Lisa and I decided to break up the drive from Milwaukee to Lake Lure, North Carolina with a ride. Since southern Illinois was on the way and I knew of the from my days living in Kentucky we picked a Strava route of reasonable length, “A shawnee gravel expedition from eddyville.” I will save you the suspense, do not use this route! It started out as a typical gravel ride, chipseal reads, fast gravel and such. However, about 20 miles in, the track turned right past a closed gate. We were in the National Forest, no cell service, and the map on my Garmin showed the map we were on just looping back on it’s self. So past the gate we went. Pretty quickly the double track degraded into single track, then to a unused hiking trail and finally into an abandoned logging road. The track on the garmin did show it connecting back onto a main road and we did not want to backtrack so we continued on. When the logging road hit a creek crossing, I said enough. Looked at the map and saw we were only a few hundred feet from a rail road. So we beelined it to the rail road and started the very bumpy 2 mile ride to a paved road. Somewhere along the way the bumping must of activated the SOS feature on the iPhone, or maybe my Apple watch. Anyway, when I got to road and pulled out my phone I saw several text messages from a 911 operator telling me that help way on the way. After calling off the rescue, we were back on our way. Other than the type 2 fun in the middle, the ride was pretty good! Moral of the story is precheck any new courses, before uploading them to your navigation device.
Our first international bike trip! In an attempt to balance cost and departure times we flew Southwest from Denver to Chicago and Scandinavian Airlines from Chicago to Palma, Spain with a layover in Copenhagen, each way. Not sure if it made any difference, it’s still 5,300 miles and many time zones away.
In any case, we stayed at the Club del Sol Resort & Spa just outside Port de Pollenca. It’s a short 10 min bike ride from town, has bike storage, and a bus stop right at the entrance. One bedroom and a small kitchen, after two weeks there I was thinking, “I could live here”.
Day 1, April 19th, 48.18 miles / 1,353 elev. gain
Stretching our legs, after a long day of travel.
Day 2, April 20th, 52.65 / 3,264 elev. gain
3 Hills Loop – Santa Magdalena – Sant Llucia – Sa Batalla. We started by riding through Pollenca and climbed the Col de Femenia, 5.6 miles / 1,500 feet elev. gain / 5% on perfect pavement. The route passed Luuc, past the “Garage” at the top of Sa Calobra, folled by a long descent out of the Serra de Tramuntana range. From there we rode over to the short but steep climb up the Puig de Santa Llucia. From there the route directed us over to Santa Magdalena, the third climb of the day, but we were still a little jet lagged and by passed that.
Day 3, April 21st, 29.47 miles / 2,816 elev. gain
After sleeping in we chose the famous Lighthouse route out to Cape Formentor and back. Some say, “pound for pound”, the best bike ride in the world. I would not argue too much with that. I don’t have the skills to describe it, so I would suggest looking at the many YouTube videos.
Day 4, April 22nd, 75.25 miles / 3,230 elev. gain
We decided to head south that day and rode through many miles of farmland on small roads paved roads between fields, with very little traffic.
Day 5, April 23rd, Rest Day
After a long day of travel and four days of riding, we needed a break. So we took the bus into Pollenca and discovered Agromart. It’s a local farm Co-op with a number of stores spread across the island. I would compare it to the best of what Whole Foods offers in the US, but that would not due it justice.
Realizing we did not have the legs, or desire to do the 100 mile loop to ride some of the famous climbs in the Tramuntana Mountains we hired a taxi to ferry us one way to the town of Bunyola. from there it was a short ride north to the Coll de Soller. A tunnel goes through the mountain, so the climb is mostly absent of cars. At 4.7 miles / 1100 feet and a gentle 4.4% grade it is casual, but stunning. From there we rode some very busy roads through Soller and up Pug de Major. At 8.9 miles and 2700 feet of climbing at a steady 6-7% grade it felt like Colorado, but with more oxygen. It was here where I realized how slow I ride. After a 100 bikes passed me I heard music behind be approaching at decent clip. I thought how rude to be blaring music with the windows down. No, No it was a group of 4 early 20’s riders with a boom-box blaring techno music. The passed me like was cycling backwards and were quickly out of sight and sound. Nearing the top I noticed a rider I was actually gaining on. I applied all the watts I could muster and bridged to him like the fast turtle I am. What I found was a guy in his 60’s – I guess – on what I believe was a 3-speed beach cruiser. He even had flat pedal and sandals. From there we rode the top of the range back to Lluc, down the Col de Femenia and back to the condo. We stopped at Lluc for food and sat beside a historic drinking water trough dating to 1589 is located in the main square. It was originally built for the animals of pilgrims arriving at the monastery on horseback and is still operational.
Day 8, April 26th, 31.04 miles /3,280 elev. gain
With the trip winding down we chose Cape Formentor again as our final ride. It is relatively short and this time we added on a short but steep climb at the end to the Albercutx Watchtower. This time around we paid for some photo’s of us and they are worth every penny.
With a total of 360.3 miles / 20,962 elev. gain in a week of riding this was a stunning success for our first bike trip out of the US. The airfare was reasonable, the lodging was less expensive than the US, we had kitchen and cooked many of our own meals. I could totally see us doing a few of these trips a year. On a personal note, being 4 month post a 2 level ACDF cervical spine surgery, I can report that all my body parts still work, and my neck and shoulders did not hurt much more than the rest of my body. Also, while there is no doubt I have Parkinson’s Disease I flew back realizing my life was not over yet. Now all I have to do convince myself to stop working, so I have more time for bike trips.
