ABCs of BAC

2 May 2009

Our trip to Mallorca is as members of the Bicycle Adventure Club (http://www.BicycleAdventureClub.org). In this nonprofit, members organize and lead trips and other members sign up and pay their share of the total participant costs. This is my first BAC ride; Ingrid also rode with BAC from Salzburg to Venice last summer.



Our trip has 16 participants, 4 individual women and 6 couples. I'd guess that the average age is about 60. The people are all interesting and engaged, so it is fun spending some time with them at meals and on the road.

Alison is our trip leader. She was responsible for booking all of the accommodations, setting the budget, planning the daily rides, and driving the van with our luggage from one hotel to the next, among other tasks. She is a terrific trip leader, combining real concern for the enjoyment of all participants, grand vision for what makes a great riding holiday, and meticulous attention to detail.

This 13-day trip is organized into five travel days, where we move from one hotel to another, and six ride-option days, where we stay in the same hotel and do either a loop ride or an out-and-back ride for the day, often choosing among two or three options. (The other two days are our arrival and departure days, which don't include serious riding.) The "A" in BAC arises because we are given maps, "cue sheets" (which contain an ordered list of distances and turns along a route), and destinations, but it is up to us to figure out how to get where we are going. Some people ride solo; others cluster into small groups. Ingrid and I always ride together and some days we've been joined by a few others.



Mallorca has a ridge of mountains that run along the northwest edge of the island. The tallest of these is Puig Major, at 1432 m (= 4700 ft). Today, we rode a lollipop in which the stick took us to the southwest along a valley below the line of mountains and the candy looped around some of the mountains in the middle of the range. We crossed two passes along the way, one at 498 m and the second at 550 m elevation. Navigation was challenging today, so I ended up logging 87 km on the 75 km route -- and the extra distance was not by design! Otherwise, it was a great ride: very good weather (sunny but a bit windy at times), good roads (no shoulder, but not heavily trafficked except by other cyclists), wonderful scenery, and a fantastic midday pastry and coffee stop!



The photos:
Top: We see historical windmills scattered about the countryside. This one, in a particularly good state of repair, is connected to a restaurant near Santa Maria.
Second: A view to the northwest from an early part of the ride showing the mountains in the background.
Third and fourth: Scenes from Bunyola, the midpoint of our ride today.