Re: Mallorca blog

[ValleyMan]

Day 3

Another large breakfast in anticipation of the first test of the week; a climb to the Salvador Monastery after a 40 mile ride across the island.

It was at this point, having told everybody that my bike, cleaned to within an inch of its life, was working like a sewing machine, it started to play up. I could not get the chain to stay on the largest cog on the rear cassette which was not ideal heading for the hills.

We set off in our two groups as the day before, but this time there was a bit of shuffling of the pack. John decided to drop down to the remedial group and several moved up wanting more of a challenge.

The ride over to Felanitx, the nearest town, saw the first punctures of the week; two in quick succession. Tooled up with more SIS gels than you could shake a stick at, I took one just before the first puncture and then worried it would get burned up standing at the side of the road rather than (hopefully) powering me up the mountain. The gels were provided free by SIS hoping no doubt we would became addicted by the end of the week. When they were handed out, it was even suggested that eating cake and coffee at the lunch stop could undermine their effectiveness.

Having failed to ingratiate myself with the ladies, I worked on the Texans. There were 50 Texans over from Dallas for the week as apparently they don’t have any hills. It did seem a rather long way to come and I did express surprise that if they wanted to cycle up hills, they hadn’t built one. This attempt at humour was met with lengthy analysis about why it would not be practical, but it passed the time.

We met up with the other part of the group at the foot of the climb, some 5km uphill at about 5%. Group 2a set off slightly before us but very soon Kim and I were cruising past a few of them feeling very smug. One victim at the foot of the hill was Huw who was as shocked to see us go past as we were. However, in his ‘defence’, he had been recovering from a cold with the coughing and spluttering masking the sound of his Di2 working the gears. Huw’s explanation was that as I could not get into my bottom gear I had physically to go faster.

Nic, not to be outdone, went past Mr Blobby who accused her of cheating by using a triple.

The climb was very popular with not only our party, so it was pretty congested with bikes going up and then down at speed with a few cars mixed in for good measure. Overtaking on the way up had to be done carefully and at one point a bike going so slowly that the rider was on the point of falling off veered into my path forcing me on the other side of the road into the path of a fast descending cyclist. I didn’t really see what happened but others said it was very close.

We met Andrew and Gareth the mountain goat at the top of the climb and were allowed about 5 minutes to grab a few pictures of the stunning panorama before it was time for the decent. This we took rather carefully. On the way down we saw Huw and Andrew on the side of the road helping one of their group with a puncture.

There was a regroup at the base of the climb before a headlong charge into Felanitx to get the best table for lunch. In this rush to beat the Germans, something went horribly wrong with the counting. Sat in the main square, basking in the sun, I got a call from Andrew. ‘Where are you mate, everybody just f**ked off and left us’. ‘I’ll talk to Doddsy’ I replied and went to report the missing in action. In true ‘shoot the messenger’ style, Doddsy let rip with a chain of obscenities and a frosty conversation ensued with Sean about who was responsible. It also became clear that one of our group, Dave the Texan was missing.

Eventually a less than happy Andrew appeared (it took us about 10 circuits of the town to find the square) complaining that he had told lots of people in his group on the way down that they had a puncture. Apparently someone had been sent up to look for them but didn’t know who Andrew and Huw were. Anyway, recriminations were saved for the eventing meeting. Dave the Texan arrived about 5 minutes before we left and had to forsake lunch. This may of course have been a good thing based on the advice from SIS!

A nice roll home ensued and with 80 miles under our belt it was into the pool with a protein recovery drink to repair damaged muscle fibres. Numbed into a false sense of security by the cold water, I took the irrational decision to go the whole hog and have a swim. This of course then lay down the challenge to the rest of the Dynamos and assorted hangers on who felt obliged to do the same. I managed about 8 lengths before getting out and then much to everyone’s amusement sat shivering violently for about 5 minutes trying to get warm; I simply don’t have the insulating layer of blubber that graced several other members of our party.

Pre-dinner drinks was followed by the usual carb fest, although Huw was still struggling with his appetite. After supper we were off to the evening meeting for some recriminations over the day’s events on the road. It was clear that even in response to some stiff cross-examination from Andrew, no one was going to put their hand up to making a mistake leaving them languishing on a hillside. This was disappointing, but the point had been made.

So all that was left was a few drinks at the bar in the knowledge the next day was a rest day with a 25mile round trip to the Chocolate Factory Café down the coast.