The highlights:
- The amazing weather, scenery, climbs, descents
- Great organisation. Food and ice cold drinks thrust into your hand at every feed station.
- All the villages we went though coming out to clap us along, so humbling
- (Most of) the final 170km smash home at 45 to 50km/hr in a 100 strong peleton
- Fantastic atmosphere, 12 hours amongst friends, none of the twitchy nerves of L'Etape
- The 20 stone+ guy suffering like crazy up the climbs, everyone giving him a shout of encouragement or pat on the back - chapeau!
The lowlights
- none really, other than the guy who missed the corner on a descent and smashed himself up.
- forgetting the suntan lotion...ouch.
I entered this ride by accident really, I had booked a training camp in Mallorca a couple of months back and whilst googling around saw that "Mallorca 312" was on whilst I was on the Island and booked it, not really thinking any more about it until earlier this week when I had the realisation that:
- I've only ridden 300km+ 3 or 4 times ever in my life, and never against the clock
- I only rarely do rides with 4,000m plus of climb (and never against the clock...) - thats half way up Everest, at race pace.
- The two put together I have never done, and not against the clock either...
- Since falling ill last year I've only done two 200km rides, and they were both flat, and not against the clock...
So the realisation was that this was going to be an "interesting" day...
Unlike the iconic L'Etape where all newbies (myself included) are twitchy as hell beforehand, which makes for a lot of nervy riding, the Mallorca 312 was just a festival of cycling, everyone enjoying themselves, relaxed and happy, no-one fretting about their start position on the grid, everyone relaxed and chilled out on the bike.
Pic 1: The obligatory oneselfie thingy at the start.
- The amazing weather, scenery, climbs, descents
- Great organisation. Food and ice cold drinks thrust into your hand at every feed station.
- All the villages we went though coming out to clap us along, so humbling
- (Most of) the final 170km smash home at 45 to 50km/hr in a 100 strong peleton
- Fantastic atmosphere, 12 hours amongst friends, none of the twitchy nerves of L'Etape
- The 20 stone+ guy suffering like crazy up the climbs, everyone giving him a shout of encouragement or pat on the back - chapeau!
The lowlights
- none really, other than the guy who missed the corner on a descent and smashed himself up.
- forgetting the suntan lotion...ouch.
I entered this ride by accident really, I had booked a training camp in Mallorca a couple of months back and whilst googling around saw that "Mallorca 312" was on whilst I was on the Island and booked it, not really thinking any more about it until earlier this week when I had the realisation that:
- I've only ridden 300km+ 3 or 4 times ever in my life, and never against the clock
- I only rarely do rides with 4,000m plus of climb (and never against the clock...) - thats half way up Everest, at race pace.
- The two put together I have never done, and not against the clock either...
- Since falling ill last year I've only done two 200km rides, and they were both flat, and not against the clock...
So the realisation was that this was going to be an "interesting" day...
Unlike the iconic L'Etape where all newbies (myself included) are twitchy as hell beforehand, which makes for a lot of nervy riding, the Mallorca 312 was just a festival of cycling, everyone enjoying themselves, relaxed and happy, no-one fretting about their start position on the grid, everyone relaxed and chilled out on the bike.
Pic 1: The obligatory oneselfie thingy at the start.
I did fret a teeny bit the night before, realising that it got dark at 8.50pm, 10 minutes before the cut-off time for finishing, and I really truly expected to be on the road still at that time, so I put lights on the bike. But then I thought I would look like a prat, so I took them off again.
Pic 2: At the start, alongside the dreaded sweeper van. Thankfully the closest I would be to it all day.
It was hugely well organised, all the mountain roads were closed for us, a police escort through Palma on a cordoned off lane of the motorway, all traffic stopped at traffic lights and roundabouts whilst we sailed through, leaving Island wide traffic chaos in our wake. The feed stations were super quick and efficient, in-out no messing around, just perfect.
Pic 3: Feeding time at the zoo. Arrive at feed station, open mouth, inhale calories, depart.
Pic 3: Feeding time at the zoo. Arrive at feed station, open mouth, inhale calories, depart.
The hardest part of mass rides is starting at your pace, not getting caught up in a group going beyond your pace - easy to do, but suffering will follow. It is OK to suffer at the end, but not the beginning, thats just asking for trouble - but thankfully I found a group that was doing just the pace I wanted, 35km/hr ish and cruised with them for the 20km to the bottom of the mountains, and then the ride really starts, 120km of continual up and down along the mountain range right down the side of the island.
Pic 4: Amazing scenery, hard not to be inspired to ride harder with weather, terrain and scenery like this.
1,700 people did the ride, with it splitting at the 90km mark, the pansies (ok, I'm taking bragging rights here...) who were doing the half distance 167km ride turning left, the proper riders (still bragging...), turning right. That's when the talking pretty much stopped, everyone who turned right knew there was a lotta work still to be done, a mere 220km of work left...
Not still bragging (much) but 5 times Tour winner Miguel Induarain was riding, along with Giro and Tour winner Stephen Roche and world champion Oscar Freire. Anyone want to guess whether they did the full ride or whether you will find their names on the result list for having done the ride that turned left...
Bit by bit the miles ticked by and to be honest I felt great throughout. I'm not the worlds fastest climber, but I know I can climb all day at my climb rate and I kept the rate (800m / hr vertical ascent) up throughout without any real degradation or suffering. Was very happy with that.
At 140km we came out of the mountains and there was now 170km left pretty much flat, with mostly a tailwind - time to smash it! I knew then that even if I rode the entire 170km on my own, alone, as a tempo ride that I'd be home at about the 13 - 13.5 hr mark, happily within the cut-off, but the plan was to mooch along riding tempo until a small group came by, and then hook up with them to share the work, and so it turned out - 5 people caught me, I joined them, then 5 became 10, became 25, become 50 and then we were really motoring, cruising along at 40 - 45km / hr hoovering up smaller groups all the time, ending up with a group of about 100 of us smashing along. Well that was until a couple of local Mallorcan clubs hit the front, clearly determined to show us interlopers who was the boss - the immediately cranked the pace up with surges to 50km / hr and sure enough I start to slide back through the pack and them bam, out the back door, 1 missed wheel suck quickly becoming 1 length, then 10, and gone, spat out the back. We regrouped at the feed station, thankfully without the locals, and the smash recommenced - 5 minutes hard work at the front then mooch in the pack all the way home at 40 - 45km/hr, just magic, goose bumps and the odd tear in the eye over the final 10km.
And that was it, pah to the 14 hour time limit, we came over the line with high fives all round in 12 hours exactly. I will post my Garmin next week but it was 27km /hr moving average with 11.5 hours riding, 12 hours total time, by far my best ever ride over either distance or this terrain, let alone both put together. I finished almost bang in the middle, 489th out of 895 who did the full distance. The first guy over the line did it in 9 hours 8 minutes (huh?!). The happiest bit for me was that almost exactly a year after falling sick and losing so much weight and fitness in 2013, not only did this ride show I am finally fit again - but I still felt strong at the end which felt great - it was certainly my favourite rides in terms of the overall experience. I felt strong that is until I got back to the hotel and the adrenaline wore off and my whole body went into protest overdrive - I simply couldn't walk, talk, sit, stand, eat, drink or sleep - everything was like I had drunk 15 pints, all a bit slow motion.
Pic 5 - Pasta Party time!
Bit by bit the miles ticked by and to be honest I felt great throughout. I'm not the worlds fastest climber, but I know I can climb all day at my climb rate and I kept the rate (800m / hr vertical ascent) up throughout without any real degradation or suffering. Was very happy with that.
At 140km we came out of the mountains and there was now 170km left pretty much flat, with mostly a tailwind - time to smash it! I knew then that even if I rode the entire 170km on my own, alone, as a tempo ride that I'd be home at about the 13 - 13.5 hr mark, happily within the cut-off, but the plan was to mooch along riding tempo until a small group came by, and then hook up with them to share the work, and so it turned out - 5 people caught me, I joined them, then 5 became 10, became 25, become 50 and then we were really motoring, cruising along at 40 - 45km / hr hoovering up smaller groups all the time, ending up with a group of about 100 of us smashing along. Well that was until a couple of local Mallorcan clubs hit the front, clearly determined to show us interlopers who was the boss - the immediately cranked the pace up with surges to 50km / hr and sure enough I start to slide back through the pack and them bam, out the back door, 1 missed wheel suck quickly becoming 1 length, then 10, and gone, spat out the back. We regrouped at the feed station, thankfully without the locals, and the smash recommenced - 5 minutes hard work at the front then mooch in the pack all the way home at 40 - 45km/hr, just magic, goose bumps and the odd tear in the eye over the final 10km.
And that was it, pah to the 14 hour time limit, we came over the line with high fives all round in 12 hours exactly. I will post my Garmin next week but it was 27km /hr moving average with 11.5 hours riding, 12 hours total time, by far my best ever ride over either distance or this terrain, let alone both put together. I finished almost bang in the middle, 489th out of 895 who did the full distance. The first guy over the line did it in 9 hours 8 minutes (huh?!). The happiest bit for me was that almost exactly a year after falling sick and losing so much weight and fitness in 2013, not only did this ride show I am finally fit again - but I still felt strong at the end which felt great - it was certainly my favourite rides in terms of the overall experience. I felt strong that is until I got back to the hotel and the adrenaline wore off and my whole body went into protest overdrive - I simply couldn't walk, talk, sit, stand, eat, drink or sleep - everything was like I had drunk 15 pints, all a bit slow motion.
Pic 5 - Pasta Party time!
So, back to the training camp that I am meant to be here for. Hm, I think that'll have to wait another day or two, my body today is still broken - all of it, every little bit. Sitting here a day on I look back on yesterday - I had no plan (other than not going off too fast) going into the day but if I had to write a plan then I couldn't have written it any better than how the day actually turned out - from start to end it was a cracking day on the bike and I recommend the Mallorca 312 to anyone. Unless you are a pansy of course in which case do the 167k ride instead. Love & hugs XX.
No comments:
Post a Comment