Better safe than sorry

Working it's way up to Savannah

The auto industry used this to stuff all the car seats before foam was invented

Well, it was an amazing ride, and the 3 riders who did the full century ended up coming in just a few minutes behind the first riders from the 63 mile group (and the one 44 mile guy, whatsisname). Awesome! Great logistics also. You see Ken Whelpdale, manager of the US Olympic and World Championship cycling team, having a glass of red with some of the girls after the big ride. Along with the mechanical guru Russ and the local guides, plus Rod Connolly, owner of Live It Cycling, Ken helped to make everything seem - smooth. Talk about high-end talent! OK guys, does that plug entitle me to a discount next year? I won't tell anyone, swear to God.

All you have to do to get home is - climb over these mountains! Of course you can ride back in the van, but then your cost per mile goes way up. Right? I decided to push the last climb which was a long but not super steep one. Remember the beautiful 17 K descent from the first blog? Now it's a climb. I posted my time (your bike computer records the ride, including heart rate, power, speed, grade percentage - and then you upload the record to a website which lists hundreds of other rider's results), and guess what? 215th out of 395! I'm number 215! I'm number 215! I'm shooting for 190th place next time. Dream big!

Seeing as I joined the ride 19 miles late, everybody but me was famished when we stopped for lunch at a little cafe in a seaside village. I'd ridden 15 miles, they'd ridden 35 already. The 100 milers were not caught up yet. Ham and cheese on baguettes, cappuccino, coke, apple tart, chocolate cake. Not everyone ate all of these but I tried.

Lots of terraces buttressed with ancient stone walls abound. This is a super common sight. God knows who cut these terraces or when. Certainly there were no bulldozers involved. Love to talk to a local historian.

Mallorca has changed hands every couple hundred years since pre-Roman times so there's lots of relics around. See that mountain? Up and over!