The tale of our Majorca 312
Alarms were set for 4:30am, giving just enough time for breakfast, general ablutions, obligatory faffing, and a short spin down to the start at Pro Cycling in Puerto Pollensa.
Nervous energy filled the air and the final briefing to the group was to keep it steady up the first climb. Our challenge was to complete an anti-clockwise lap of the island in a day. 312 kilometers and 4000m of climbing, much of which comes over the first 130km.
Fortunately, we had the privilege of two monsters as our guides for the day and they had the job of tapping out the right tempo we needed to preserve as much energy as we could whilst also ensuring we going to reach Soller before the road down from Puig Major was closed for the finale of a local classic cycle race. They did their job brilliantly and made our job (eating and drinking whilst spinning the pedals) so much easier.
The first two hours of darkness was magical. We were the only people on the road and without anything to see we found our other senses of smell and sound providing a totally different cycling experience. By the time we reached the tunnel at the top of Puig Major the sun was up and so we could enjoy the long, sweeping descent down into Soller. It felt great to have 70km in the legs by 8am and we began the stunning stretch of coastal road to Andratx in high spirits. Cyclists were now out in numbers enjoying the beautiful morning. Our group was riding well and the only thing that slowed us down on our way to Palma was a couple of punctures. Navigating the city proved straightforward and we all got through together, acknowledging the fact that we were now over halfway.
The toughest section of the whole day was just after leaving the city where we had a long uphill drag into the wind, with cars rushing past and a pretty bumpy road surface. I think everyone was ready for lunch and thankfully our restaurant stop came around 190km.
Food was devoured, cokes were knocked back and we were off again. The eastern half of the island is much flatter and so we were able to keep together as a tight group with our average speed increasing. 250km came up just before we got to Porto Cristo and before we knew it we had arrived in Arta, the most north easterly point of the island. From here its pretty much downhill all the way back to Alcudia, before the final run in along the seafront to Puerto Pollensa.
However, there was a final twist. Some of our group had been practising their mental arithmetic throughout the day (clearly not working hard enough) and had calculated that 312 kilometers is just short of 200miles and so it was agreed that we needed to find an additional 10km to ensure that we would achieve the lovely round number of 200 in a day.
The sun had set and the final glimpses of daylight were disappearing as we pulled up outside the bike shop. It had been an epic day, superbly led by our guides. Everyone was buzzing and in remarkably good shape. Beers and paella have never been more richly deserved and more rapidly devoured. Chapeau guys. A lap of Majorca is a proper challenge that we well and truly nailed.
