Mallorca Ride 4 - Sa Colabra!!
Today I rode the epic descent into, then climb out of Sa Colabra. This picture above only captures a portion of the road. We had not expected to be able to ride Sa Colabra. The stone supporting one of the hairpin turns had been washed away in the rains earlier this month, and it will take months to repair. However, they were able to pave a new section, cutting the corner, which allows bikes and cars to pass safely. This opened yesterday afternoon although very few people knew about the opening. As a result, the road was almost empty which was fabulous for us.
As I have the last few days, I will start with a sunrise photo. Today, there was low fog and mist creating this lovely view.
The route to the Sa Colabra turn off are all roads that I have ridden multiple times at this point. As a result, I will really start this blog post with a photo from the climb to the beginning of the Sa Colabra descent.
This climb was not that long since we were still at a reasonable altitude at the turn off. The beginning of the Sa Colabra descent (or the end of the climb) is here.
Almost before we started, we ran into a work crew that was cleaning up the road.
Shortly past this work, we got to a 360 degree loop. I took this photo from just next to the overpass of the loop. The road here drops off at about 12 percent grade for the next 2 miles.
Descending is not the time to be taking photos, so here is a photo from the bottom of the descent.
The easy part was now done, and the 6 mile and 2200’ climb awaited us. Here is a photo I snapped looking back down after I had been climbing for a while.
Slightly ahead of me, John and Karen were riding through a narrow natural gap that the road runs through. Buses just barely fit.
Periodically, low clouds would sweep by while I climbed.
This photo shows where the stones supporting the road were washed out. It will take a massive effort to re-support the road so that buses can begin returning to this very popular tourist spot. In the meantime, cyclists and those in cars will be happy with the smaller crowds.
This is the bottom of the 360 degree loop. The road bends around to the left then crosses above. Getting to this point, means that you know the end of the climb is near.
I took an hour and 7 minutes to complete the climb. Obviously, my legs were not fresh and I did not go all out. However, it is staggering to me to realize that the fastest time is only 22:46 set recently by the professional cyclist Tom Pidcock. He bicycled up this climb at an average speed of 15.5 mph.
The rest of my ride today was the same as on my first day with John. As it turned out, we again rode it together. Overall, my ride was just under 60 miles with about 6600’ of climbing.
Tomorrow, we will be shuttled in the morning to the northwest part of the island so that we can bicycle the costal road back to our hotel. It should be about 70 miles of riding with about 8000’ of climbing. I rode much of this route when I was in Mallorca in 2017. I am looking forward to it as I know it is beautiful.