Sant Josep extrem -

The race started with the usual Ibicenc firecrackers and smoke and we were off. We started with a loop around the astro turf running track at the campo desport, a bit like the Paris-Roubaix but with the track at the beginning!


Me and Jane had decided to ride together today. Up the main road through Sant Josep we caught Julie, Keith was long gone. The next 2km was downhill on rocky stuff interspersed with sand traps, we squirrelled quite a bit on these -later we learned that Julie had hit the deck on the final one and scraped her knee and face :(

At about 12km we hit the very rough, technical climb - Sa Serra Grossa and everyone was off and walking. The sun was high now and I had sweat dripping off my elbows. I couldn’t actually work out where it was originating, my sleeves where tight so it wasn’t from my armpits. Here we passed Mari - eventual 2nd place senior lady, also the girl Jane had been 2nd to in the Vuelta Ibiza. We took some water at the top, Mari went straight through. The next climb-Sa Capelleta- we recognised from the Vuelta Ibiza. Nicely technical but rideable, Jane pulled away from me on the last steep section up to the first check point.

Danny from Kandani, whispered to me that Jane was fourth girl and only a minute down J

A long technical down and a short hard up took us to the 2nd cp overlooking the bay, we grabbed some coke and aquaria (isotonic drink) and set off up the road overlooking the bay. Up a slightly technical climb, we saw kb. He’d begun to cramp and had eased back, he gave us his wheel and pulled us across the flattish section and we began the climb of Puig D’en Serra. This was 4 km of rippled concrete, long sections at over 20%. Many people were walking this, I was in my 22/32 granny the whole climb and fighting to keep the front wheel on the ground. We crested this to ride fast wide gravel hairpins to the bottom and the last cp. This cp was at the base of Sa Talaia, the last climb of the day. This was a wide gravel hard pack climb, not too steep and a nice middle ring ride. But somewhere between the last descent and here Jane had hit the bonk. I’d been feeding her gels for the past couple of km but she hadn’t recovered yet.

We began the last climb steadily, Jane still had her head bowed and was suffering like a dog, but she pushed on. I rode ahead with Pepé one of the organisers, keeping an eye on her. Suddenly, a couple of km’s into the climb, she appeared alongside us smiling and chatting. The gels and the coca cola at the cp had kicked in and we spun up to the top.

It was all downhill now into Sant Josep! We had hiked up and down this trail a couple of Christmases ago and I remember at the time joking with Jane what a good downhill it would make. At the time we were struggling to walk sections of it J Juan Ferrer had warned us a little earlier that it was worse than ever because there’d been a downhill race on it the week before.
It began with a very steep, loose drop in with the obligatory guy with a video camera that dangerous bits attract J Because of the previous race the trail was covered in loose marbles and dust which continually slid you sideways on the off camber towards the big drops off the edge :-o

Jane rode more of this than she (or I )thought she would J At one point there was a huge climb down with the bike on the shoulder. I left the bike at the bottom and clambered back up to carry Jane’s down. Just at the top she rode past me, into someone’s garden and down their drive and came out way down the trail!!! Damn! she’d found the chicken run and was way ahead of me. I finally caught up with her on the tarmac run into the finish, where we shared the work with a local guy.

At the finish the paella party was in full swing, these events are always popular with non riders and family and they make a day of it.
Kb came in a minute later and Julie had taken a few wrong turns on the course and was about an hour later.

We got changed and sat around cheering the last few home and waiting for the award ceremony. First they had a raffle, pulling race numbers from a bag - Jane won a maillot and some pantalones. Then she and Julie were called up for 1st and 2nd over forties ladies. And surprisingly I was called for 3rd in the 50+ class……hurrah!


A great day out