The Mediterranean island of Majorca has in recent years become a favourite destination for both professional and amateur cyclists, the combination of a good climate, good roads (both flat and mountainous) and cheap plentiful off-season accommodation has proved irresistible to thousands of cyclists every year. There are also lots of hotels and businesses offering structured training camps for cyclists and triathletes and most of them can hire you a good quality bike, so all you need to do is turn up with your training kit.

I went with my friend Angus who has recently joined the South Shields Velo Cycling Club and they had a group of about 18 members over here for the week. We stayed at Port d`Alcudia in the North of the island about a 50 minute transfer from the airport at Palma at the Viva Tropic and Spa Hotel, a comfortable 4 star hotel near to Alcudia Bay. The hotel is well used to dealing with groups of cyclists and Viva Cycling which is connected to the hotel has a fleet of quality Cannondale bikes for hire at very reasonable rates. The rides we done were :-

1. Port d`Alcudia to Cap de Formentor – the light house ride. Only about 60km long but a tough ride with lots of up and down and a very scenic ride along the narrow peninsula that forms one side of Pollenca Bay.
2. Sa Colobra. This route is probably on every adventurous cyclists list who comes to Majorca. You have to climb over a couple of cols to get to it and then descend it because it is a dead-end road that goes down to a sleepy harbour, both the descent and the 10km climb back up again are stunning, check out this Video showing Team IG-Sigma Sport descending it.. Our route to get there was Port de Pollenca, Col de Femenia, the aqueduct Cafe and then the final climb up to the Coll de Cal Reis which is the gateway to Sa Colobra (118km).
3. Rest Day. Done a short ride with Angus then we came across a nice beach and chilled out there.
   

   Northern Majorca and the Tramuntana Mountains

4. Sa Colobra again this time via Caimari and returned to Alcudia via the Col de Femenia (118km).
5. Sa Pobla, Campanet then Caimari and done the very pleasant climb up the Col de sa Batalla and continued west along the Ma-10 to the Aqueduct Cafe. Returned the same way to Caimari then Inca and Sa Pobla (125km).
6. Puig Major and Soller – a big day with a lot of climbing. We Headed up the Col de Femenia again following the Ma-10 road and kept on going past two beautiful mountain lakes to the Monnaber Tunnel. From here it is a stunning descent about 9 miles long all the way down to Soller, we continued on to the picturesque bay of Port de Soller for refreshments. We went back the same way for the 9 mile climb up numerous switchbacks to the Monnaber Tunnel – an hour of pain (138km).
7. A slow ride to the pleasant town of Arta and a meal in the town square, returned the same way to Port d’Alcudia and continued along the coast road to Port de Pollenca to a packed Tolo’s Restaurant to watch the conclusion of the Paris-Roubaix bike race on TV. Bradley Wiggins gets in there now and then when he is training and there are a couple of his bikes hanging off the ceiling, including the one he won the world time trial on in 2014 (82km).

www.mallorcacycling.co.uk/ A comprehensive guide to cycling in Majorca.

www.cyclinglocations.com/mallorca/   Further information and ride suggestions.

http://www.mallorca312.com/   A Challenging one day sportive ride that does a full lap of the island 312km (194 miles).