Day 49: Portocristo to Porto d'Alcudia

April 7, 2025

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Our hotel in Portocristo was swell, with a good room, secure bike storage, and another great breakfast. But it was on a rather nondescript street, leaving us looking for the "real" Portocristo as we cycled away.

At the bottom of the street was a "port", or at least a bassin with parked boats. Maybe this was Portocristo?

Or a little further on, a basin with a view to the sea.

This bar caught our attention because they had Pa Amb Oli and Tapas. This featured in the Walters' blog as something they really liked. We think it's the Spanish bread, olive oil, and tomato but probably the words are Mallorcan.

We took off up a street with a church at the end.

Our research kind of ended there, because in another flash, we were out of town!

We ran into another of these towers, and later came to realize that they are wind pump bases, and that there are dozens, or hundreds of these all over.

We met these guys, but for some reason did not interview them. Our animal interview videos have a cult following among our grandchildren.

We immediately returned to the kind of roads we are loving on this island and their meadows of ever more attractive flower colour combinations.

But now we got a new feature - hills! These however were not the scary hills of the Benidorm coast - these were tamer, shorter ones, clearly placed there to add interest to the ride!

A hill just hilly enough so you have a view to the next valley.

Down in that valley was the town of Son Carrio.

This is a peek at what the town looked like.

But soon, of course, back on the beautiful road again.

We have learned that there is a Mallorcan language, which is obviously not Spanish, and not Catalan. A lot of the words and names we see here are uniquely Mallorcan.

Here is a menu of exotic places we could go to. But we are not choosing any of them. (Later realized that Arta would have been a smart choice!)

Rather we are going to St. Llorenc. This is nostalgic for us, because we were born by a river of that name, except it was called the St. Lawrence (St. Laurent). In Spanish this is probably Lorenzo.

In the town, the sign on the bakery looks really Mallorcan. The similarity of words is interesting. "Forn" is clearly "four" in French, "forno" in Italian, "horno" in Spanish and maybe "furnace" in English.

More fairly attractive buildings:

Out of town quickly again. I have been looking for a nespera tree to photograph, or actually, to raid. Nespera is loquat, and it very yummy.

Now more and more beautiful riding, with that touch of up and down.

From time to time we looked at spots where a gravelly Google track joined out cycle.travel track and thanked ourselves for taking the road more paved.

Another nespera tree, behind a wall and fence!

We could now see the Serra de Tramuntana (mountains) to the north.

The track shows we had been climbing for some time, and yes, we were beginning to look down to Alcudia.

We can see the sea and even the ferry on the water, but we sure are not there yet.

This fellow hitched a ride on my bag for about 5 km.

It turned out we had been fairly high in the hills and fairly back in the bush. We descended on a very small and narrow road, that dropped for a long time. This road frightened Dodie for the very simple reason that her rear brake now was not working at all. What a cry baby. (Actually, a lot of the fun that came about later in the day (evening) had its origin in us looking for a repair on that brake (again!))

When or little road finished descending, it hit highway Ma12, the main (or only) road into Alcudia. Ma12 had little or no shoulder and quite a bit of traffic. What it also had was road cyclists, in ones, twos, or peletons. Dodie had been counting such cyclists yesterday, and only came to about 100. At his point today, her count was 200. But as we neared Alcudia, the number just swelled put of control.

In our few days on the Island, we are coming to recognize some things as well known features of the place. Stone walls are like that, and meadows, and capers, and defunct wind pumps. But cycling! In Alcudia they are all over the place. They have enough presence to bully the cars. And with one exception (mentioned shortly, below) they are road bikers in team or otherwise fancy jerseys, moving at speed.

or a lot scary. But the cyclists still swarm all over it.

Here is our exception. He is a guy from Alcudia who was on a short excursion to Arta. He crossed the road to come say hi.

We were still some kms from our destination hotel, but we dropped off Ma12 and had a look at the bay. The water was a beautiful blue, and the beach nice. Lots of people were taking advantage of it, even this far from town.

We were in fact very worried about the failed brake, so as we got closer in to town, and spotted a possible bike shop, we slammed on our remaining brakes, to have a look.

The shop was on the main drag of Porto Alcudia.

The shop was styled the "Bike Doctor". It was run by Lucca and his Mom. Originally of German origin, they had long ago moved to Mallorca.

We were impressed that unlike with bike shops where we live, Lucca was willing to look at Dodie's brake problem right away. Unfortunately he judged that her brake lever (ie main cylinder for the hydraulics) had an irreparable leak. He also lacked the Magura fitting needed to top up the oil. But he didn't just give her the boot. He got on the phone to see if her could locate the parts, or some help somewhere else. His best bet was a shop called "Mouteenbici". Only thing, they were closed for siesta. So he took our number and promised to check with them and then to call us later.

We also chatted with Lucca's Mom, and found for one thing that bike shops here have a wide selection of electrolytes. I think it was Kelly Iniguez who was interested in that question:

Lots of electrolytes in the bike shops here.

Also, when we mentioned the high numbers of cyclists we were counting on the roads, we found that this is nothing. At the end of April there is a round the island race coming, and eight and a half thousand are expected to turn up for that!! The distance is 312 km, and it's called the Mallorca 312. See here!

Jerseys like this could be at a premium.

We decided to head to our hotel, and there to wait for the call. The thing about Mouteenbici is that it is in the town of Sa Pobla. If we were to head over there, it would be a bit of a ride .

Continuing to the hotel, it was clear how much of a "thing" road cycling is here.

Also this is not a sleepy little port, but a big time tourist establishment.

Our hotel, the Alua, is a Hyatt subsidiary, and it's huge.

The call cam from Lucca, and yes, we were on our way to Sa Pobla. With the bikes almost totally unloaded, and given that the terrain is dead flat here, this was a really fun ride. Only thing - again, the roads had practically no shoulder and traffic was moderately heavy. But our confidence was boosted by the many peletons of road cyclists, negotiating it all without fear, and fast!

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At Mouteenbici, Joan (John) was quick to assess the brake lever situation - no "make an appointment for two weeks from now", like at home.

The mechanic purged the brake and adjusted the pads somewhat, getting it all working, for now. Joan (John) conceded that in a day or more things could fall apart. But he did have a suggestion. There is the possibility of putting in a Shimano lever, since this uses the same fluid as Magura. And he said they have the lever in stock. On reflection this seems like a great idea, only assuming the lever will fit Dodie's little hand. We may call and set this up for tomorrow or the next day, and then - it's another fun ride to Sa Pabla!

A poster helps record for me the name of the bike shop. Their service was superb, and I will try to post a good review on Google or other social media.

Today's ride: 79 km (49 miles)
Total: 1,392 km (864 miles)

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Jacquie GaudetI have Shimano brake levers on all my bikes , including my mountain bike which is SRAM except for the brakes, and they work fine for my fairly small hands. The reach should be adjustable.
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3 weeks ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Jacquie GaudetGood to hear. We will see how things feel on our ride today, and then may be back to the shop to get the brake levers swapped out before we head for France and the hills of Provence.
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3 weeks ago