How Riding Far From Home Became Riding Home
THE ENGLISH AND German and Spanish and maybe Korean conversations around me hushed as the heavily tattooed Spanish man with the physique of a climber jovially shouted, “Vamos!” and the clackety chorus of 50 riders clipping in ensued as we followed him. We rolled out of the hotel parking lot and onto the streets of Palma. This compact, large-calved rider led us through the rows of brightly-coloured houses, past a café baking fragrant bread, through smooth avenues lined with palm trees, and up a winding alleyway crowded with bright purple bougainvillea bushes and tiny balconies laced with laundry.
Eventually, we were out beyond the buildings and among the hills of olive trees and vineyards. The landscape became rocky, and then rolling, and we were whipping, rushing, swooping, flying in the churning, breathing being that is a peloton; I slotted into the draft when another rider
dropped back, we closed gaps, respected lines, and careened around corners as one single unit. The smooth rolling mountains allowed us to keep momentum and silently and totally trust each other. Peeking to the side periodically, I glimpsed a terraced hillside of olive trees, a single smoking chimney in a valley, or the vast windy spans above the sparkling sea.
Around a bend, a descent began and we tucked, sweeping through switchbacks, leaning and looking and finessing, when suddenly 50 sets of disc brakes registered their complaints as we went from 60km/h to 30, 10, and stopped dead. Two unkempt-looking goats came scrambling down the precipice to our right and continued across the road, horned heads bobbing obliviously as they clambered across the road. A tiny grey one skittered after them. The small, tattooed ride leader laughed with relief, and the general exclamation of “that was a close one” came in a few languages. Whew.
We were here for the Rapha Cycling Club Summit, along with over 100 riders who had ventured to the Spanish island of Mallorca for a weekend of epic riding, amazing food, and community. We would drive to the start of our third day of riding, which would feature the descent and climb of the storied Sa Calobra, a steep, serpentine 10km road from the sea to the sky. In order to finish before dark, we boarded buses at 6am the next day for the two-hour drive across the island where we’d start. I sat at the back of the bus beside a smiling girl with a long blond braid, a German photographer named Alïna. As we drove, she showed me photos she’d taken from the trip: James from London, a professional cricket player. A hi-viz trio on loaded touring bikes. American crit champion Justin Williams, in full belly-laugh with anyone he was talking to.
After we’d crossed the first or second mountain pass,
I had just begun to not feel carsick when Alïna shouted, “Fire! There’s a fire!” I followed her bug-eyed gaze to the rear door of the bus, and saw that smoke was puffing in. The driver steered the bus to the side of the road and 50 semi-frantic riders poured out of the bus doors, cleats clacking to the other side of the street.
We stood there stupidly, fully kitted and bikeless, uncertain if the bus was about to explode or what. We walked to a petrol station half a kay up the road, and crowded into the blessedly heated café that offered what we all wanted second-most at that moment: coffee.
I sat on the kerb with riders from Prague, London, Germany, Spain, and 45 others from around the globe. There was not much we could do until another bus arrived, so we sat and talked and shivered and laughed in the pre-dawn chill.
We never made it to Sa Calobra. This should have been a low point, missing a ride. But on that pavement, with dorks who love bikes as much as I do, sipping bitter coffee out of a tiny paper cup, it didn’t really matter. Sometimes being a rider is just as good as riding.