Wind and More Wind

Wind and More Wind

Finally, we got to ride our bikes. After a slow start this morning, (ie a couple of us slept in) our intrepid Team Mallorca assembled at the Trek Travel bike station at the hotel. It’s more like a bike bunker, but still, it had lots of bikes. Personally, I was quite impressed that our bikes were lined-up, with our names on them, already loaded with a Garmin, filled water bottles, and sized to our specifications. Our guides were there, tools in hand, ready to make any adjustments necessary. After a rather lengthy talk on Spanish rules of the road, how to use the Garmin, and generally don’t be a bad cyclist, we mounted our steeds and headed out.

The planned ride for today was rather short by almost any standards. A 30 mile ride up to the coast to the Port of Alcudia which was also the starting and ending point of yesterday’s Mallorca 312. While going up to the coast was fine, we quickly learned why we won’t working very hard. The moment we turned to head south and back to the hotel, the winds hit us directly in the face. The weather forecast was calling to 30-40 gusts. To me, they felt a lot more. Our place slowed, but we moved forward. Trees, bushes and crops were bending over as we passed. Cyclist heading in the opposite direction (north) seemed to be flying by.  Our average mph rate dropped dramatically as we fought to just move forward. As we got closer, we made a right hand turn toward the hotel. But then, the headwind became a crosswind. Several times, Lisa and I thought we could be literally be blown off the road. We were riding not up right, but in a position leaning to the left. Our rather mundane, easy first day ride, turned into a challenge just to make it back.

We all made it home, returned our bikes to the bike station and walked back to our rooms. At happy hour, a lot of the discussion was about, “if this is just the first day, what lies ahead?”