Mallorca Day 3 - 7

Time certainly flies when you’re having fun.

Tuesday saw the arrival of the first Tri Camp Mallorca group. The hours leading up to their arrival were spent doing the last few bits of admin and getting teas/coffees ready.

17 smiles greeted me, all excited about their week ahead. I’m sure going to be a master at remembering names after this 10-week stint.

I awoke to the pissing rain on Wednesday morning but got out for an 8km run regardless. Thankfully it stopped before the group rode down to the pool for their swim analysis session.

I joined the group for the afternoon ride to Lluc, making sure to smash myself up the climb. The beauty of riding climbs with varied abilities is that once you get to the top, you drop back down to the last rider and ride back up. It’s a great hill session.

Thursday’s ride is fairly flat and fast. On what we call the Reed Road (road is flanked with reed beds), I got down on the drops and started a great little chain gang. We kept at around 45km/h for what seemed like ages.

The 60km ride ends at Port de Pollenca, met by the van carrying our wetsuits. It was sunny but the water’s still too cold to be in for longer than 20/30 minutes. Getting a taste of the salt water was just enough.

Friday is a big ride day. Sa Calobra. In my opinion, one of the most beautiful mountain climbs in the world. It’s like a kid took a black crayon and scribbled on the side of a mountain. Switchback heaven. At the end of the day, my Garmin read 80km ridden, 2,000m ascended. That’s mega.

With the weather coming to the party, we declared Friday evening braai evening. Naturally the South African in me couldn’t resist volunteering. No pressure.

I needed to get a long run in this morning. Fortunately a few of the group were keen too so off I went with 6 others.

I’ve pretty much spent the rest of today drinking coffee at a café (free WiFi) then lounging next to the plunge pool on the roof terrace. It wasn't all rock n’ roll as I had a mound of laundry to sort out.

That said…la vida es buena.

Riding Single

I'm fortunate to be able to ride to and from work. Not only do I save on travel costs but I get to my desk feeling fresh (I shower at work) and wide awake. I used to ride either my mountain or road bike, both fairly valuable and expensive pieces of equipment. London's road are a shocker (excuse the pun) so the wear and tear on my beautiful bikes was getting worse after every ride. To and from work, 5 days a week and the mileage all starts to add up!

When I started working at Haygarth, I always noticed this poor old bike chained to a drain pipe, exposed to the elements. I asked around the office and I found the owner. He explained that he had bought a new bike so the old one was in retirement. I made it quite obvious that I was interested in the neglected old beauty. A few months later I got a call from him saying that I could have the bike as he knew I'd make use of it, rather than it being shackled to the wall outside. I bought him a nice bottle of wine to say thanks.

And so started my project of turning the rusty old beauty into a single speed commuting bike. I got a single speed converter, stripped off all the gears, bottle cages and useless chainrings and slowly but surely bought bits and pieces to get it back to working order. In doing so, I've learnt so much about fixing bikes and bike maintenance/care. It's turned into a little hobby which has kept me busy for hours up in the loft or out in the shed.

Riding a single speed is such a awesome feeling. You stop worrying about which gear you're in and have time to look around, think of other things and take in your surroundings. Secondly, because there's only one gear, it's super light, there's much less wear and hardly any maintenance needed. Lastly, it's making my legs stronger so when I do ride my road bike on the weekends, my times and speed are improving.

Riding single is like being a kid again on my first bike without a care in the world. Once more I'm reminded how the simple things in life bring me the most pleasure. The picture above is of Howie, my new single best friend.