I loved hearing him share all the details of his day, and I loved hearing the pleasure that he had got from the ride. I seriously considered getting on a plane home, because I didn't want him sacrificing anymore of these days to be with me, but he convinced me that he loves riding with me too, and we had planned before we came that he would ride alternate days with a faster group and with me.
On Tuesday morning, I didn't need to feel guilty that he was riding with me, I could see that he was pretty exhausted and a day with me would be like a rest day for him.
We had decided to try and get me back into the Sociables group and had come up with a cunning plan of setting off an hour early to give me a head start. We had a lovely ride to Selva, very picturesque and pretty flat (and the group hadn't caught us up, OK I had had an hours head start). However, the goal of the day was a mountain climb called Coll de Fermain. At the bottom of the mountain, we were passed by the group , and I hoped that I wouldn't take so long to get up the mountain that they would have left the cafe at the top before I arrived.
The climb was 1,500 ft over 5 miles and I was riding at 4mph, sometime dropping to 3mph. I knew that it was going to take more than an hour to get up the hill, possibly even 2 hours. At one point I was so slow my Garmin switched to "Stopped - auto pause", which I thought was quite rude.
It was quite tough, because there were so many loops on the road, and you could never figure out how many were left compared to how many you had done. However, I never doubted that I would make the top, and I knew that I wouldn't get off and walk.
There were hundreds of cyclists doing this climb, and all of them seemed to overtake me, but I didn't care I knew I was going to make it. And at the top - success! The group were still there! Plus fine coffee and delicious tart tartin.
The group left before we did, as I was going to need time to recover. So we are on our own as we pass the Coll sign where we stop to take some pictures. Stuart suffers a bad case of selfie anxiety before we finally get the picture right
The views on the way down are spectacular, and stopping to take pictures is a good excuse to give the hands a rest from gripping the brakes really tightly.
Finally, we end up in Port Pollencia for a lovely beachside lunch and ice cream.
Could it be possible that I am beginning to enjoy this holiday?!
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