Wednesday,
21. April 2004
Ways to go
The
first long bike ride today: seventy kilometres. A wide, scenic circle, first along
the bay, against the wind, then through the fields, along small country roads.
Not much traffic on those, mostly other bikers. Sometimes you almost feel like
in bikeland - they even have traffic signs for bikers here, in the mountains:
Don't bike in parallel lines.
It
really is the place to go biking, especially with the mild climate and the variety
of ways to go. You can do almost any tour you wish to, a short circle through
the fields of the Llanura del Centro or a longer tour that reaches the hills of
the Serranias de Levantante in the East - or you can go for some real mountains
in the Sierra del Norte.
The
only thing you won't be able to escape is the wind. It never sleeps, it always
is there, slowing you down or speeding you up, making you feel like surfing the
street, or making you feel like pulling an invisible burden. It is different,
the biking here. Tiring and refreshing. Even hills are relative, and it is never
flat anyway. The road is always going a bit up or a bit down.
It
takes a bit to get used to this, and to planning the route depending on the wind.
You rather want to ride against it first, and then let it push you back home.
There, in the shade, you repeat the tour with the finger on your map: Pollenca,
Sa Pobla, Son Sastre - and the church you saw from there, framed by palm trees
and olive trees, probably the church tower of Muro.
This
is very typical Mallorca, the little towns with huge churches in their middle.
Then Llubi, that was the one with the onion taste coming from the fields. Back
along the Torrente de Cinagrella, through La Albufera to Alcudia, and back to
the bay again. You know already that there is more to come.
Part 4: Grounded on shells
