Distance: 56.3 miles / 40.4 km
Elevation: 2,513 feet / 766 m
Colls: None
Coves d’Artà
There were a lot of thunderstorms yesterday, so I spent that day visiting the Coves d’Artà. In a lot of ways it was the perfect tourist attraction to visit on a day such as that because it has a ceiling! Below is my best photo from inside the coves – I feel like the visit does not really deserve it’s own post.
The coves would be quite dark, and camera flash is not allowed. In an effort to cater to Trip Advisor, most of the best bits are full of lights. This allows people like me to take photos on smartphones, and make it look better than it is.
Sa Routa Verda café, Caimari
Fast forward to today, and my legs didn’t feel like waking up this morning. It had now been over 24 hours since my last burger, but I’m not sure that’s the reason why. On Tuesday, I mentioned to the owner of the Mallorca Cycle Shuttle (Gary) that I would be visiting Caimari. He recommended that I visit the Sa Routa Verda café. At the moment it’s only open Thursday-Sunday because of the pandemic, and I thought today would be the quietest day to visit. The café specialises in excellent smoothies and bagels – sadly no burgers, but I think I’ve had my fill of those.
If passing through Caimari, I really recommend getting a bite to eat at this café – despite the health benefits! There must have been at least two of my five a (holi)day in the smoothie alone. Pictured is the grilled chicken bagel with red peppers and rocket. It was great!
The owner Nick told me that the upcoming weekend would be the last time he was planning to open this year. Hopefully he can ride the winter and survive in to 2021.
Sineu velodrome
Sineu is approximately 15 miles away from Caimari. My route skirted around the outskirts of Selva and through the centre of Inca – haunting images of my burger still lingered. It’s mostly downhill the entire way, and I was there in less than an hour.
Sineu has quite an annoying one way system in place if not in a car. Essentially you have to cross some railway tracks, make a turn, and then go back over the same railway tracks again a little bit further along. Unfortunately for me, there was a train – or so I thought. Whilst the barriers were down, most people were ignoring the sirens and nipping underneath. I found this quite rebellious until a local told me that they often get jammed. After a couple of minutes he convinced me to go through – but I wasn’t really happy about it. With a bike especially, the crossing takes much longer than on foot. Who knows what goes on when a train is genuinely coming.
The Sineu velodrome is an outdoor track not far from the town centre. I’ve visited this a couple of times before and completed a couple of laps (non competitively). Sadly this time there was a particularly arsey man not letting people on it. It looked as though that might have been the case for quite a while because it had not been cleaned. Should you visit when there’s an event, there’s a café and a small grandstand.
Maria de la Salut & Santa Margalida
Whilst it would have been slightly faster to go through Muro, I decided to ride home via Maria de la Salut and Santa Margalida. I had not visited either town before – neither on this trip nor any previous. Both were incredibly quiet; this worked in my favour in Maria de la Salut especially, as my route was mostly the wrong way down one way streets. Both photos are from Santa Margalida – I like the bust of the man especially. I’m not sure whether somebody had even tried to nick him at some point as the supporting stone had a huge crack.
