Mallorca Training Camp - Day 6

Day Six: Arta and back
Distance: 70km
Climbing: Up and over to Ermita de Bethlehem
Weather: Sunny, warm with a crosswind

This ride used to be our last of the week but has now come forward a day to give the riders a break from the mountains. It is quite a leisurly ride along the coast and there is always a great lunch at Hotel San Salvador

Phil and I rode together for the second time this week and due to getting a sucky sweet wedged in my Speedplay cleat we found ourselves some way behind the group. We chased and Phil went on to the front and I could only just hang on, he's got a great engine in there….

Horse v Donkey

We rode up and the climb at a leisurly pace and Phil screeched his way down the other side on his Mavic Cosmic Carbone SLR's. They are lovely looking wheels but at what price? They sound awful and wake small babies in their prams, startle sheep and get on everyone's nerves. They are more irritating they noise from my 0'Symmetric chainrings (which have now gone, more on that later).
If Mavic have used the Exalith (now renamed Exa-Screech) coating for asthaetics please admit that but saying that it is applied to the rim to impove braking doesn't make sense. Brakes work perfectly well on normal alloy rims with normal pads. Apparently the noise stops after 300km to 500km but we are still waiting.

Returning back over the top I took a few photos and the walking about compacted Mallorcan sand in with the sucky sweet in my cleat. Everone headed off while I tried to engage my pedal. I stopped a little way down the descent and removed my shoe to operate; next to the bike was a spongy green tuft of lichen that I could rest my socked foot on.
OMG those small green grass shoots were in fact cactus needles and my foot became briefly impaled to the ground. I looked around for Phil feeling a bit isolated and in the distance I could hear him braking further down the descent, he can't be far I thought, maybe only five miles.

Here's Ross a man who has suffered this week, he admits he is slightly out of condition and has struggled on the climbs. His lateral knee pain was alleviated with an internal wedge on the second day; what a great invention for cyclists, there is no way he could have continued.
I do though Ross have to let you know why nobody followed your wheel today on the run-in to Alcudia. The lycra on those Assos shorts you've had for a century now has the opacity of a pair of sheer black tights. From the chamois up everything was on view.

We headed back as one group which was fun, no more them and us and Tony was spoiling for the sprint. Phil wore himself out on the front and I had too try and tackle the big boys on my own. Nigel (61 years young) went early and then everyone sat up in the headwind until Tony 'The Unit' kicked again.I chased but couldn't get to him and Alan (Chewy) came over the top.
Lesson of the day was: You can't sprint with 155mm cranks and check your shorts aren't see through before a training camp.