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Mar 6, 2008 | 09:50 AM

foreigneRS

Testing the future

Joined: Jul 2003

Posts: 17,597

Likes: 24

From: W. Sussex

Part 3/6

Friday 15th

The plan for the day was to take the motorway and A-road back to Valdemossa to pick up the coast road where we had left off and take that as far as Soller. At that point we would turn inland to ride up the Coll de Soller mountain pass. The new road takes a tunnel through the mountain, but the old road is still open and should be great fun to ride as it twists and turns up the 500m peak. Then we would head down the other side to Bunyola, where you can take the scenic railway back over the mountain to Soller. Scenic rail journeys are always nice things to do, but we planned only to do it if we got fed up of riding or the weather made a turn for the worse. From there we would head across to the large town of Inca and then up to Lluc to find the monastery that the guide book had recommended and see if they had a room for the night. We would then get back on the coast road to Soller and back to complete that stretch of coastline.

This is a map of the route planned for the Friday.

http://tinyurl.com/yu32k3

After getting the bikes warmed up, we headed out on to the motorway past the airport. Traffic was light, so we thought we’d open up the taps on the Fazers and see what they’d do. We were a bit disappointed to be honest. Dropping down to 2nd to get the revs up they would pull to the limiter, but then seemed to struggle a bit at the top end of 3rd and above. I don’t know if they were throttled somehow (the rental place said they should have 78 bhp), but they didn’t feel all that quick to us. Maybe that was because they are basically naked bikes and having 15 stone beefcakes on with luggage strapped on the back was making them struggle against aerodynamic forces, or maybe it’s just because we are used to something bigger. We both ride bikes at 1000cc or over (me a Honda Firestorm, and Stu a Honda Blackbird), so a 600cc is never going to be as quick. They struggled up to 200kph which was fast enough I suppose when you have a rucksack strapped around the back seat that could fall off into the rear wheel at any time!
Getting off the motorway, we headed across the countryside towards Valdemossa. Coming up from the plain and into the hills, you get a superb view of the old town up on the hill.

This time, the streets were clear from cyclists and we could ride straight through the town to join up with the coast road where we had left it the day before when we had headed inland to complete the loop back to Andratx. Once again, the coast road made for superb riding as it twisted and turned and dipped and rose to follow the cliffs. The surface of this road is generally good, but as the guy in the bike shop warned us, it can suddenly change from grippy black tarmac to quite slippery grey stuff. Particularly if it’s in a shaded area where it’s still cold and a little damp from overnight condensation. The feeling from the road tyres on the Fazers was much better than the bikes from the previous day though, and they seemed to suit the roads and our style of riding much better. We were glad that we had swapped, and to both be on the same type of bike was good as our pace was more evenly matched. All was not entirely well however, and Stu was still complaining about a lack of grip from the rear of his bike, but not enough to hamper our enjoyment.

There are a couple of pretty little villages on the way that need slowing down for, as the streets are pretty narrow – I was just glad that we were there out of season and that we were not coming across coaches all the time. In fact the roads were very quiet and we rarely met anything which was great as having been to mainland Spain before and islands like Corsica, I had half expected to have maniac drivers coming towards us and cutting the corners dangerously.

After a while we came to the outskirts of the town of Soller. At this point we knew that we wanted to head back inland on the main road towards Palma but then branch off to take the pass, rather than the tunnel. Just before the tunnel, the old road goes off sharply to the left and climbs the mountain in a series of hairpins. You get a left hairpin followed by a very short straight, and then a right hairpin followed by a very short straight and just repeat that until 500m in height later. We hadn’t come across a road like this before so far on the island as the coast road was more gentle turns rather than hairpins and it was a bit of a challenge to get right. Hairpins require a particular technique involving really cranking your head around to look up the road that you hope to ride up, but if there is occasionally gravel on the bend it really unsettles you and you tend to want to look down more often that you should and be a bit wobbly. Never mind, we weren’t in a race, we were there to practice and learn and roads like this were a definite challenge. Before starting the ride up the Coll, I set the video camera to record. I have an Archos 604 that has a 30GB hard drive to record to, and a small camera that plugs into it that I had placed on the side of the flyscreen and you can see the ascent here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKDrMui-5u8

At the top, i.e. the Coll part of the Coll de Soller, we had a stop for a drink of freshly squeezed orange juice and a meat pie. God knows what they were called, or what meat was in them either, possibly goat, but they were delicious. Having a look round, from the top you couldn’t really see where we had come from, but you could see where we were going and it looked great.

There were several cyclists at the top, and I had to admire there efforts in getting there. As we got ready to get back on the bikes, I overheard a couple of the ladies talking to each other, one of whom was American. The English lady said something about the switchback bends to which the American said “They were more than switchbacks; they turned right back on themselves”. You can take the girl out of America, but you can’t take the American out of the girl! Chuckling in my helmet, I got back on Stu’s bike to try it out as he was still getting an uneasy feeling from the rear tyre, whereas mine was feeling alright. We headed off down the hill to Bunyola to find the railway station to check on the train times for the scenic rail journey. As the weather was still excellent, we had decided that we would keep riding and only do the train journey if the weather turned wet later in the holiday as had been forecasted. Forgetting why I was on Stu’s bike, the first left hander that I got to I tipped it in a bit too fast (although not really fast) and felt the back tyre slide a bit which put the wind up me a bit! As Stu was following me on the bike equipped with the camera, you can see it on the video of the ride down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44WT6JPfKuk

I went a bit more gingerly from then on for a while, but then I must have got some heat in to them or something as I didn’t get any more problems on the road down and we got into the little village of Bunyola, found the train station and made a note of train times for later reference. Then we headed across country aiming for the town of Inca through the villages of Orient, Solleric, Alaro and Llosetta where all of the almond orchards were in blossom.

In Llosetta, there was a road closure and diversion and somehow we managed to lose the diversion route and ended up riding on a cycle path all the way to Inca. Not a problem, we emerged in the outskirts of Inca and found a café to stop for lunch. Unfortunately they didn’t have any tables outside as it was a lovely day, although wherever we stopped outside the locals looked at us as if we were mad as to them it was cold. The guidebook had said that one of the top 20 things to do should be to sample a Mallorcan speciality like pa amb oli (crusty bread rubbed with garlic and tomato). This was on the menu in the café, so we both ordered it con Queso (with cheese) with a café con leche and agua con gas. What turned up a few minutes later was a bit of a surprise as on each plate were 2 huge long slices of bread covered in slices of cheese with a load of salad on the side and a couple of very hot pickled chilis. For the small price, it was amazing and neither of us could finish it. I needed the loo, so left Stu to get the bill (la Quenta) and he was well embarrassed when I didn’t return for several minutes having dropped some friends off in the pool. We got back on the bikes and on our way to try and find the monastery at Lluc and see if they had a room for the night.

The road left Inca where it was flat, and climbed up into the Serra de Tramuntana. As it did so, there were a good mixture of hairpins and more open corners, although again there were patches that either had gravel on them or very low grip from the surface. When there is only a 1 or 2 foot wall between the edge of the road and a very high drop, those kind of moments are not something that you want to be happening.

The monastery had been well signed up along the route, and as we turned off the main road, the road to it dropped down the hill into a bit of a bowl. Arriving at the monastery we parked the bikes up quietly and went to find the accommodation office. The monastery no longer has monks staying there which was a bit of a disappointment as we wanted to teach them some bad habits! The accommodation office were very helpful and could offer us a room for just €35 for the pair of us for the night. Breakfast was not included, but still it seemed like a good price. We took the key and went up to the room to drop off our rucksacks so that we could continue the ride without the hassle of them on the back of the bikes. I had bought a Kriega R35 especially for the trip, but the day before when I had been wearing it all day I had not found it particularly comfortable. The problem was that I had not used it before and had not read the instructions properly so had not had it pulled tight on the correct straps. Even so, by the end of the day of riding with it on my lower back was beginning to give me a bit of gip. So today we had worked out a way to strap it around the pillion seat of the Fazer, but I wasn’t entirely convinced of its security on there although it had stayed properly in place so far during the day.

Getting into the room, we found out part of the reason why the room seemed so cheap – it was freezing cold and we had to make our own beds. Not a big deal, I cracked open the radiator valve and set to putting on my sheets and blankets. We had another look at the map to see what else we were going to do with the rest of the day, and the following days, and decided that Lluc would be a good base to start from for Sunday morning as well as Saturday. Thankfully the monastery still had availability of our room, so we paid up for another night. Expecting it to be €35 again, I was pleasantly surprised when they only wanted €32 this time! Well, we had already made our bed. That done, we got back on the bikes to continue our riding for the day.