Bike Ride Day 1 - Ca'n Pastilla to Colonia de Saint Jordi

Today’s ride took me from Ca’n Pastilla to Colonia de Saint Jordi, a smaller and quieter town on the southern coast of Mallorca that is more my style. I learned a few things today, like that when you ride 40+ hilly miles in 90+ degree heat and no shade, no matter how much water you bring with you it’s not enough. 

But I saw lots of olive groves and coastline. I also stopped at Talaiot Capocorb Vell, a prehistoric site with a number of talaiots (round stone towers) on it. These towers only exist on Mallorca and Menorca and their purpose is not known for sure. After providing a few theories, the informational plaque at the site summarized the conclusion of scholars and academics, saying “We think that maybe its construction was to give a meaning to the Capocorb Vell people.” I don’t know, maybe something got lost in the translation.

A note on navigation. On all my pre-COVID rides out here, the industry standard was to provide written trip directions (like, “at mile 24.6, turn left at the gas station”) along with a Garmin. The Garmin was an electronic device about half the size of a phone, which had rudimentary maps that looked like they’d been drawn by a 5th grader along with a rudimentary ability to show where you are on the map. So depending on the accuracy of the map and the tracking (both of which could be a little sketchy) the Garmins could show you roughly where you were. This is why I always got so lost on my rides.

The post-COVID world is quite different. Everyone now uses Ride with GPS, a phone app that gives detailed, turn-by-turn directions on a Google map and tracks/shows your current location using your phone. So this year, if I was riding past a parking lot for example, I heard a woman’s voice coming through my earbuds saying “just after the parking lot, enter the traffic circle and take the third exit.” Or, “In 600 feet, turn left.” For the first time in all these rides, I did not get lost. On the other hand, every time I deviated from the route to check out a beach or a side street, the app went into panic mode – “OFF ROUTE! OFF ROUTE!” 

Anyway, after a long, tiring, sweaty bike ride, I went for a delightful dip in the Mediterranean.  Now today's biggest remaining task is to decide whether it would be preferable to wash my biking clothes in shampoo or bath gel.