides were much more forested and less scrubby. Although the climb was long I think it was a bit easier than some of the others we have done this week, and the hairpins were fewer. The descent was the best we’ve had after a climb so far because, apart from a few crackingly sharp hairpins, the road curved in elegant S-shapes all the way down, so you could get some good speed up. Pleasingly, Graham didn’t stop when he reached the top. Perhaps he read my thoughts from the other day. Instead, he plummeted over and we sailed down towards Andratx and waited for everyone to catch up when we got to the edge of town.

Andratx town is higher in the hills than Andratx Port, which nestles (not surprisingly perhaps) below it at sea level. Andratx is a nice little place with reddish-cream stone houses and a café. I bought a “barra” – which is a small French stick – and ate half of it torn into dainty chunks and dipped into my hot milk. That was really very pleasant. I passed the rest of the loaf around my pals and they polished it off so I didn’t have to shove it in my jersey pocket. And then we set off to ride to Estellencs.

Well, what an extraordinarily beautiful road. It was absolutely gorgeous. The road was cut into the mountainside and several times we went through cuttings that made you realise it could have been even steeper. It was a miracle of engineering to have a road there at all, let alone one as good quality as this one. The surface was good and there was very little traffic, either road or bike. In fact, the German Big Dogs were conspicuous by their absence today. There were other 2nd class tourist riders like us, but the racers apparently don’t go along that road. The climb was hard work but every now and then the sea would peep through from the left hand side. Then we came out at the top of the coast road and the sea shone and sparkled a deep blue far below us at the foot of the creamy red cliffs. White horses danced on the water and it was magnificent. The road rolled up and down, and the wind blew like mad, but mostly behind us. The thick pine forest was to our right and that glorious sea view was off to our left and the sun shone and it was good. Mark, Graham and I pulled well ahead of the others and we soared and plummeted and puffed along, having a really good thrash. At one stage we went through little concrete tunnels or covered bridges built right over the road. I suppose they were to stop rockfalls.

We were heading for a restaurant at a viewing point over the cliffs but when we got there we found it was closed. This was disappointing for a number of reasons, but especially because I was unable to buy a little grotto made of shells with the Madonna standing in the middle. There were many of said shell grottos in the window. Mark knows some good stretching exercises and Graham has a bit of a sore back so, as mine was still complaining about the morning’s pumping session, we all lay in the car park and did some very effective stretching, while the wind whistled and howled around us and blew our helmets around the tarmac.

Eventually, when everyone was up we rode on down to Estellencs, where the parents stayed so long ago. It is the prettiest little town, with its stone houses and their terracotta roofs. All the side streets are paved in stone rather than tarmac. It looked a sleepy but happy place. At one stage the school bus came through and disgorged many children, so it is obviously thriving as a town. The first hotel we came to was the Maristel, and it now has 4 stars and looks proper grand. I fancied the café opposite it for lunch because it had a terrace over-looking the sea, but events and group dynamics drifted such that we went to another place that also had a terrace but no sea view. We all had the Menu of the Day, which was rather more than I wanted but I went along with it because it seemed churlish to say, “Actually I’d rather have a tortilla sandwich”. I can be a good team player when I need to be. The church was just over the road and its clock struck very loud quarters while we were there. We didn’t get there until quarter to three and didn’t leave until 4.15. Very Spanish.

By then it was warm enough, even in the wind, to take my jacket off for the climb out of Estellencs. Looking back to town when we regained the height I could see how beautifully terraced the hillsides are below the forest. You could imagine the generations of work that had gone into building and maintaining them. I had a very strange experience where my legs just suddenly lost interest in anything. We were cruising along quite cheerfully, when I rounded a bend that went into an incline rather steeper than I’d expected, and straight into that wind. It was no big deal and I should have been able to change down, step on the pedals a bit and breeze on through it. Instead nothing happened and I found myself having to put my foot down because I simply couldn’t turn the pedals. I looked at my legs and they looked at me and said “Que? Nos?” And I scooted a yard or two to get my balance and momentum and we were off again, but it was all very strange.

And so we worked our way along the coast, dropping down again into another little Estellencs-look-alike town that rejoiced in the wonderful name of Banyabufar, and going up again. We had another wait for everyone to catch up before going to Esporles for tea. Peter is a good ride leader and when the last riders toil up a hill he doesn’t immediately move us on. He chats for a while longer and chats to the Tail-End Charlies so they get a break too. While we were sitting at our café in Esporles a sudden very strong wind blew through. It was like a mini-hurricane rushing up the main street. Bikes blew over and the air was filled with grit and the little hairy seeds from all the plane trees. Then it died as suddenly as it came.

The descent from Esporles should have been a corker but by then we were into the teeth of the headwind so we had to pedal all the way into Palma but it was still a good and very satisfying thrash. We had to go through quite a lot of the main city streets like the day we came in from Valldemossa, but Peter led us well and we were all safely in by 7.15. Again, it hadn’t been a big distance – only 81km – and it had taken a long time to get round but that was OK. The inside of my hotel room won’t have changed.

Friday 11th April

Let’s get the unexpected out of the way first. Just prefaced with the fact that I am basically fine, even if I might not be sharing my birthday with the current nail on my left big toe. Mr Callaghan is prime minister, this is Sao Paulo, and today is Tuesday, right? We were barrelling back into town this afternoon on the cycle path along which we have been many times, after a lovely ride on a glorious day. And suddenly there was a post that simply hadn’t been there a split second before. I just had time to think, “Where did that come from?” then there was an impressively loud bang and I somersaulted over the handlebars. The next thing I know I was lying on my back in the road thinking “I never signed up for the helmet replacement scheme.” Dear Mark was standing over me and said, “Don’t get up. Just lie still for a moment.” A very nice German (in civvies, not a cyclist) stopped and asked if I was OK. Two different Spaniards waved mobile phones in a helpful way in case we needed to call Pronto Socorro, or whatever the Mallorquin ambulance service is. But none of the kindness was necessary so they all went on their way. We checked me over for broken bones and couldn’t find any, and my head felt clear so we sat me up and Mark got me my water bottle for a drink. Then I stood up and we assessed the damage, which was fortunately pretty minimal. I think I must have gone down on my left leg and shoulder before flipping onto my back (via my head, alas, but that is why we wear helmets). I have some rather good swelling on my knee (which I am icing now) and a few grazes, and I am very hopeful of some jolly good bruises within the next couple of days. Then I wondered if I might have grazed my back. I pulled my jersey up, and was glad I had my most respectable crop top bra on. You see, mothers are right when they say you must always wear good underwear in case you have an accident. The boys all looked and said I have taken quite a bit of skin off the middle of my back, but that is the worst graze. I have sprained something in my right groin (is it an adductor muscle maybe?) but otherwise it seems not too bad. I imagine I might feel the consequences of the jarring in the next few days, but that’s what chiropractors are for. Graham checked the bike over and we found that all I had done was buckle the front wheel slightly out of true so he loosened off the front brakes and we found I could ride it fine, if a little gingerly. The rest of the group had come back by then to see what was keeping us, and they kindly rode back with us all in a little convoy with me leading in case I should be taken queer over the last few kilometres. I was blowed if I was going to walk up the hill from the seafront to the hotel so I did ride up that but think that might be the end of riding for a day or two. It was not a bad accident and I still don’t really know how it happened, but I am very grateful to my pals for being so solicitous, especially Mark.

Aside from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the show? It was a lovely ride. The sun shone almost all day and the wind was more helpful than not, although it is still strong. The Coll de Honor (or Col de Hono, depending whose map you are reading) ride is wonderful and I think it made a fitting finale for my week of riding. I think it’s the best climb on the island. Tim, John and Little Graham did their own thing today so there were just eight of us again.

We rode out along the seafront cycletrack for a while and then had to cut up through town. It was quite busy, as city streets are, but Peter led us through a maze of streets and never got us lost. Mark and I decided at one point that the city is particularly nice because it has no real high-rise buildings. A lot of the architecture is really quite attractive for a city. It took us over 10km to get out of the city limits but eventually we were out and we rode up a steady climb towards the little town of Bunyola. There were lots of obviously commercial orange orchards on either side of the road, with truckloads of windfalls. I thought how funny it was that those windfalls could go for 35p each in England. It was lovely to ride past them all and breathe in the scent of the blossom. The steady climb was very enjoyable, especially as the wind was mostly in our favour. It was also nice that we didn’t stop until we got to Bunyola’s town square, so we had time to get into a rhythm and plug away.

If there are very few cyclists left in Germany at the moment, I think I can safely say there must not be a single bicycle in Switzerland to be seen in any canton. There were hundreds of Swiss riders, all streaming into Bunyola and sitting in the square and having coffee at all the café tables. I didn’t know there were that many people in Switzerland anyway. They all had .ch on their jerseys, and many were clearly part of a large organised holiday group. But, upon my word, what a lot of Swiss there were. There were some Finns, too, I think. Certainly they had .su on their jerseys as an email address. (Yesterday someone came by with .at on his jersey. Father tells me that that is Austria. How odd, when they call it Osterreich.) There were a few Germans, and I did see a couple of the RAF team, but the Swiss were out in force. At one stage I did a quick head count and there were 76 cyclists in the square. And that was just at that moment, but people were coming and going and riding through all the time.

We waited in the square for Peter and when he didn’t come, Mark and I set off to look for him, only to find that he had been waiting for Simon, because he didn’t know that Simon was ahead of him. (Today Simon is on the spare “recreational” bike that was booked for poor passportless Vaughn because his chain snapped yesterday while he and Daryl were tootling around town, so he was a little hamstrung.) So we were all reunited and had our elevenses in a sunny square, overlooked by the big stone church, while the town gardener filled buckets at the town tap and watered the flowers. We all filled our bottles (bidons?) from that tap when he had finished. We bought our picnic lunch there, too, to have when we got to Orient on the other side of the col. There is a restaurant there but Peter broke his collar bone on the descent three years ago and the people in the restaurant weren’t at all nice to him and refused to call a taxi, telling him there was a public payphone in the square. So we don’t go there anymore. And anyway I like picnics.

Out of Bunyola town square, turn right and up you go. And up and up and up. It was lovely. A young American woman overtook me fairly early on and I tried to give chase for a while, but then realised it was slightly undignified to be chasing after someone probably 20 years my junior when she didn’t appear to be even panting, so I dropped back and enjoyed the scenery. Besides which she had pigtails and I don’t think one wants to be too close to anyone over the age of 14 if they have pigtails. To start with there were some terraced orchards and then some sheep pastures but then it gave way to rocky scrub with pretty wild flowers. Mountains towered on either side of us as we rode up through what was essentially a gorge. There were signs painted on the road with bicycles inside triangles, I assume warning drivers to watch out for us because there must be so many of us so often. And there were very stern notices along the roadside saying “Non en parallel” with pictures of two columns of bicycles and the left hand column crossed out. The road just isn’t wide enough for pelotons going in both directions

And then I saw the young American come back down, so I thought we must be near the top. And there we were, just like that at the Col marker. It was a good climb. Unfortunately there was no view because everything was thickly forested. As we waited at the top I saw Mr and Mrs Blackcap flitting in and out of the undergrowth. And the most enormous eagle or vulture soared overhead. Perhaps with quite so many cyclists around it thought the law of averages was on its side. Then when we were all up we tipped over the other side towards Orient. At first there were a lot of tight hairpins (including the bogey one that took Peter out before) but then the road straightened out and suddenly we came upon the most beautiful and unexpected broad valley. There were fields and vineyards and it was all a huge surprise. I haven’t seen land like it since we’ve been on the island. Everything is so hilly here that I have got used to seeing terraced land and suddenly seeing expanses of fields was quite a shock.

We rode through this beautiful valley until we got to Orient, where we walked the bikes up the very steep slope to the church and had our picnic outside, sitting on stone benches in the sunshine. We were the only people up there (the restaurant down on the road was heaving with wall-to-wall Swiss) and we all ate in silence, just savouring the atmosphere. Apart from a tractor growling below in an orchard there were no human sounds at all. Just the sparrows chirping and flitting in and out of nest holes in the church walls. Simon remarked how everyone was being contemplative, and I think we were. It was a good picnic. And then we hammered down the valley, past vineyards and orchards with what looked like apple trees but I didn’t know they grew apples here. Peter suggested they might be peach trees but we both agreed that the blossom certainly looks like apple blossom. It was an excellent descent, with a few curves but no hairpins so you could get good speed up. There was a red warning triangle roadsign that had a bicycle on it (no big surprise because there are a lot of those signs up all over the island) but also with a picture of a goat on it. I couldn’t decide if everyone was to beware of cyclists and goats, or if cyclists were to beware of goats, or if the key danger here to all was the potentially disastrous cyclist-goat combination. I did see some goats but they were all safely behind a fence in an orchard. Unlike the sheep, they had horns but they also had bells around their necks so one can only assume the horns didn’t work.

We didn’t take the main road to Santa Maria del Camí but wallered along back roads instead. Daryl has an excellent sense of direction and navigated us through all sorts of unlikely lanes and back alleyways to get us to where we needed to be. And we kept on and on descending. Peter said we must have been below sea-level by then. We went along a lovely lane and there was a sign saying bikes should go at 10 kph. Peter had warned us about this, so for 50 yards we bumped along really very rocky cobbles and then the road went back to smooth tarmac. I’m not sure what that was about. So we came into Santa Maria and joined several cantons of cyclists at the café on the main street, but without having to share too much of the road with them to get there. It has been lovely on this holiday not having to think about navigation. When I wish sometimes that we didn’t always have to wait for the group to come up together I do to remind myself that the payback is that we have a ride leader who just leads us to where we are going and there is no need to engage brain at every junction. I had a very nice ice cream there called a Maxibon, which is from Nestles and is half choc-ice and half biscuit sandwich ice cream.

From there we rode into the wind and it was rather hard work but we wound round and mostly went down more and more until we came to the outskirts of Palma. We went along rather main roads but usually with good shoulders so it wasn’t a bother. Then we got onto the cyclepath into town and set off back to the hotel. And we all know what happened next. Except, as I said, I don’t really know what did happen.

We’re going out to dinner tonight as a group because it is our last night. I have enjoyed this trip, both for the cycling and the company. It has been very different but different is good. And I do like Majorca.

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