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Jeezus Christ. 45 posts in and nobody has said "Your mum".
What is the world coming to? 🙁
Me and two mates flew to Mallorca 7 years ago at the end of February after reading about it being a cycling paradise.
Had the map everyone recommends with the cycle routes on but not one Garmin between us and it was pre free data abroad so we didn’t take our phones out on the ride.
We mainly took summer/spring gear as it’s always warm in Mallorca we thought, set out for a 100km ride from Alcudia down the east coast returning on some minor inland roads.
After an hour it started bucketing down with rain and dropped to single digits temperature, soaked, cold and starving we made it to Cala Ratjada to find everywhere closed it being a Sunday in February!
We set off on what we thought was the direction back in what was now relentless sleet, after an hour or so of miserable riding in silence we stopped to check the map and we were near Portocolom, we had pedalled completely the wrong direction and were now completely fed up.
We managed to find a cafe open and sat dripping wet and shivering in our summer gear whilst waiting for a taxi to come and get us and 3 bikes with locals taking pity on us giving us hot chocolates and towels.
To top of the day after finally warming up back at the hotel we went out for food only for my mate to slip on the wet marble stairs and bang his head and have a seizure.
It was apparently the worse winter they had in 11 years!
Marmotte Sportive 2014.
My front tyre blew (properly blew, 40mph, shat myself)
On the descent off the Col du Glandon, the tyre was basically scrap, with the sidewall holed in several places by the ‘pizza cutter’ effect of being ridden on inflated at speed down a hill. By the time I’d managed to vaguely patch it with gel sachets, I was dead last and there was no tech support. No way was I making it all the way round, so I went back up to the col hoping I might be able to procure a tyre there. Nothing up there but the broom wagon, and if I got on it, I’d be on it for the next 10-12 hours which I didn’t fancy, so I decided I’d try to ride back to the start (not far, all downhill). I’d had to disconnect my front brake to clear the bulging inner tube and buckled wheel caused by the blowout, and as the blowout had been caused by overheating on the brakes I was now pathologically afraid of it happening again to the back wheel, so I was now walking down the steepest sections. Finally got back to Bourg d’oisins where I punctured again and discovered the glue in my repair kit had dried up and both my spare tubes had already been used earlier. The snag was that my hotel was in Alpe D’huez at the finish line. At this point I did manage to borrow a tyre of a bemused and sympathetic English fellow there to support his mates and I proceeded to endure a horrific 2 hours in 30-degree heat dragging my fat and sorry arse up the Alpe.
That was a pretty unenjoyable day out.