Distance: 40.3 miles / 64.9 km
Elevation: 2,966 feet / 904 m
Colls: Coll d’Orient (498m); Coll d’Honor (550m)
After Sant Salvador, The Orient valley is one of the last cycling highlights I am yet to complete on this trip. Whilst it’s possible to create a ~100km return route involving this valley, less than half of the journey would be on new roads. My calf muscles were also feeling fairly tight after yesterday, so I opted for something a bit easier.
Cycling Planet
I decided that I wanted to ride the Orient from Alaró to Bunyola, and I would visit Cycling Planet for my lunch. Selva seemed like a good place to begin, as this minimised both my driving time and road repeats. It was fairly simple to create an anti-clockwise loop from here, via Mancor de la Vall. The plan was to reach Alaró around 1pm; hopefully by then the midday rush would have subsided.
I had visited Cycling Planet on another day but it was quite busy. Today there were a couple of spare tables, which I was happy about. The café specialises in pa amb oli, which is sort of like an open top sandwich. I noticed on the menu that all the sandwiches were named after Pro cyclists – I went for the “Nino Schurter”. Whilst there’s no obvious link between him and tuna and cheese, it was a great choice. I don’t say this a lot, but I would probably have still been happy with the half portion.
Left: After completing the Orient valley, I will have ridden all the major climbs on Mallorca!
Right: On the ceiling I saw a McDonald’s jersey which would have been right up my street. Sadly it was for decoration purposes only and not for sale.
The Orient
The Orient valley is only a short ride from Alaró. The road snakes around the fringes of the Puig d’Alaró and is 5.2km in length. The average gradient is 5.1% and the summit is 498m above sea level. At the summit is a small village called Orient – home to less than 30 people. The valley is really scenic with some nice views of the mountains on both sides of the road. I managed the climb in approximately 32 minutes today.
After Orient, the hardest parts of the ride were complete. For here there’s just a short ramp (<2 miles) to the summit of Coll d’Honor. In contrast to Orient, the road surface is not the best on this section, and in a lot of ways I was glad to be ascending. There’s also not as much to see since the majority of the climb is in woodland.
The descent to the town of Bunyola is fairly technical with a couple of hairpins to traverse. I managed an average speed of 23.9mph for over 7 minutes, and I don’t remember pedalling for any of it. There’s a nice view of the Coll de Sóller to the right immediately before hitting the centre.
My legs were feeling pretty tired after the climb, so I was thankful that the remainder of the route was flat. I’m having a rest day tomorrow I think!
Previous: Triple Monastery ChallengeNext: Palma & Magaluf
