March arrived out of the sudden and with it came the usual herds of cyclists, the unpredictable weather, and also our first guests of the season.
We love spring in Mallorca and by looking at the roads you can tell it is no secret to the rest of the world why this place is such an amazing cycling holidays destination. The temperatures always around the mid tens, the sun starts warming up th fields of almond trees in bloom and with it the whole landscape explodes with a bang of colours and life... you can see the landscape changing day by day, week by week.
Our first guests came from the US near Vermont and this was summerish compare to their winter at home where they had sub zero temperatures for over 6 weeks in a row. Adam an arborist, quite fascinated with trees in Mallorca, and Marilyn an artist, they came over to Mallorca for around 10 days to get their first Km of the cycling season.
While communicating with Marilyn I realised she was the 2011 master 50 cyclo cross world champion so after a few days on the island I decided to join them and take them for a couple of our local favourite hills like Col de Honor and Col de Soller and I have to say Adam did pull my ears a little bit, and he also gave me a little scare in Col de Soller where he fell on one of the slippery switchbacks which at this time of the year don’t get too much sun.
The same week the Nurses arrived and we met in Hotel Esplendido in Port de Soller where we took off for a few rides that week. On Sunday we drove over to Bunyola and did an 80 Km easy ride up to Randa, and right there, in the single file of cyclist almost from start to finish you could tell the cycling season had just more than started, it was right on.
Cycling back to Santa Maria to get the van though, we could see this big dark cloud
approaching and I started to regret the moment earlier in the day when Alan asked me: “should I take the rain jacket, you think?” “naaahhhh, I don’t think so the worst is over I’m sure” I said… so when we found ourselves in the middle of a typical, and unpredictable, hailing storm I learned, or refreshed, one important lesson, always say yes take your rain jacket it will most likely rain... oouuucchh!!! Sorry Allan…