caitelliott.co.uk » Soller http://www.caitelliott.co.uk/blog Sat, 04 Mar 2017 11:34:51 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Mallorca – mountain biking http://www.caitelliott.co.uk/blog/2012/12/11/mallorca-mountain-biking/ http://www.caitelliott.co.uk/blog/2012/12/11/mallorca-mountain-biking/#comments Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:00:46 +0000 Cait http://www.caitelliott.co.uk/blog/?p=3330 Continue reading →]]> After 4 days of road biking Mallorca nearly turned me into a fully blown roadie, until I hired a mountain bike. Multiply the road riding by ten and you get an idea of how good the mountain biking is there. The trails are all completely natural hiking paths through the mountains and olive terraces with fantastic views across the valley and out to sea. There is no specific routing or signposts and very few bikers but there is a leaflet available with information on where to ride. I hired a rock eating full-sus and headed for the black routes in the Soller Valley.

Incredibly rocky paths switchback through the olive groves eventually leading down to the sea and beautiful cove at Deia. The rock gardens are serious ones that would be at home on a downhill course, often steep and lasting several hundred meters, they are littered with huge unavoidable boulders and half meter high drop offs. The old men standing around picking olives and gossiping barely batted an eyelid as I went clattering past in a cloud of dust.

It was absolutely amazing riding but I was certainly glad of the full-suspension bike, you can ride so much more aggressively. Throwing the bike into the corners, launching off the drops and straight lining over the rock gardens. Awesome.

Roadies you are missing out!

]]> http://www.caitelliott.co.uk/blog/2012/12/11/mallorca-mountain-biking/feed/ 0 Mallorca – road biking http://www.caitelliott.co.uk/blog/2012/12/10/mallorca-road-biking/ http://www.caitelliott.co.uk/blog/2012/12/10/mallorca-road-biking/#comments Mon, 10 Dec 2012 11:00:42 +0000 Cait http://www.caitelliott.co.uk/blog/?p=3297 Continue reading →]]> With sub zero temperatures and snow hitting Zurich 2 weeks ago the first reaction is to think how much you’d love to jump on a plane to Spain. So I did. Mallorca seems to be the place to go for road bike training and a must do for any cyclist, this would normally put me off because I don’t like following the crowds but the opportunity for a last minute trip was too good a chance to miss. It lived up to it’s reputation despite the weather being ‘bad’ for most of the week – just meaning the locals were out in their winter boots and down jackets and there were some very strong headwinds but no leggings required for cycling. Lots of big climbs, super smooth tarmac, undulating roads along the coast, millions of hairpins bends and of course some sunshine.













7 days, 18 hours riding, 13500m climbing, 460km and plenty of coffee stops. Calves survived thanks to Compressport Full Legs and I now have an excuse to avoid riding the rollers inside for a while!

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