Test Negative, Ride Positive: A Week in Mallorca with the Club
Most people start a cycling holiday with a coffee. I started mine at a pharmacy in Port de Pollença, holding a lateral flow test and trying not to imagine a week spent watching everyone else ride. A sore throat had kept me off the bike for several days, and by the time I landed, a day after the rest of the group, I felt terrible. Years of policing had taught me to plan for the worst case, because sometimes it actually happens.
This time it didn't. One line, not two. Feeling a little better than the day before, I trusted the old cyclists' rule (if it's all above the neck, you can ride) and joined an easy 70 km loop up through the mountains to the old monastery at Lluc, the group happy to take it steady. It was exactly what I needed.
That was the important thing about this week. It was predominantly a Newbury Velo social, with riders of mixed ability all riding together. Everyone took the climbs at their own pace, and we regrouped at the key junctions and the tops of the climbs before rolling on as one. It was what a club ride should be, just with warmer roads and more coffee.
The week
After that gentle start, the island showed us most of its faces. Tuesday was built around stops: coffee by the caves at Campanet, lunch in Pollença's old town (I sneaked off to ride up Puig de Maria above the town while everyone else chose somewhere to eat), and, for Richard Wilson and me, a last push out after lunch along the Formentor peninsula to the lighthouse at its tip. On Wednesday we left the mountains behind for the flat farmland in the middle of the island, a ride that took over nine hours door to door with barely five of them spent pedalling. The rest was coffee, lunch and waiting for each other at the tops of the climbs, which tells you most of what you need to know about the spirit of the week. Thursday was my queen stage, the name the Tour de France gives its hardest day, and I rode it alone: 166 km over the mountains by the Coll de Sóller and down the famous hairpins to Sa Calobra, then back up them faster than I ever have, with two food stops and a bottle refill along the way, one of them needing a dash to a cash machine first, after I realised cards weren't accepted. By Friday the bike was complaining a little. A rubber seal inside the rear hub had come loose and melted in the heat generated by the spinning wheel, gluing itself to the parts that are meant to spin freely, so the day began with the wheel in pieces and a warranty claim to add to the to-do list, and ended far more gently, with a group ride out across the plain for cake at Santa Maria.
Off the bike
Some of the best parts of the week happened off the bike. Riding together all day is one thing; sitting round a table together every evening is another. Over dinner the conversation drifted away from gearing and tyre pressures to the things there's often not much time for on a Sunday club run: families, work, where people had come from, what got them into cycling in the first place. A few personal stories were shared, and I've come home knowing clubmates a little better than I did before. That's what turns a good week of riding into a special one. The roads bring you here, but the company is what you remember.
Day six: recovery is the ride
I wrote this on the Saturday morning.
This morning I decided not to ride.
On paper it was an easy decision to question. For me the Orient route remains unridden, one of the few roads in Mallorca I have yet to experience. The weather is good, the bike is here, and my club colleagues are flying home today. A final solo ride would have been easy to justify.
Yet my body has been telling a different story.
It is not muscular fatigue. My legs are not heavy and I am not hobbling around the hotel feeling broken. Instead, the fatigue sits deeper. There is a sense of being drained rather than sore, a feeling that my nervous system has been working hard all week and is now asking for a pause. The Garmin metrics agree. HRV is down, Training Readiness has fallen to 1, and my training status has moved into "strained".
After more than 550 km since Monday, none of this should be surprising.
What strikes me is that this week's fatigue feels different from the tiredness I might feel after a hard local ride. It is the accumulated effect of day after day of riding, climbing, fuelling, recovering and doing it all again the following morning. The legs may still be willing, but the body as a whole is asking for recovery.
For someone preparing for the Tour of Tours, there is perhaps a lesson in this.
The challenge is not simply to keep pedalling. Most cyclists can do that. The challenge is to recognise when recovery becomes the smartest training choice. Continuing to ride today would not be about fitness. It would be about satisfying the desire to tick off another route and add another ride to the tally. Taking the day off is about respecting the work already done.
The miles are already in the bank.
The climbs are already in the legs.
The fitness gains will come not from one more ride to Orient, but from allowing my body time to absorb the training load of the last five days.
So instead of clipping in, I will catch the bus into Pollença later this morning. I'll wander through the town, drink coffee without watching the clock, eat well, and enjoy Mallorca from a different perspective, through my camera lens. The bike can stay where it is.
Orient will still be there another year.
Today, recovery is the ride.
The demons
I'd be lying if I said the week only brought good news. On the day off, the sums started running in my head. If 560 km and 7,400 m over five days left me needing a rest, how would I manage 3,000 km and 54,000 m over twenty-three days next summer? That morning, it felt almost out of reach. But that's what a week like this is for. It shows you the size of the gap, while there's still time to close it.
Day seven: the rest day pays off
Sunday, and the last day. I woke up feeling good, which is exactly what the day off was for. With the wheel still on borrowed time, I stayed local, riding loops close to the hotel so I was never too far away if it gave up, or caused more problems. A little over 100 km, and proof that one day off can do more than one more ride ever could.
The week in numbers
Six days of riding, 664 km and almost 8,300 m of climbing, a personal best up Sa Calobra, one melted hub weather seal, and a great deal of cake. Not bad for a week that began at a pharmacy counter. Mallorca, it turns out, was not the man flu disaster I'd feared it could be.
I had set out hoping for around 640 km, building day by day to one big ride and then easing off, and trusting the club's rides to give me that shape. They did, without me suggesting a single route or distance that needed to fit my plans. It just fell into place.
For the Tour of Tours, it was the first real taste of what riding day after day asks of you, and the first honest look at how far there still is to go. Both are worth having this far out.
Last orders
With the group already home, my final lunch in Mallorca was a table for one, and I finally found a restaurant serving alcohol-free beer on draught. It tasted like the end of a very good week.
Thank you to everyone at Newbury Velo who made the week what it was. If you'd like to support my ride for the William Wates Memorial Trust, you can donate here: https://fundraising.wwmt.org/fundraisers/simonbowden
