Thursday, April 28, 2011

To the mountains...Sa Colabra

To put it in perspective, today's ride is one of the most challenging rides in Mallorca. The ride takes you from the sea in Alcudia around Pollenca and then up to the Col de Femenia near the Lluc monastery. The following graphs show the detail of the topography, but not the beautiful scenery of this part of Mallorca. The mountains have been mastered by roads engineered with switchbacks, bridges and all manner of curves to climb 500+ meters up the very steep mountains. Most of the grades are at 5-7% and go on for over 7Km (4+ miles). It's a long grind up, but the views are spectacular!

Following, a pic of us at the second peak.




Another short climb of 115 meters takes us to the top of the descent into Sa Colabra. The descent is technically challenging with many switchbacks and the road even going under itself at one time. Fascinating engineering!

More of the descent into Port de Sa Colabra.
We took a ferry from Port de Sa Colabra to Soller. And there is only one way out of Soller- over Col de Soller! So after the climb up to enjoy that glorious descent into Port de Sa Colabra our journey by sea ended with the start of another long climb to almost 500 meters.
But the climb is rewarded by another glorious descent! And then a 40Km ride back through the valley across Mallorca to Alcudia. A long day, over 5000 feet of climbing (per Kathie's Garmin 705), capped with hot showers and a good dinner. It will be early to sleep and I'm sure we will sleep well!


Left, a happy Bill Spitale completing the descent from Col de Soller into Bunyola.
And that blue dot in the center of the next pic is Kathie beginning her descent to Port de Sa Colabra.
Yes! That's really her.





Tomorrow? Probably a gentle ride day in the valley to help our legs recover! But it will include a very Mallorcan lunch!

No comments:

Post a Comment