Mallorca Ride 5 - Coast & Puig Major
Today’s ride was different than all of our other rides in that it was not a loop starting and ending at our hotel. Instead, we got up a bit early, piled into two vans, and drove to Andratx, a town in the far northwest portion of the island. From there, we biked 70 miles back to the hotel, much of it along the north coast of Mallorca. The photo below is of us getting ready to cycle at a parking lot in Andratx.
Andratx itself is not on the coast, but is south of the costal mountain range. As a result, we immediately began climbing as we headed north. Climbing would be a central theme to today’s ride. All told, we climbed over 7500’ which is the most for any ride this week.
Here is a picture as we worked our way up the mountains towards the coast. As you can see, today started out quite cloudy. This is also why there is no sunrise photo from this morning.
As we got to the coast, we started getting periodic sunshine. However, the wind was from the south, so the low clouds would sometimes blow over the mountains and sweep down the slopes as this picture illustrates.
The coast line was beautiful, but it is quite rugged. This meant that we were rarely biking on a flat section like this photo, but usually either climbing or descending. Alternating between climbing and descending also meant that I was constantly adding or removing layers. When climbing, I am working hard and moving perhaps only 6 mph on a 6 to 7% grade. Descending, I am often not pedaling at all, but may be going more than 30 mph. With temperatures in the upper 50s or low 60s, I sweat working on the climbs which means that I get very cold very quickly on a descent if do not throw on a windbreaker. With the variable sun and shade, it often seemed like I was adding or subtracting layers constantly.
Here was a partial tunnel that we biked through. With the archways, I thought it made an interesting photograph. Unlike other tunnels that we rode through later in the day, visibility here was excellent.
In this photo, you can see that the foreground in is the sun but the clouds cover much of the background. While the clouds were low, we never got any fog. The coast itself was beautiful throughout the ride.
Today’s ride was broken in half with lunch in the Port de Soller. From Soller, there is an almost 9 mile climb up to the pass next to the Puig Major. The top of the Puig Major is the highest point on the island. Here is a photo of the Puig Major in the distance while on the climb.
Here is another photo once I had climbed further up towards the mountain.
This was an interesting mini tunnel through the rock on the way up.
Lisa had parked the Trek van just at the top of the climb. Again, Puig Major in the background.
After the van stop, we immediately biked through a long tunnel. Once further inside, it was quite dark even with the lighting.
Out on the other side, after a relatively short distance, we exited above the reservoir that I had photographed on a couple of my previous rides. We descended to the reservoir, through a shorter tunnel, past the turn off for Sa Colabra (which we biked yesterday), over one more modest climb before descending into the interior and back to our hotel.
Tomorrow, we are scheduled to bike another 66 miles with over 6000’ of climbing. We will be biking to the far northeastern tip of the island to see the lighthouse there. So far, I have biked about 312 miles and about 27,300’ of climbing. My legs are definitely letting me know that I have not done this amount of cycling in a very long time. With tomorrow’s climbs, this week I will have climbed more vertical feet than Mount Everest is high. I hope my legs are feeling at least somewhat rested tomorrow, or it could be a long day.