Rapha500. 500km on a bike between Christmas eve and New Years eve. Doing it in the UK has always seemed like a bit of a masochistic pastime, so when it was suggested that we head to Majorca from the 24th to the 29th for a bit of biking - the whole thing seemed like quite a reasonable undertaking.
To be honest, I really didn't have all that much to do with the organisation of anything for this holiday, but thought that it might be nice to put together a quick blog for info about being in Majorca at this time of year, based on some of the stuff we managed to do (or not).
- Weather - was generally pretty decent. No rain, but cool enough to need arm warmers and toe warmers on every ride. Don't forget your gilet or some kind of windproof.... the downhills go on and on and get pretty chilly.
- Accommodation - if you're going to get a cheap place, make sure it is within easy walking distance of a place that sells food that is open. We had a whole lot of fun wandering around the ghost town of Port Alcudia looking for somewhere that was open
- Taxis - if you're in Alcudia or Pollenca at this time of year, you might find it fun looking for a taxi. We had to call one every time we needed one rather than finding a taxi rank.
- Amenities - the place we stayed reckoned it had a coffee machine and cooking facilities. What it meant was that there was a coffee machine, a kettle that fused itself at a temperature just below that at which water came out of the hot tap, 2 ceramic rings, a microwave, some spoons and a couple of forks. Take an Aeropress if you depend on coffee in the morning.
- Water - yes, despite everyone telling us to definitely not drink the tap water, we drank it all week with no ill effect. It didnt taste nice, but with some hydration tabs in it, it was fine.
- Although there aren't a huge amount of places open, there are enough. And there is always a Chinese Restaurant that is open.
- Take a powerlink and a decent pump. We didn't need either... the pump we were given I didnt really trust, and a powerlink would have been a good thing to have in the back pocket.
- Slippers. Take slippers. The floor of the apartment was REALLY cold.
- a friend who took us to and from the airport at ridiculous times of the morning.
- front and rear lights
- Wahoo bolt - with routes downloaded from ridewithgps
- castelli toe thingies
- arm warmers
- windproof
- sunnies - with low light lenses.
- insulation layer
- aeropress
- knee warmers. (to be fair, I didnt take these as I don't tend to use them... but everyone else seemed to have them.
- Col de Soller (green and greasy on the south side)
- Puig Major (harder from the Soller side than the Pollenca side)
- Sa Colabra (like Snake, but much, much, much, much longer/prettier/quieter)
- 3 monastaries route
- Cap de Formentor
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