Spokes Cycle Touring Club Mallorca 2010

BEFORE THE HOLIDAY

Two weeks before we were due to go I get an email from our travel agents indicating that the hotel we had booked had decided not to open until later in the year, presumably because of lack of bookings in these difficult times.

Anyway they offered an alternative which, after a couple of hours looking at other options, I accepted with reservations mainly because it wasn’t near a beach like the original choice.

AKA THE VOLCANIC ASH HOLIDAY by Martin Pingle

ARRIVAL

13 of the 15 of us arrived at the hotel, via our flight from Bristol Airport, without any hiccups and Justin arrived a few hours later because he was on a different flight from Stanstead.

Those on the holiday were Jenny Powell, Keith Richards, George Baugh, Justin Mackie, Gareth and Denise Thomas, Carl Colwill, Dave Smith, Glen Dermody, Julie Williams, Sandra Williams, Tom Jones, Martin Steer, myself and Judith.

The 4 star hotel Es Bolero was in fact a complex called Club Martha which included apartments in 4 storey blocks each with their own balcony and kitchenette. There was then an indoor swimming pool and two outdoor ones, a bar/restaurant, a dining room for breakfast and evening meals, a disco/club room and a large lounge/reception area where they had a bank of computers or you could get WiFi for your own laptop.

It was everything we needed and we soon settled in.

After arriving we all strolled down to the harbour found ourselves a restaurant and had our first of many meals and drinks together. Me and Judith then readily fell asleep in the warm sunshine on the beach and woke up with a start an hour later and an almighty headache and glowing foreheads!!!

We ate out on a number of occasions in various restaurants, all good quality, but not particularly cheap due to the weakness of Sterling. However, the hotel was offering a deal for their evening “all you can eat” buffet at 11 Euros a head so some of us got stuck into that on a few nights.

FIRST FULL DAY

Got a call from Martin Steer early explaining he couldn’t get out of East Midlands airport because of the volcano! Now I thought this is some sort of wind up at first and congratulated Martin on such an original excuse for cocking up his flight!! Well eventually Martin got through to me the full situation and I must admit I was speechless. After a few more phone calls between us Martin sadly decided to bin the whole holiday – a real shame as Martin is such a positive person and great to have in a group (as long as you don’t mind early morning starts!!!) he was missed .

THE BIG ONE

After a quick discussion we decided to do the longest ride on our second day on the basis that we still had fresh legs. Judith and Julie were keen to put themselves to the test. It was a ride across the island to the north coast and Alcudia, marked down as 76 miles, but in the end it turned out to be almost 90 miles!

It was a lovely warm day but with a nagging cross wind both ways. All of us went to Petra, where I saw the great Sean Kelly whizz past us still looking as mean and lean as in his racing days. Tom, Sandra, Gareth and Denise went their own way from Petra but still did over 50 miles on bikes that really weren’t suited to long distance road work.

REST OF WEEK

We explored most of the towns in the east section of the island and their respective cafes over the next few days. We also had some climbing up to various monasteries and castles. The highlight was getting up the Puig de Sant Salvador, just outside Felanitx which was a climb of 500+ metres, the views were stunning at the top. The road wound itself around the conical hill zig zagging back and forth at a constant gradient that meant you could sit and get into a good rhythm.

RETURN

Well the final day came around far too soon and we were all secretly hoping our return flight would be cancelled and we’d be “forced” to stay for another week. Unfortunately the flight went ahead and we all trudged off to the airport with sad looking faces not because we hadn’t enjoyed ourselves but because we wanted more.

FINALLY

Many thanks to everyone on the trip, you were all great company and made my life easy but in particular thanks to Jenny and Glen for their support and assistance in getting the trip organised in the first place and keeping it on the rails when it started to go a bit wobbly. And a special thanks to Justin for reminding us all what it used to be like to be young and fit!

I know Spokes have been going to Majorca for quite a few years now but it still remains a relatively cheap, accessible and bike friendly place for a pre-season get together, probably hard to beat.

HIGHLIGHTS

Hotel – spot on facilities, ideal for us.
Watching Justin disappear into the distance and not see him for hours as he gets lost yet again!!
The bottle of Malt I received at the end of the holiday – thank you to everyone.
The endless meadows of wild flowers in full bloom.
Climb to Puig De Sant Salvador – seeing Judith get to the top thanks to encouragement from Jenny.
Gareth’s hanging Kebab on the final night!
Falling asleep on the beach
Lack of any major dramas or incidents.
Atmosphere – never ceases to amaze me how well we all get on at Spokes events.
Hotel entertainment – you either loved it or hated it!!
All getting back home unscathed except from some sun burn!

We had a lovely lunch on the quayside of Can Picafort whilst watching the thousands of cyclists that literally take over the island in various training camps, rush past.

Bikes arrived on time supplied by Hannes of Velosport Mallorca – usual good quality except for a couple of glitches with Gareth’s and my bike, which were sorted very efficiently after one phone call.

First ride was marked down as a leisurely 40km “Coast and Cafés” ride south along the coast including a walk across a beach and several café stops. As happens on this type of holiday the ride morphed into a 68km ride. People were fresh and started to stretch their legs and so we ended up at the most southerly point Cap Des Salines. Me and Dave Smith did a two up time trial, with Jen sat on the back admiring the scenery, trying to catch Justin without any success! That boy is just too fast and next time he will be handicapped by filling his bike tubes with sand!!

Poor Justin, off the front at break neck speed again, missed the turning for the climb and only realised his error some 10km down the road, by which time we were all at the top congratulating ourselves. But undeterred he turned around and rode back up into a stiff headwind and we passed in opposite directions half way down the main climb as we all pretended we were Tour de France riders whizzing around the hairpins on the descent – great fun.

And so the pattern was set for each day – get up, breakfast, start ride between 9.00 and 10.30am depending on inclination (and the organiser!), cycle around 50 miles and have at least one café stop and a lunch stop all in lovely warm weather. Get back, beer, shower, restaurant or hotel meal, few more beers and bed. Mentally it was all very relaxing whilst physically by the end of the week there were some weary bodies but nobody complained as it was much needed after such a long hard winter.

There was a slight hiccup with the transfer company who I rang the day before to confirm our booking. They said they wouldn’t be coming to get us as the flights wouldn’t be going out. I tried to explain that it was highly likely the planes would be flying and we needed to be there in case they did otherwise we would loose our flight entitlement, but to no avail. So we had no option than to hire 4 taxis at 65 Euros per taxi to get us to our flight otherwise the consequences would have been serious. We would have had to book and pay for new flight and accommodation for at least a week which was the expected re-book time. I’m now trying to recover the taxi fares from the transfer company but don’t hold your breath!

Volcano ash? What was all the fuss about? And to those people, who we saw on the TV moaning and desperate to get home at any cost, all I can say is get a bit of perspective on life and stop thinking you are indispensable – you are not and you just missed the best excuse in your life time to skip off work for a few days!!

It was a hard, quite gruelling ride back for all of us but for Judith and Julie it was a ride into the unknown as neither had done this sort of distance before. However, both gritted their teeth and got on with the job in hand and did themselves proud. The last few miles were downhill and downwind and everyone had that glow of satisfaction on their faces as we cruised into the hotel at 7.30pm and a cold beer. An Epic day.