Well, where to start... I've never really ridden Sportives, in fact the last one I rode was the Mallorca 312 in 2014 - this ride though is much more a festival of cycling, much less a race. The organisers want to showcase the wonders of cycling in Mallorca, for everyone to have a fab time and get everyone round the course - most major sportives will have a broom wagon - fall 1 minute behind cut-off and thats it, your timing chip is removed and you are deposited in a bus full of very narked cyclists. Here though is different - they really don't want to eliminate anyone - they even have a special sweeper team of green dotted riders who ride exactly to the elimination pace - worst comes to worst just sit behind them and they will drag you home - such a lovely friendly relaxed atmosphere and such a lovely place to cycle.
A new course this year, driven partly by the huge success of the Mallorca 312 - over 4,500 riders this year with 1,500 on a waitlist, up from 2,000 riders when I rode it 2 years ago - this dictates totally sealed roads, and that meant the old route that went right through Palma on the motorway wasn't really viable. One could also alas theorise that Mallorca being Mallorca that the right palms weren't greased with enough money to get the right permits, but either way a new route was needed on pretty short notice.
The old route was epic, 25km flat then 110km right along the entire mountain range, then 170km dead flat all the way home. I knew of course it was a new route, but mentally I was still sorta expecting the same profile as the old route - WRONG! The old Mallorca 312 had just spawned a new nastier big brother - same distance but now so so hard - lumpy bumpy, windy, twisty energy sapping nasty big brother.
Never before in anything I have done have I needed to watch and race the clock - but here the clock was beating me, I was just 5 minutes ahead of the first cut-off at 90km and with 40km to go before the second cut off at 232km I was 5 minutes behind, with no real plan of how to make up that time - until a lovely train of riders came by motoring at 45km / hr that I jumped on - and still then we missed cut off by 30 seconds. Thats how mad this course was - a group of pretty decent calibre strong riders having to smash it at 45km / hr for 45 minutes with 200km of riding in their legs just to hit a cut-off, and still missing it. Bonkers.
By now though I had already assumed that the organisers knew they had an issue... Like in previous years the success rate was been circa 90% - and thats what they want, they want people to get home (compare to L'Etape where some years its 40%). At second cut-off however, sorta hardly anyone actually made said cut-off... We were waved through, as were people for a short while afterwards, the organisers wanting to try and get people round where possible.
So on we went, the finish line still 80km away, sort of in sight now but work still to be done, perpetually bumpy, lumpy, twisty all the way home. I finished in 2012 in 12 hours - this year definitely stronger and fitter - 13 hours 30 minutes, 25 minutes ahead of the 9pm finish line cut-off in the end. Of 4,400 starters just 1,100 made it round the whole course, of those 1,100 I finished 900th. I never once saw the green dotted sweeper team but they were never far behind. 2% of battery left in my Garmin at the end, and pretty much the exact same left in my legs and head, I was utterly destroyed. For me for a change there were no tears of tiredness and joy, just an overwhelming relief of having got round.
Knock on the door this morning. Its the hotel manager. Oops, they noticed the bike oil I got on the linen, here's here to tell me off.... "Sir, I just wanted to say congratulations at getting round the whole course, you were one of the very very few who did, none of our other guest here did, we hope you are feeling OK today". That made me cry...
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