Wow, what an amazing and fun experience! I was slightly anxious before the trip as I am relatively new to group cycling and in the last three years had only completed rides of up to 30 miles. However, there was absolutely no need to worry as on every ride everyone was so supportive, helpful and fun which enabled me to complete long distances and feel completely comfortable. The scenery is beautiful and the road surface, in the majority of cases, allows you to actually spend time admiring the views rather than looking out for potholes all the time! The organisation of the whole trip, from the flights to the hotel to the bike hire was brilliant and helped to take away a lot of the stress and worry about travelling abroad to a new destination – an enormous thank you to Frances Perkin for all the time and effort she put in to this. The hotel is ideally located for the starting point of a variety of rides, the staff were very friendly, the food extremely tasty and with the bike hire shop onsite this also makes life a lot easier collecting, returning and if you need anything tweaking with your bike. There was also plenty of time for non-cycling activities including tennis, visiting the local area and laying by the pool.
I enjoyed all the rides that I did but my favourite was returning from Andratx across the island – 65 miles with an elevation of 2000 feet – thanks to Sandra A. for excellent leading and Sue B., Helen M and Evelyn for their encouragement and for the laughter.
The Widgers are a great group of women, and I know it sounds cheesy, but they have inspired me to get out on my bike more and to fully realise that age is just a number! Thanks to all the Mallorcan Widgers, I can put faces to names now, you made me feel very welcome, I had a great time and will definitely be up for next year!
Val