stage 3 - Las Calas

It rained all through the night, so hard that it woke me a couple of times. 

After the late night last night it was difficult to get out of bed and face the prospect of 2-3 hours riding in the rain.  We had left the bicis in San Antoni and drove over in the lashing rain, hoping and expecting that the event was cancelled :)  At the headquarters we were greeted with 'you have brought the weather from londres' and 'it is perfect for you' ....etc   :)  So, no pulling out for us then!

The sign on was put off for an hour to wait for the rain to ease and it did a little bit.  

We set off through the streets of Sant Antoni in a huge spray of water thrown up from the road, to add to the rain :)  Up a couple of asphalt climbs and we started to warm up a bit until the first off road section which was underwater for the first 100 metres! Today's ruta was to be a tour of the calas, a cala is a sort of bay or cove. So after the big climb of the day, we tended downwards  back to Sant Antoni, dropping down to the little coves and climbing back out again. This meant some nice technical, wet rock descending down to the beach then a scramble across the sand and then often a hike-a-bike section either up the rocks or steps cut into the rock, which because of the rain each step was a mini waterfall Though sometimes it was  super steep access tracks for boats.  . I have mentioned before that when the rock gets wet in Ibiza in some places it forms a slick grease on the top. The locals call this patina and if you hear the shout 'patina, patina!' you can expect that you or someone nearby  will hit the ground soon. It's instantaneous, one nano second you're on the bike, the next you're not :-o 

Some areas above the calas were huge moonscapes of boulders and rocks and we bounced and banged across these, all the time with the sea roaring and crashing to our left....fabulous :) 

At the top of the last climb out of Cala Bassa we were stopped at the road, because the next section was neutralised. Shortly a police car turned up, this was to be our escort to the finish line. We were told to stay close in ‘peloton’ and not to overtake the police car J About 20 of us set off behind the police car with lights flashing, immediately he sped away and we jumped after him. Soon we were lined out and tucked in behind at 40 kph! People were cheering and clapping as we went straight through traffic lights and around roundabouts into the centre of Sant Antoni………most excellent.