Mallorca 5-Day Intermediate Cycling Trip

This might be the best 40 km on the island. From Port de Pollença the road rolls flat along the bay before peeling north onto the peninsula. The first real effort is the climb up to Mirador des Colomer — pine forest, stacked hairpins, then that balustraded terrace bursting open above the Es Colomer islet. Everyone leans their bike against the same stone railing and takes the same photo. Do it anyway.

Past the mirador the peninsula becomes a spine of short stingers and fast descents. Rock arches have been cut straight through the limestone — one in particular, the cinematic tunnel-arch, is the signature frame of the ride. There's no rhythm to settle into; it's a conversation with the terrain the whole way out.

The final ramp to Far de Formentor is rocky and exposed, scrub and stone, until the white lighthouse finally shows itself at the end of the cape — still a climb away. The café at the lighthouse opens around 9.30, so pace accordingly. The coffee is good, the terrace drops straight to the Mediterranean a couple of hundred metres below. A cortado with that view is worth the climb twice over.

The return rides like a different route. Roll back into Port de Pollença already planning the next one.

This is the big one. Four climbs, 135 kilometres — and every one of those metres earned. We started south from Port de Pollença, parallel to the mountains, using Col d'Honor and Col de Orient as a warm-up. Both are beautiful climbs through olive groves and quiet roads — exactly the right way to ease into a day like this.

Then Col de Sóller. If you love switchbacks the way I do, this is your climb. A steady, consistent gradient with an extraordinary number of hairpins, one after another, with almost no traffic since all the cars use the tunnel.

We descended into Port de Sóller for lunch. Good choice of restaurants, good food — but a word of warning from experience: go easy. Some of us did not, and the combination of a generous lunch and Puig Major immediately afterwards was not ideal. You have been warned.

Puig Major is relentless, exposed, spectacular. The landscape transforms from lush valley to bare alpine rock as you gain height. At the top, the road disappears into a tunnel. We waited there for each other — watching the group come through one by one was one of those moments that makes a cycling trip memorable.

From the tunnel, it is largely downhill — past the Gorg Blau and Cúber reservoirs, down through Lluc, and the final drop home over Col de Femenia.

This is the loop I take when I'm staying in Port de Pollença and need a recovery day between Tramuntana climbs. The shape of the ride is honest about what it is — flat enough that pace is up to you, long enough to count as a proper ride, and you finish with the same legs you started with.

The first stretch south is shared with the Tramuntana riders for the first ten kilometres or so before they peel west and you keep going inland. Through Sa Pobla and Santa Margalida, the riding is unhurried. Conversation pace if you have someone with you, your own thoughts if you don't.

The part of the route I keep coming back for is the coastal stretch from Can Picafort back through Alcúdia to Port de Pollença. The road runs along the bay with the Cap de Formentor mountain range visible across the water. You won't see the lighthouse — only the silhouette of the range from a distance, with the sea between you and it. On the right kind of afternoon, with the light low and the bay quiet, that view is the reason this loop earns its place in a 5-day itinerary.

Stop for coffee. Bring less food than a Tramuntana day. Save the legs.

This is the loop that anchors any serious week on Mallorca. I've ridden it more than once, and the thing I notice every time is how the day breaks into chapters. Sa Batalla is the warm-up — long enough to count, regular enough that you find your rhythm without thinking. The terrace section early on, where the road switches back tightly enough that you can look down and see riders below you, gets me every time.

The middle stretch from Repsol to the Coll dels Reis bridge is where I keep the watts honest. It's tempting to push through this section because Sa Calobra is what you came for, but spending too much here costs you on the climb back up. Over Coll dels Reis, down to the bridge café, fill the bottles, then the turn-off down La Serp toward Sa Calobra.

Sa Calobra itself is everything you've heard. The descent demands respect — there's a stretch in the upper half where I once came around a hairpin to find a tour bus halted by oncoming traffic, the road completely stopped. I got the brake on. Others have not. Take it slower than you think you need to.

The climb back up is where the day gets honest. Looking up at the switchbacks above you while you're grinding through the middle is one of cycling's better moments — partly fear, partly anticipation.

The ride home down Coll de Femenia, with the bay opening up below you, is the quiet payoff. By the time you're at Stay Restaurant in Port de Pollença, you understand why this is the day every Mallorca week is built around.

This is one of the most popular and accessible mountain loops on the island, and a fitting close to the week. The roll out from Port de Pollença across the plain toward Pollença town is a gentle warm-up — flat, quiet roads through agricultural land with the Tramuntana rising ahead of you. Then Col de Femenia begins.

It is one of my favourite climbs on the island. The gradient is steady and forgiving — never savage, always honest. As you gain height the views behind you open up progressively: Pollença Bay, Cap de Formentor, the Alcúdia peninsula stretching into the distance. By the time you reach the summit you feel like you have genuinely earned the panorama.

We stopped at the Repsol station and waited for the whole group to come together before the descent. This is the ritual — everyone arrives at their own pace, fills bottles, eats something, and then you drop together. The descent via Sa Batalla is everything the reputation promises: tight hairpins through dense pine forest, dramatic cliff faces, fast and technical. We stopped at a café in Caimari on the way down for coffee and something to eat — a good call after the mountain.

The return follows quiet inland roads via Can Picafort and along the coast back to Port de Pollença, with the sea alongside for the final kilometres.