Homeward Bound

But not before I take Stuart to St Vincent for a coffee.

Beautiful ride, beautiful view.

A lovely week, made new friends and of course plenty of time spent with my best buddy!

... and then there was one

Friday and Stuart is doing a ride called "the pig",which is a reference to a 14km climb near the end of the ride.  He departs at 8.30 and at 9am I head to the reception area to see if there is a group that I can ride with.

There isn't.  

The Sociables group isn't riding today, and most of the group decide to join up with the Inters group.

I know my limits, I would seriously hold this group up.  So after everyone has departed, it looks like there is a group of one left.

I set off to a coffee stop that I have heard about, feeling a little down hearted, when I hear someone call my name!  

Ellie arrived late and missed the departure of the group, and so we head off together to the wonderful coffee stop.  Ellie didn't seem to mind my speed and we have a lovely natter, and the coffee was good!

Shortly after we leave the coffee spot, we meet up with Caroline and Tony, who have separated from the Inters group and we all head off to St Vincent, for what turns out to be a superb lunch.  (Fresh grilled squid).

Then the rest of the Inters group turn up, and eventually we all move to Tolo's restaurant at Port Pollencia.  So what started out as a fairly lonely day, ends as a very convivial fun day out!

Fabulous day with Stuart

Thursday and it's a day that Stuart and I are cycling together.  So a nice lazy start, finishing breakfast around 10.30 and setting off at 11.30.

The goal is lunch at Petra, so we head out via Sa Pablo and Muro.

It's a pretty easy route, so only a few stops to check the map.

We manage to find some perfect roads.  Picturesque country lanes, that have perfectly smooth tarmac.  Generally the roads here are smooth tarmac highways, or slightly rough country lanes.  However, the roughish country lanes are smooth compared to the craters and potholes in Quebec.  Majorca really is a dream destination for cyclists.

Stuart is wearing his favourite jersey today, and I'm quite proud that I managed to take the first photo as I'm cycling along.

Goal achieved, we have lunch in Petra and then a leisurely ride home.  A lovely easy cycling day, just as holidays should be!

Second Cup

Wednesday morning and I'm going to head out with the Sociables again and Stuart is joining up with the Inters.  Stuart must have eaten something dodgy last night, because he is feeling rough this morning, but he is persuaded to go riding.  I just hope he has a good day.

The Sociables are heading up a big hill on the way to a lighthouse via an even bigger hill.  Rumour has it that there is a nice coffee stop after the first hill by the beach.  This then is my goal!  I keep up quite happily along the flat, but when we hit the hill I am dropped immediately (as expected).  The hill is only 2 miles, so I know that the group will wait at the top.  It is suggested that my saddle is too low, and I'm not getting enough power from my riding position, but there are two other theories

Attitude - I've been told that I should get angry with the hill!  But why?  It's only a geographical feature, it has every right to be there, I cannot ever see myself getting angry with a hill.  

Physical limitations - I have a dodgy hip, after too much kick boxing, an arthroscopy on my knee to fix damaged cartiledge and a bad lower back from a desk bound job.  Potentially, one of these things has made a set of muscles not operate as they should.  I resolve to go to the physio when I get back to investigate.

In a way I hope it is something physical that can be fixed, as I don't want to be angry when I'm cycling. Anyway, will definitely fix the seat height.

I make it to the top and down the other side all in one piece, then say goodbye to the group and head off for coffee.  Happily, it is the best coffee I have had so far on the island, so I treat myself to a second cup!

After a nice leisurely break I know that I have the big hill to climb again.  This time I have chance to stop and enjoy the view.

As I am sitting chilling out, watching other cyclists labour up the hill I am reminded of a line in a poem that my brother wrote and read out at mine and Stuart's wedding.

"When you get to the top of the hill make sure you rest a while.  For what's the point of all that effort if you are just too tired to smile"

Exactly!

Here is the whole poem that he had written,  I was so touched by this gesture.

My brother then proceeded to award Stuart a medal, which he had had inscribed with "For valour in the face of adversity".  I was less touched.

After my hill climb it is a leisurely meander towards Port Pollencia.

I have another Billie no mates lunch at a pretty restaurant, with average food.

Fortunately, despite his ailments Stuart has had a good day, and he proudly tells me he has ridden 75 miles with the last 35 miles ridden at 33 km/hr.  Not bad for a poorly boy.

The Coll de achievement!

Yesterday, when Stuart returned from his ride with the inters, he burst into the room ecstatic with the fantastic day that he had had.

I loved hearing him share all the details of his day, and I loved hearing the pleasure that he had got from the ride.  I seriously considered getting on a plane home, because I didn't want him sacrificing anymore of these days to be with me, but he convinced me that he loves riding with me too, and we had planned before we came that he would ride alternate days with a faster group and with me.

On Tuesday morning, I didn't need to feel guilty that he was riding with me, I could see that he was pretty exhausted and a day with me would be like a rest day for him.

We had decided to try and get me back into the Sociables group and had come up with a cunning plan of setting off an hour early to give me a head start.  We had a lovely ride to Selva, very picturesque and pretty flat (and the group hadn't caught us up, OK I had had an hours head start).  However, the goal of the day was a mountain climb called Coll de Fermain.  At the bottom of the mountain, we were passed by the group , and I hoped that I wouldn't take so long to get up the mountain that they would have left the cafe at the top before I arrived.  

The climb was 1,500 ft over 5 miles and I was riding at 4mph, sometime dropping to 3mph. I knew that it was going to take more than an hour to get up the hill, possibly even 2 hours.  At one point I was so slow my Garmin switched to "Stopped - auto pause", which I thought was quite rude.

It was quite tough, because there were so many loops on the road, and you could never figure out how many were left compared to how many you had done.  However, I never doubted that I would make the top, and I knew that I wouldn't get off and walk.

There were hundreds of cyclists doing this climb, and all of them seemed to overtake me, but I didn't care I knew I was going to make it.  And at the top - success!  The group were still there!  Plus fine coffee and delicious tart tartin.

The group left before we did, as I was going to need time to recover.   So we are on our own as we pass the Coll sign where we stop to take some pictures.  Stuart suffers a bad case of selfie anxiety before we finally get the picture right 

The views on the way down are spectacular, and stopping to take pictures is a good excuse to give the hands a rest from gripping the brakes really tightly.

Finally, we end up in Port Pollencia for a lovely beachside lunch and ice cream.

Could it be possible that I am beginning to enjoy this holiday?!

Billie-No-Mates

Even though everyone says they don't mind that I'm so slow, I mind.

I decide to do my own thing on Monday.  Stuart is going for a ride with the inter socials and I know that he will really enjoy this.

I choose a very leisurely cycle route along some rides marked as "beautiful cycle route" on the map.

Sadly my speed drops even more without the incentive to keep up with others.  I do however have a chance to take some lovely photos. 

Eventually, I reach my target destination in Cala de Saint Vicenc 

I realise that cycling solo is not really my thing (I don't think that getting dropped by the pack is really my thing either), but my very good friend Katie once said that if I didn't have to work long hours  all week, and therefore was able to do lots of extra riding during the week then I would be able to keep up too.  This is one of the reasons why she is my very good friend!

And so it begins

Sunday morning, up bright and early and wearing my favourite jazzy cycling top.  Fortunately, at breakfast, Stuart and I figured out that today was the group photo, so a quick change when we got back to the room and we were ready!

What I hadn't realised when signing up for the holiday, was that instead of the rides being like Sunday morning rides 40  - 50 miles, they were all around 80 -90 miles.  Oh bugger!  I went out with the Sociables group and thank goodness Stuart decided to come with me today.

The first part of the ride was OK.  40 miles to the coffee stop and I pretty much kept up.  The ride was very picturesque, country lanes, stone walls, meadows of spring flowers and orange groves.  Sadly no time for any photos!

At the coffee stop in a large square in one of the villages we were stunned to find the square jam packed with cyclists.

After coffee things started to go a bit wrong. Although keeping up on the flat hadn't been too bad, the hills really separated me from the group.  

The other riders were really supportive, but I was feeling really bad about the group having to stop so often for me to catch up.  Eventually, the gap was too great, and the group think we have gone a different route.  We hadn't, but we had lost sight of the group, Stuart's Garmin had died, we didn't have a proper map, and navigating became tricky.

We did however manage to stay on the correct route, which is pretty amazing, given Stuart and I can get lost even when we have lots of navigational aids at our disposal.

We were reunited with the group at the lunch stop, again in a lovely square, unfortunately I sat too long in the sun, and ate a very cheesy lasagne and then felt like throwing up.  So again no photos.

By the time we left the lunch spot, it was nearly 5pm and there was still 40km to go.  Stuart and I said we would return at our own pace and therefore I didn't have the guilt or pressure of holding other people up.  

It was a tough final 40km and we got to the hotel around 7pm.  The end result was that we had ridden 77 miles and climbed over 4,000 feet.  However, I didn't feel particularly great about this given I got dropped on day 1.  What the hell am I doing here?

Majorca

3.30 in the morning is never a good time for an alarm clock to go off, but today we are heading to Majorca with 60 others from the Verulam cycling club, and the flight is at 6am.  It would have been nice to have been in bed early the night before, but I didn't finish work until 9pm, and hadn't had chance to do any packing, so it was midnight before we got to bed.

The flight was delayed 2 hrs and then getting out of Palma airport was pretty challenging, goodness knows what it is like in the summer peak season.  We didn't get to the hotel until 3pm.  No time for an afternoon nap,as originally hoped for, it's off to the bike hire shop instead!

We did a leisurely 6 mile ride to test the bikes, and only minor adjustments seemed necessary. 

Saturday night is tapas night and the food was pretty amazing, carbo loading needed for the morning!

Some of the rooms in the hotel are mountain view, some are sea view, but we found we had frog view room

And these boys can make some serious noise.  However, by the time we got to bed it was after 9pm and we had been up for around 18 hours, so despite the cacophony of frog noise outside we were asleep in seconds!

Battered by the winds in the New Forest

We're signed up to do the Wiggle New Forest ride on Sunday, so Saturday night we head down South to stay with friends Helen and Nigel.  However, Helen forgot that she was away for the weekend, but Nigel very kindly looked after us, cooked us an amazing spaggy bol for Saturday night, then wonderful fresh eggs for breakfast from their own chickens.

We studied the route the night before and realised that the first feed station is at the 40 mile point!  40 miles ?!  That's normally the distance of the whole ride!  I'm nervous so have a second breakfast porridge pot when we arrive at the event.

This week's seasonal spring flower is the magnolia.  The magnolia trees are looking magnificent this week and it's a good job I took this photo at the beginning of the ride,  I'm sure by the end of the day the tree would be bald given the weather conditions we were about to face.

The New Forest is not unlike Ashdown Forest.  There are no trees!  I have never been to the New Forest before, I was expecting trees!  However, it is mainly flat open moorland and lots of ponies.  The first time I see them I jump off to take a picture.  There was no need, there are hundreds of ponies everywhere along the route.  I think there are more ponies than trees in the New Forest!

The main feature of today's ride is the absolute battering howling gales.  

One of the toughest winds that I have ever cycled in. Even Stuart found it tough today.  It felt like the winds were headwinds or crosswinds all the time, barely ever a tailwind to offer respite.

The toughest was the crosswinds as much of the route offered little shelter.   We both found it a real battle to keep the bikes upright at times.

At the 30 mile point we stop for an emergency banana.  (Stuart's amazing pannier ever ready with supplies)

At the 40 mile point we arrive at the feed station and I'm quite chuffed that we are not the last to arrive.  Pretty damn near the back, but not last!

On offer are power bars and flapjacks.  Not an ideal Sunday lunch, but it will have to do.  I had noticed at the beginning of the ride huge frying pans ready to cook up amazing concoctions for tired cyclists.  I'm guessing they may have sold out by the time we get there, but the thought of a fry up keeps me going.

The ride is fairly flat today, but as you will see there is one big bastard hill on the route.  And it really was a bastard.  I see Stuart steadily climbing the hill up ahead, but the next 4 riders gradually one by one get off the bikes and push up the hill.  Psychologically,  this is tough to see when you are really struggling up a hill.  However, I grit my teeth, and despite my speed dropping to about 3 mph, my thighs burning like crazy and my heart feeling like it is going to explode, I don't get off the bike.  At the top I feel victorious, but have to stop and gaspingly gradually recover.  The 4 walking cyclists arrive at the top of the hill, remount their bikes and head off into the distance.  

As a speed strategy I don't think I chose the best option.  However, I feel the moral victory is mine!

There are several photographers along the route today.  This one captured a picture of me before I realised he was there, so this picture reflects the real look of concentration on my face.

However, most of the photos I look like this, as once I spot a photographer I flash them my cheesiest "I'm enjoying this" grin!

Stuart and his magic pannier are looking pretty comfortable at this stage.

We finished the 71 mile ride at an average speed of 10.5mph.  Although this feels great, it is a little disheartening at the end of the ride that we are so late, the promised music is obviously over and the frying pans are not just empty, they have been packed away.

No carbs to refuel the very depleted stores here.

But luckily we decide to stop in the first village that we pass, and frankly we will eat whatever we find.  Fortunately, we use an illuminated bicycle as a basis to guide us to the best restaurant in town!

Result - whelk and prawn chowder and it is fantastic!

Although the ride is through a beautiful area and I am delighted to have ridden 71 miles, I'm not convinced that I actually enjoyed this ride as it was such a battle with the wind.  However, the pain in my hands and arms from having to hold the bike so strongly to stop being blown off did eclipse the pain in my legs, so that's a plus I suppose!