Spanish Holiday Day 5

Day 5:  Cycling in the Tramuntana Mountains

This morning, we plan to cycle across the Tramuntara Mountains, the northern "backbone" of Mallorca. In 2011, the Tramuntana Range was awarded World Heritage Status by UNESCO as an area of great physical and cultural significance. The entire ride today will cover 38 miles with 4,000 feet of elevation gain in the morning, and 15 miles with 600 feet of elevation in the afternoon after lunch. We had the option of shuttling up one 6 mile long hill, which Jeri and I decided was a good idea.  This made the very long day slightly shorter.

8:15 Route Wrap with Carlos

After leaving Valdemossa and passing through a relatively large town, Soller, we had a significant climb and then we stopped for coffee and a lift in the town of Fornalutx.

Unbeknownst to us, they had just finished a festival that include running with the bulls.  There were a few men dressed for the part (sorry, couldn't get any photos) walking around town, bales of hay used to protect the non-crazies who were watching the spectacle, and plenty of t-shirts with bulls on them.

The town was quite typical for a Mediterranean hill town with a square  in which the locals can meet for coffee, and steps everywhere.  

Its history dates back over 1,000 years when it was originally an Arab farmstead. Its current form started taking shape in the 13^th century with the Catalan conquests.

After dropping us off at the top of the climb, we could see the town of Soller that we had passed through earlier, a couple of thousand feet below. below

We then began our descent to the valley below.  Descending is almost as tiring as climbing with hairpin turns, traffic, and steep drop-offs (often with little or no shoulder), you really have to be constantly on your game.  NO DAYDREAMING!  Jeri must really trust me.

As we approached the turn to our next climb, I noticed our rear brakes were not really grabbing very well, and brakes are definitely something you need on these rides.  It seems the brake cable had slipped (probably from over use).  After several attempts, Carlos was able to fix it, but we were way behind the rest of the riders (we actually were way behind, now, way, way behind).

We then climbed the Col del Reis (hoping the brakes would hold!), a Cat 4 climb (hard to believe it was only Cat 4, really hard in blazing sun).

After descending a couple of hundred feet, there is an observation area to view the snaky road down to the port town of Sa Colobra.

The climb back up from the port is a Cat1 which was fortunately not on the agenda today.

After climbing back up to the Col, we again had a beautiful but scary descent followed by a bit more climbing before a lunch break at  a beautiful restaurant in the middle of nowhere.  We had a full meal of appetizers, salad, chicken etc., and outstanding brownie and ice cream.  Due to our mechanical failure and being pretty slow, the rest of the group was leaving as we arrived, so we had a romantic lunch (minus alll the sweat) for just the two of us. Then we had to get back on the bike for the final 15 mile ride of the day. 

We finally made it to our new hotel, Son Brull. It is beautiful hotel set in the middle of an olive grove. They produce their own olive oil, and we were given a nice presentation by Burja (one of our other guides) on olive oil production, followed by an oil sampling.  We learned the difference between the picudo and arbequina varieties of olives.  Picudo are better for you with more anti-oxidants, but have a bit of a bitter after taste, while the arbequina olives' flavors are more delicate and sweeter.  Blends give the best of both worlds.  We are now olive oil experts.

After the demo, we went outside for a delicious "barbecue" Mallorcan style.  We started with all sorts of tapas.  Jeri's and my favorite was coca, a Spanish pastry, similar to pizza, with a variety of toppings and olive oil.  We'll definitely have to learn how to reproduce this at home.

Another long day tomorrow.