MAJORCA 2009 – the experience according to Jo

The week in numbers: 75 / 70 / 90 / 84 / 89 / 67. That’s kilometres on each of our bike rides. Total: 475. Maximum speed: 52 kph. Dead bodies: 3. (We heard that a 79-year old cyclist had a heart attack on the road; next day we saw a pair of stockinged feet sticking out from a covered mound in the car park at Lluc monastery – wondered where the ambulance that passed us on the way up was heading; and a cyclist apparently keeled over on the toilet at a party on their last night).

Names of the week (in no particular order): Campanet, Buger, Muro, Petra, Seycelles, Lluc, Puy Major, Cala San Vincent. Not Randa, not Soller, not the Orient, not the lighthouse. They’re for next time.

Smiles of the week: silly things like Mike’s buns, bananas stolen from the breakfast buffet, everyone’s nicknames: Stealth, Donut Dave, Rocket.

Triumphs of the week: finding myself fitter and abler than predicted, but still learning to ‘dig in’ on a hill; keeping up with the others on a slight gradient (hill to me); finding my pace and keeping at it till the top, rewarded by coffee and cake or bocadillo con queso e tomate; descending smoothly and fearlessly (the latter is an aspiration not an achievement).

Staying at a place with a 30 metre pool was amazing and meant the Pollensa Park hotel was teeming with triathletes as well as cyclists, and even some iron women who did Iron Mans but looked and sounded very ordinary close up.

Next year: I’ll see if I can beat my record for piling mounds of salad into my bowl, and a steady four on puddings. Only to load up for cycling so I can get out there and bust some ass on those hills of course.